MLevine CPED Convening June 2011 1

About the Blue Ribbon Panel

The Purpose The People The Process

Turn Educator Preparation ‘Upside Down’

4MLevine CPED Convening June

2011

There is an achievement gap. There is a gap between educator

preparation programs and emergent realities.

There is a gap between the helpful knowledge of the academy and school practices for meaningful change

Three Gaps

Clinical at the Core

Candidates connect what they learn to challenge of using it

Candidates work with skilled clinical educators Course work and laboratory experiences woven

together Intensive mentored embedded classroom

experience

MLevine CPED Convening June 2011

10 Design Principles

Focused on student learning Clinical at core Continuous use of data Candidates become expert in content and practice; innovators,

collaborators, problem solvers Learn in interactive professional community Clinical educators rigorously selected and prepared Special sites for embedded practice Use of technology in preparation R&D agenda and use of data supports improvement Preparation grounded in partnerships

Problem of Practice: How to change specific institutions of higher education to make them more connected and responsive to K-12 education?

BRP identified “gaps” in teacher preparation:

the gap in student achievement;

the gap between teacher preparation and both well-established as well as emergent challenges P-12 schools face on a daily basis (e.g., changing demographics, technology challenges, and notions of subject matter); and

the gap between helpful knowledge and meaningful action/change—the difference between what educators know to make a difference and what they actually do.

K-12 Professional Practitioners

Tripartite Model of Educator Preparation

College Based Teacher Preparation/Certification Programs

EdD Programs (Educational Administration and Teacher Leadership)

Clinical Preparation

Panel’s Design Principles (Blue Ribbon Panel, 2010)

Working Principles of CPED Selected WSU TL EdD Goals

Student Learning is the focus

Is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.

Promoting social justice through and within education

Clinical preparation is integrated throughout every facet of teacher education in a dynamic way

Prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.

Collaborating with other educators to support and improve student learning

A candidate’s progress and the elements of a preparation program are continuously judged on the basis of data

Provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships.

Collaborating with other educators to synthesis and apply research literature as well as grounded theory to problems of practice

Programs prepare teacher who are expert in content and how to teach it and are also innovators, collaborators and problem solvers

Provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions.

Construct a laboratory of practice to examine learning problems within the scholarship of practice

Candidates learn in an interactive professional community

Is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry.

Develop and use collaborative & distributed leadership for problems of practice (practice-based problem solving)

Clinical educators and coaches are rigorously selected and prepared and drawn from both higher education and the P-12 sector

Emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice

Making decisions based on evolving data

Specific sites are designated and funded to support embedded clinical preparation

CPED Design Concepts

Technology applications foster high-impact preparation

Scholarly Practitioner

A powerful R&D agenda and systematic gathering and use of data supports continuous improvement in teacher preparation

Signature Pedagogy

Strategic partnerships are imperative for powerful clinical preparation

Inquiry as Practice/Problems of Practice

Laboratories of PracticeDissertation in Practice

Next Steps for WSU. Teacher Leadership Program

Guiding question: How can the program scaffold the support of a clinical model (for those students wishing such a program focus)?

1. Create a program strand for students seeking to enter teacher preparation consistent with the Panel’s notion of clinically based preparation.

2. Deepen how the program already builds on the knowledge and expertise of its professional practitioner students:

supporting those so inclined to become teacher educators, preparing them to work with adult learners, promoting their engagement in research and inquiry (the glue of learning partnerships), encouraging EdD students to teach in the teacher preparation courses (using their expertise but also their own P-12 existing classrooms as labs with which to study and prepare their students to approach these three challenges) (with courses in the evening).

3. Develop a clinical-connection bridge between schools and teacher preparation by giving EdD students credit to engage in internships in their schools in the support of teacher preparation and professional development. Work in and with school districts in a range of capacities, students as critical links to school districts.

4. Organize their partnership work around specific problem-solving goals: the three challenges to education that the Blue Ribbon Panel is facing make excellent goals for their coherence: (e.g., closing the achievement gap allows for a distribution of leadership and expertise, as each of these three partners is working on this challenge in different ways.

5. Have the program act as the site of active and strategic preparation of additional clinical faculty (from schools and districts) who would contribute to the partnership in numerous ways which would be delineated by them (and support by the program).

6. Facilitate a recognition and addition of practitioner knowledge as a key piece of the partnership.

Add three or four new program concentrations (3 courses) that take a problem-solving approach to preparation within their specific area:

a. Math and science teacher preparation

b. Special education teacher preparation

c. Language and learning

d. Place-based/sustainability studies: Examining, working with communities (incl. students), culture, place and the environment to promote praxis and change.

These three areas would then serve to focus partnership effort to promote and maintain change.

From the WSU Educational Leadership Program: Continue and build on existing Connections to a Clinical Practice Model WSU’s Educational Leadership program is conceptualized around the notion of leadership as praxis, that is, that school leadership involves the continual and dynamic interplay between knowledge, reflection and action. Therefore, in addition to providing opportunities for knowledge acquisition and reflection, the program requires candidates to engage in action in their school settings through various projects, culminating in the capstone project, the action research dissertation.

The clinical preparation model calls for candidates to “learn in an interactive professional community” that involves both university faculty and P-12 educators in teaching and coaching. These clinical faculty members are highly experienced K-12 administrators; however, they have made the transition from K-12 and are based at the university.

The action research approach adopted by the WSU program focuses on student research directly on problems of practice in K-12 settings with the goal of creating meaningful change in school.

Future possibilities:

1.The EdD program could extend the involvement of clinical faculty by including practicing K-12 administrators on the faculty to deliver some courses, serve as EdD committee members, and coach EdD candidates through their action research studies within the school setting.

2.The EdD program could focus more on explicitly developing future clinical faculty members, that is, graduates of the EdD program who remain as practicing administrators in schools but are designated officially as university clinical faculty. To do this, the EdD program could develop an additional strand that prepares these candidates for university teaching and coaching.

K-12 Professional Practitioners

Tripartite Model of Educator Preparation

College Based Teacher Preparation/Certification Programs

EdD Programs (Educational Administration and Teacher Leadership)

Clinical Preparation

Three Questions How can you use the Washington State

model to address the three gaps identified by the BRR?

What other interventions can be made to address these gaps?

How to define a scholarship of practice, aligned with our principles, for use in our CPED work?