Promoting the Psychosocial Well-Being of First-Year Teacher Candidates: A Community Collaborative

• In Event: Community-Based Collaborations to Diverse Field Experiences

Abstract

This paper describes an approach to support the intellectual and psychosocial development of first year education majors through a unique college-school partnership. The first year students participate in a learning community consisting of three connected college courses while also completing service learning work in the after school program of a local district. The college instructors work collaboratively with the P-12 teachers supervising the after school program to support the learning and development of the college students and the children in schools. While statistical measures of college student participants' well-being did not vary greatly from those in a control group, observational data suggest this was a powerful and transformative experience for these participants.

Authors

• Andrea M. Lachance, SUNY - College at Cortland

• Valerie Widdall, SUNY - College at Cortland

• Richard Kendrick, SUNY - College at Cortland