Rethinking School-University-Community Partnerships Towards a Third Space Framework in Comparative Research on Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Teacher Education and Comparative and International Education: Exploring the Symbiotic Relationship between Two Scholarly Fields

Proposal

While teacher quality is often considered the most important factor influencing student learning by policymakers worldwide, how to better prepare effective teachers and improve teacher education practices and programs remain two of the most debated and divided questions in the international literature on teacher education. International assessment programs, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and The Teaching and Learning International Survey (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2019), further place teacher quality and the quality of teacher education programs under scrutiny at the global level. These measurements and international rankings have prompted governments around the world to adopt reform efforts aiming to improve teacher quality in order to produce the kind of citizens and labor workforce they desire (Tatto, 2006) and to maintain their competitiveness in the global economy.
In the United States, while the majority of teachers has been historically prepared through university- and college-based teacher education programs (Fraser, 2007), alternative, early entry pathways to teaching have increasingly gained policy and funding support (Zeichner & Bier, 2015) amid the calls to break the university’s alleged monopoly on the professional preparation of teachers (Hess, 2009).While extending the field experience has potential learning benefits for pre-service teachers, teacher education researchers across national contexts have persistently cautioned that more attention should be given to the nature and quality of field-based learning by closely collaborating with school partners and supporting mentor teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2014; Jackson & Burch, 2018; Morrison, 2016; Trent & Lim, 2010; Zeichner et al., 2015).
However, building such collaborative partnerships among schools, university programs, and communities remains a challenge for many teacher education programs and teacher educators (Zeichner, 2021). As a result, numerous efforts and programs, many of which are supported by governmental initiatives and funding, have been developed to strengthen the school-university partnerships and the collaboration between university- and school-based educators in teacher preparation. One of such approaches in the US is the teacher residency model that features yearlong, mentored classroom teaching and integrated curriculum connecting coursework and fieldwork, anchored to a closer partnership among schools and school districts, university programs, and/or community partners (Berry et al., 2008; Guha et al., 2016). Similar partnerships that leverage the expertise of both university- and school-based teacher educators exist around the world, such as the School Centres for Teaching Excellence and the Science Teacher Education Partnerships with Schools in Australia; the university-school partnership in Israel; the Collaborative University School Partnership in New Zealand; and the Oxford Internship Scheme and its later iteration, the Oxford Education Deanery in the United Kingdom.
These partnerships represent a reconceptualization of teacher preparation theories and practices and have the potential to create transformative opportunities for novice teacher learning and development. This paper aims to outline the international landscape surrounding school-university partnerships in teacher preparation and delineate implications of a “third space” framework for comparative and international research on teacher education.

Author

• Yiting Chu, University of Louisiana at Monroe