Events

Teacher Preparation: Easing the Transition from Pre-Service to In-Service
March 20, 2009

The major stakeholders in teacher preparation shared their individual experience and expertise, engaged in true, reflective thinking about the profession, and collaboratively charted a course of action for improving teacher education.

Reflections

Dr. Nicholas Michelli, Presidential Professor in the CUNY Graduate Center's Urban Education Policy program, began the morning program by reflecting upon the current state of teacher education and the challenges that remain. Dr. Michelli stressed that we should:

• Determine the purposes for educating in a democracy
• Create comprehensive partnerships between schools of education, schools of arts and sciences, P–12 schools and the community and ensure that these stakeholders share responsibility for teacher education and school renewal
• Create learning communities in schools that support teachers and improve retention
• Evaluate the outcomes of teacher preparation using multiple measures

Dr. Michelli concluded by describing his vision of the purposes of education:

• To provide access to knowledge through critical thinking in the disciplines for all students
• To ensure actively involved, socially just students for a democracy
• To help students take advantage of life's chances
• To ensure a rich and rewarding personal life for students

The State's Perspective and Activities

Stanley Hansen, Executive Coordinator of the Office of K-16 Initiatives and Access Programs at the New York State Education Department (NYSED), noted that two of the state’s major priorities were to:

• Improve the equitable distribution of teachers in high-need schools 
• Examine strategies that will help teachers to close the performance gap and raise the achievement of traditionally low-performing minority groups

In order to address these goals, NYSED has convened the Regents Work Group, an interdisciplinary statewide taskforce that will provide recommendations to the Board of Regents for improving teacher preparation, recruitment, and retention in urban areas. The Regents Work Group, with input from the NYCC's IHE Work Groups, will help shape the recommendations that NYSED makes to the governor regarding the "Race to the Top Fund." It is also anticipated that these efforts will have a long-term influence on teaching policy in the state's urban areas.

Panel Discussion

Dr. Tricia Coulter, Deputy Director of the TQ Center, moderated a panel that included:

• Dr. Tom Carroll, President of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF)
• Dr. Daniel Fallon, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland at College Park and former Chair of the Education Division at the Carnegie Corporation of New York
• Susan Taylor, Principal, Benjamin Franklin School, Newark, New Jersey
• Dr. Heidi Ramirez, Director of the Urban Education Collaborative at Temple University
• Jesse Solomon, Co-Founder and Director of the Boston Teacher Residency

The panel engaged in an insightful discussion about how to "ease the transition of teachers from pre-service to in-service." Panel members shared the following recommendations:

• Engage in a radical restructuring of teacher education that acknowledges that the field is constantly evolving and that teachers must evolve with it
• Envision a continuum of teacher development that provides continuous, coordinated learning experiences for teachers over the course of their careers
• Create deep and equitable partnerships between teacher preparation programs and schools that share a common vision and purpose. Ensure that partners engage in regular conversations and inquiry work to build their collective capacity.
• Create residency programs where a cohort of new teachers works alongside a set of excellent teachers as apprentices. Such a system will create collaborative, learning teams within a school and a sense of community.
• Ensure that the work of teacher preparation takes place largely in the clinical setting, since "most of what we need to know about effective teaching is in schools."
• Require that teacher preparation programs take a fiduciary responsibility for their teacher candidates for two years after they graduate. Academy-based induction should occur simultaneously with district-based induction.
• Reallocate some professional development funds from school districts to support new teacher induction efforts
• Ensure that teacher preparation programs create a "culture of evidence" by:
• Utilizing rigorous research and best practices from the field to continuously inform their programs
• Conducting original empirical research to determine those practices that lead to improved student achievement in their own programs
• Determine what constitutes standard evidence of student learning across teacher preparation programs.

Summary of Morning

In the afternoon, Dr. Michelli reviewed the major questions that emerged from the morning panel and challenged the audience to explore answers to these questions in their small group sessions.

1. What constitutes valid and reliable evidence of the success of partnerships, clinical experiences, and induction?
2. How do we conceptualize partnership work as a true, collaborative effort? How do we make shared inquiry a part of the process?
3. What types of rewards would motivate arts and sciences, P–12 and education faculty to engage in partnership work?

Small Group Discussions

Participants met in three small groups to learn about selected panel members' initiatives and to delve more deeply into the major seminar topics.

The first group entitled "Improving Partnerships between IHEs and K–12 Schools" was led by Dr. Ramirez. The group discussed:

• The major challenges for colleges and schools in creating deep, systemic partnerships
• Lack of funding to support the work of establishing and sustaining partnerships
• Resistance from teachers and parents who don't want student teachers in the classroom and from principals focused on remediating other school issues
• Disincentives for tenure-line college/university faculty to work in schools
• Tension between schools and teacher preparation programs over the lack of equality in the partnership
• Recommendations for overcoming these challenges
• Provide incentives for districts, schools, and teachers to engage in this work
• Provide faculty with credit toward tenure for working in schools
• Ensure that the partnership is truly collaborative and mutually beneficial

The second group entitled "Enriching the Clinical Experience across Multiple Pathways" was led by Mr. Solomon. Ms. Nachelle Gordon, a member of one of the initial Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) cohorts, also provided compelling reflections on her experience in the program. The group discussed the strengths of the BTR model:

• Rigorous recruitment process that assesses candidates' long-term commitment
• A full year alongside an expert teacher with a gradual release of responsibilities
• Aligned coursework and clinical experiences
• Significant mentor training and compensation
• Emphasis on creating a community of learning/culture of inquiry within a school among a cohort of teacher candidates and their mentors
• Opportunity for teacher candidates to be hired directly into their schools
• Provision of a two-year induction program for BTR cohorts

The third small group entitled "Enhancing Mentoring and Support for Pre-Service and Beginning Teachers" was led by Dr. Karen Smith, Chief Operating Officer of NCTAF. They discussed the need to:

• Remove traditional barriers between the pre-service and in-service stages and create a more seamless career pathway supported by both IHE and K–12 faculty
• Reward teachers for their work and provide teachers with the opportunity to become teacher leaders. Also, encourage school leadership to cultivate teacher leaders.
• Provide induction into learning communities that have a true inquiry orientation
• Identify appropriate outcomes and develop tools to measure these outcomes in teacher preparation

Seminar Wrap-Up

Dr. Fallon concluded the seminar by providing a cogent and concise summary of the day's insights. He emphasized that we should:

• Put teaching and learning at the center of the work of schools of education
• Recognize that education is a dynamic business that has changed and teacher preparation must adapt to these new realities
• Re-conceptualize service delivery and resource management in partnerships
• Work systematically and collaboratively on improving student outcomes and creating a coherent, coordinated continuum for teacher development

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