Contextualized Teacher Education and the San Francisco Teacher Residency Program

• In Event: Urban Teacher Residencies, Year 1: Looking Across Models and Contexts

Abstract

The San Francisco Teacher Residency (SFTR) is a collaboration between the San Francisco Unified School District, the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, the United Educators of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Education Fund. SFTR focuses on developing the clinical skills that will help candidates become successful teachers in San Francisco’s hardest to staff schools and subjects. Working across partner institutions, SFTR aims to leverage the strengths of both the universities and the school district to develop strong examples of expert practice in the SFTR professional development schools, called “teaching academies,” as well as increase the capacity of each organization to support new teachers from pre-service through induction. Signature pedagogies include the teaching of clinical practice through “instructional rounds” across the Teaching Academies, and the use of rigorous assessments such as the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT).

Our paper addresses findings from our first year in terms of assessment, resident experience, integration of theory and practice, and partnerships. In the first year, data were collected to assess the impact of SFTR on each of the partner organizations as well as the experience of the candidates and their ideas about teaching. Qualitative data from the first year indicate that SFTR candidates, known as “residents”, score relatively high on both the PACT and on the evaluations completed by their university supervisors and their cooperating teachers. Observation and interview data indicate that the residents experience their year-long apprenticeship in the teaching academies as the most important feature of their preparation, and that more must be done to integrate the coursework and fieldwork components of the program. Additionally, the partnerships across institutions must be strengthened and codified to fully realize the potential of working across institutions to prepare high quality teachers. Research examining retention and the effectiveness of the residents’ teaching will be underway in year two.

Author

• Peter W. Williamson, University of San Francisco