Improving Urban Teacher Development Through School-University Partnerships: The Case of South Kilbourne Elementary School

• In Event: Risks and Opportunities for Advancing Educational Equity

Abstract

Collaborations between universities and urban schools that aim to support teachers have great potential for viable solutions towards the transformation of public schools. Such collaborations underscore the importance to provide teacher education students with field/clinical placements in diverse, urban schools and communities (McKinney, Haberman, Stafford-Johnson, & Robinson, 2008; Murrell, 2001; Whipp, 2003). Providing teacher education students experiences in urban schools can avoid culture shock that many new teachers experience in urban schools and contribute to urban teacher recruitment and retention (Freedman & Appleman, 2009; Steinberg & Kincheloe, 2004). Furthermore, scholars (Delpit, 2006; Sachs, 2004) have posited that effective teachers in urban schools have developed particular attributes, attitudes, perspectives, and practices necessary for effective teaching and positive achievement outcomes. Because learning to teach is a continual process, professional development opportunities for urban teachers to continue to develop their practice are imperative. As the research base on teacher learning in urban schools continues to grow, there exists a lack of knowledge and expertise in our understandings of how to provide experiences that result in professional growth for both practicing and preservice teachers (Wilson, Floden, & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001). Despite the widespread attention and recommendations from a variety of educational and non-educational constituencies alike, there remains a need for clinical models of teacher educators working with practicing teachers and preservice teachers in culturally and linguistically diverse urban school sites. This paper addresses this need and answers calls for more research on urban teacher education and urban teacher professional development by documenting the efficacy of a successful school-university partnership at an urban elementary school in the South.
To contextualize this study, we first explore key ideas from the literature on urban teacher development (focused on urban teacher preparation and urban teacher professional development) relevant to our work. We then describe the conceptual framework, research method, and implementation process for the work we have engaged in over the past four years. We present key findings from our school-university partnership focused on the process of urban teacher development for both preservice and practicing teachers that school principal linked to the school increased academic performance. The work presented is from a larger longitudinal project documenting the development of an on-site professional development model working with preservice and inservice teachers at an urban elementary school in the South. The participants include the school principal, classroom teachers, university students, and a university professor who taught courses on-site at the school as well as supervised student teacher interns. Ethnographic methods and data sources were used (e.g. interviews, field observations, report cards, pre and post teacher surveys, exit slips, staff meeting minutes, district and school artifacts, practicing teacher work products, and preservice teacher work products and course evaluations). We conclude with implications of school-university partnerships for raising student achievement and recruiting and retaining culturally responsive teachers in urban schools.

Author

• Tambra O. Jackson, University of South Carolina