Situating These Implications Within Our Partnership and Our Field

• In Event: 52.072 - Professional Development School Teacher Residents: Storied Journeys With Implications for Partnerships and Teacher Recruitment, Development, and Retention

Abstract

In this time of teacher shortages and attrition, it is a challenge to recruit, develop, and retain strong and well-prepared teachers. This is particularly true for schools in our urban communities, making the need for professional development school partnerships between universities and public schools critical if we are to support the educative opportunities of all learners.

Residency models are particularly exciting as they recruit candidates with strong backgrounds in their content areas, support them as they make connections to pedagogy, and provide them with scaffolded and supported teaching experiences. These school-based supports are situated in specific schools in our metro area which we are partnering with through this grant to support longitudinally through responsive professional development. Our school-wide support structures, offered initially in a menu of options for schools and faculty to choose from, include holistic faculty and student support and the opportunity to engage in critical friendship through Cross Career Learning Communities.

Addressing, or even working to understand an issue as complex and politically charged as the teaching shortage situated within prevailing and subtractive discourses around teaching and teachers, is rife with complexities. It seems clear, however, that a way to move forward is to simultaneously (a) engage in the recruitment of those with the expertise and commitment (evidenced in AFT and the residency model); (b) support teacher pedagogy – hopefully in ways that are not cost prohibitive; and (c) provide ongoing, authentic, and mutual collaboration and support.

As we continue to develop within and across our programs, we need to listen to the recommendations of our graduates so that we can also support them through induction so that they are more likely to stay in the vocation. Retention and the development of teachers across their professional trajectories are critical issues. We must continue to listen to graduates and practicing teachers to understand the types of supports that can help them stay, take risks with their practice, be agentive, and teach against the grain. Structures, like professional learning communities through the use of Cross Career Learning Communities, support teachers across their professional trajectory as they work to take informed pedagogical risks based on deep understandings of learners and their own growing edges.

This work, of PDS and of truly honoring and supporting the storied and complex journeys of teachers and educators, will require a continued and ongoing commitment to our mutual development through sustained and authentic relationships. Positioning boundary spanners as change agents with diverse and varied perspectives can help inform each aspect of our partnerships and can help us implement supportive, relevant, and context-responsive practices and policies within our PDS networks (Buxton, Carlone, & Carlone, 2005; Honig, 2006). Putting their knowledge into action is critical if we are to engage in innovative practices in teacher preparation and P-12 settings which not only support of teacher candidates, but also meet the imperative of fostering the learning and development of practicing teachers and pupils. This can move us closer toward actualizing our goal of educational equity.

Authors

• Teresa R. Fisher-Ari, Georgia State University

• Harley Gordon Granville, Georgia State University