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In the fall of 2017, a small private college and a local high school entered into a mutually beneficial partnership. Partnership leaders determined that the college's secondary content methods course would be taught on-site at the high school and would be planned and co-taught by both a college professor and high school administrators and teachers. This partnership brought the college classroom into high school classrooms, thus strengthening the clinical practice teacher candidates may engage in during the semester prior to student teaching. The teacher candidates are able to apply theory to practice and complete assignments based on real student data and involve the types of tasks current teachers are involved with on a daily basis.
In its three years of existence, what this partnership has done is create a residency model for teacher candidates. in their senior year, teacher candidates take the course and spend half a day at the high school learning with the college professor and school administrators/ faculty, and then they apply their learning in a classroom under the supervision of a mentor teacher. Then, the teacher candidates stay to student teach full-time with the same mentor teacher in the spring. During their year in the high school, teacher candidates become part of the culture of the building, getting to know students in their mentor teachers' classes, and engaging in ongoing professional development based on school/district initiatives. This rich clinical experience benefits both sides; the teacher candidates are prepared for student teaching, and the high school teachers are empowered to own their piece of preparing teacher candidates to be future colleagues.
This partnership has evolved and become stronger with time. Given the focus on professionally developing teacher candidates in a K-12 setting, this partnership aligns to the NAPDS Nine Essentials (NAPDS, 2008) and goals of PDS Partnerships: to prepare future educators, provide current educators with ongoing professional development, encourage joint school-university faculty investigation of education-related issues, and promote the learning of P-12 students. However, it has taken time to fulfill each of the four roles adequately.
As the partnership has matured, we addressed three of the four roles of a PDS through regular interactions between college and high school faculty. However, the role of encouraging joint school-university faculty investigation of educationrelated issues...