Leveraging Community Schools to Help Future Teachers Learn the Skills of Family and Community Engagement

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Family, School, Community Partnerships and Teacher Education (Table 20)

Abstract

This paper shares findings from a semester-long pilot project that paired pre-service teachers with community school coordinators in Baltimore. In teacher education, there are rarely courses or experiences in family and community engagement. Most coursework is guided by state certification requirements, which focus on learning the skills of lesson planning and classroom management primarily. The project built on existing relationships with community school coordinators and provided stipends to pre-service teachers and community school coordinators to work in close connection so that the pre-service teachers could develop the skills of family and community engagement. Findings indicate that this experience supported pre-service teachers’ abilities beyond curriculum and pedagogy as well as countered deficit notions of families and communities.

Authors

• Jessica Shiller, Towson University

• Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish, Loyola University Maryland