Teaching, Learning, and Leading With Schools and Communities: Collaboratively Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers

• In Event: 60.053 - Teacher Preparation Partnerships for Mutual Benefit: Insights From Chicago

Abstract

Effective teaching requires practitioners to adapt practices, not only in response to complex classroom situations and diverse students’ needs (Hollins & Torres-Guzman, 2005), but also to shifts in programs and policies (Heineke et al., 2012). Preparing future teachers to effectively navigate this complex profession requires learning environments and activities that match the complexity present in schools. This presentation investigates our candidates’ experiences in a teacher education program embedded in schools and communities and their learning and understandings about theory and practice in relation to their future practice as teachers.

In contrast to traditional university-based programs, Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) is situated in field sites so candidates can make connections between theory and practice in real time. TLLSC uses collaborative partnerships allowing school and community partners to work side by side with university faculty and candidates to address the needs of diverse children and families (García et al., 2010). TLLSC’s approach reflects and responds to the complexity present in the profession allowing candidates to learn as engaged professionals in the field. To prepare future teachers who can effectively support birth-to-grade-12 student development, learning, and achievement, teacher preparation programs must involve strong collaborative relationships whereby university, school, and community partners share responsibility in preparing teachers (Heineke et al., 2012; Kruger, 2009; Wrigley, 2000).

This descriptive study examines candidates’ learning as they participate in field experiences. We analyzed candidates’ artifacts during the first year of implementation of TLLSC. Coded artifacts captured candidates’ developing understandings of teaching diverse learners, working in communities of practice with teachers, families, and other educational professionals, and contributing to educational policy impacting students.

Candidates’ artifacts serve as data sources. These include journal reflections, case studies, and other authentic assessments from the TLLSC curriculum. These come directly from candidates’ work and experiences in field sites.

Our preliminary analysis indicates that early experiences in the program are having an impact on the candidates’ learning. Candidates’ assessments demonstrate that they are making growth in two main areas: 1) Candidates are recognizing that the depth and breadth of roles, responsibilities, and knowledge and skills of educators are more extensive than they had previously thought and 2) Candidates are thinking differently and more deeply about what collaboration in education involves and what value it holds. Our analysis also indicates that candidates’ are understanding policy as situated and complex and that classroom teachers can be educational policy actors.

To meet the multifaceted and unique needs of children in today’s diverse classrooms, teachers need to possess adaptive expertise and flexible teaching repertoires (Wasley, Hampel, & Clark, 1997; Zeichner & Liston, 1996). For educators to have a significant impact on diverse students’ learning, accompanied by a sound rationale for when, where, why, and how to apply certain strategies, preparation must focus on research-based practices (Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2007; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Levin, Hammer, & Coffee, 2009). Following the ecological approach (Zeichner, 2010), TLLSC prepares future teachers in the same context in which children are educated with a commitment to collaborative partnerships.

Authors

• Therese D. Pigott, Loyola University Chicago

• David C. Ensminger, Loyola University Chicago

• Vesna Cejovic, Loyola University Chicago

• Kelly N Ferguson, Loyola University Chicago