Leveraging Mandates for Program Improvement: Developing Transparency, Cohesion, and Shared Ownership in Urban Teacher Preparation

• In Event: 18.037 - Examinations of Faculty Motivation and Engagement Within Current Sociopolitical Contexts for Teacher Education Reform

Abstract

Objectives/purposes
Despite the widespread adoption of education reform mandates, the literature on teacher education includes few descriptions, analyses, or recommendations for how teacher educators have leveraged or might leverage these reforms in order to design high-quality teacher education programs focused explicitly upon demonstrable student outcomes. This self-study of our work, as the leadership team of an urban teacher education program, is an endeavor to do so.

Perspective/theoretical frame
Our work is rooted in a view of teacher education as professional practice (Cochran-Smith, 2001; Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Hollins, 2011). Such a viewpoint centers upon the idea that professions like law, medicine, and architecture have benefitted from establishing a “consensus about what professionals [in that specific field] need to know and be able to do…[and that] such a consensus must become a reality for the teaching profession” (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005, p.9).

Methods
Our inquiry relied upon the methods of collaborative self-study, including critical reflection, document analysis, and structured dialogue (Arizona Group, 1996; LaBoskey, 2006; Loughran, 2007).
Data sources/evidence
Data sources for this self-study were the artifacts of the reform process, which included templates, policy documents, conceptual frames, and successive drafts of revised programs. These artifacts were triangulated with the personal notes and reflexive journals of the authors. Data was analyzed using constant comparison (Strauss & Corbin, 1994).

Results
Our inquiry revealed that successful program revision in our context was a result of establishing systems of transparency and shared ownership, which we were able to accomplish by leveraging mandated reforms.
All components of the program redesign, from conceptual frame to course description, were available to stakeholders via the university Box drive. Throughout the process, individual components and the entire program were vetted by pK-12 partners and stakeholders across the university. Additionally, we maintained regular dialogue with the state teacher certification office.
Throughout the redesign, we worked to establish shared ownership across our school, university, and pK-12 partnerships. To do so, we engaged in structured dialogues with stakeholders, using common tools that allowed for the construction of common understandings about the work of teaching and learning teaching.
State approval processes and national accreditation requirements provided us with the necessary leverage to engage in this large-scale program redesign. While these mandates did initially spark resistance, we deliberately reframed the institutional dialogue to help teacher education stakeholders shift their view of accreditation and approval processes from compliance to inquiry and opportunity.

Significance
This work is relevant both because of its implications for policy and because of its potential to serve as an example of successful practice. Detailing the process we undertook in redesigning our teacher preparation program in response to state approval processes and national accreditation demands is of primary relevance. Our experiences may serve as models for teacher educators who wish to take a proactive stance toward state and national teacher education legislation, responding to challenges and taking advantage of opportunities inherent in such mandates in order to build cohesive teacher education programs that will better serve teacher candidates and, ultimately, pK-12 students.

Authors

• Connor Warner, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Etta R. Hollins, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Clare Valerie Bell, University of Missouri - Kansas City