At 7 a.m., Judy Elliott, a faculty member at Colorado State University, arrives at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado. She heads toward Room 332, permanently designated as the Professional Development School (PDS) classroom, where she teaches a university course entitled "Methods of Instruction and Evaluation."
Approximately 20 teacher candidates—university students pursuing teacher licensure—take this twice-weekly course, which is often co-taught by Rocky Mountain teachers and administrators. The course includes an internship (teacher candidates work with high school master teachers during 90-minute blocks) and a noon-hour seminar to debrief classroom experiences and connect theory to practice. At the end of the semester, the high school faculty select a maximum of 10 teacher candidates to continue at Rocky for their final semester—student teaching.
For all the participants—university faculty, high school faculty, and teacher candidates—the Professional Development School is a place of professional practice. It is where they learn from one another.
A Place of Practice
Today's 90-minute methods class starts at 7:30 a.m. The teacher candidates sit at tables arranged in a circle. Several university and school visitors from Kansas, here to observe a secondary Professional Development School in action, sit in the back of the room.
Judy Elliott begins class: "What's happened in your Rocky classes since we met last?" The teacher candidates quickly engage in discussion.
One candidate relates an embarrassing moment when she asked her students a question and no one responded. "I got uncomfortable. I just moved on," she confesses. As fellow candidates help her consider alternatives, Elliott begins writing their ideas on the board. Soon a list of possible ways to react to the situation fills the chalkboard. The candidate who raised the issue jots down notes.
The discussion continues. Another teacher candidate, John, says his Rocky students treat him as if he were one of them. It sometimes makes him feel that they don't take him seriously.
A candidate asks John, "So, do you talk to them the way you were just talking to us?" Puzzled, John nods. "Then no wonder! You're treating them too informally. You need to assert yourself in your language." John soon agrees with his peers. His speech and gestures may have sent unintentional messages to students.
Elliott interrupts the discussion to ask who will be teaching classes today. Three teacher candidates raise their hands. Each has prepared lessons for today's 90-minute second period. "Who can observe?" asks Elliott, and the group decides which of the others will observe in each of the three classes.
For the remaining 40 minutes, pairs of teacher candidates present strategies they designed to elicit more student participation in discussions. They had earlier agreed this was generally a weak spot in their teaching. Elliott tells the Kansas observers: "As they get teaching experience in the classroom, it always makes them realize that they need more ideas." The candidates write down one another's strategies and suggest ways to enhance them. By the end of the class, they're only half joking that their ideas should be published. "They're definitely good enough," Elliott agrees.
As the session winds down, Elliott signals to Val Middleton, the second university faculty member working at Rocky Mountain High School, who has just walked in. The two move to a corner, where they discuss their mutual concern about a teacher candidate, Lew. They decide that this morning Middleton and three teacher candidates will observe Lew, and Elliott will observe two other candidates' lessons.
After Middleton and the teacher candidates leave, Elliott turns to her Kansas visitors, who ask whether the class she teaches has changed since it's been moved from the university to Rocky. She nods. "Nothing's the same.... Well, the topics are the same, but everything else—the strategies, how the course is delivered—is totally different." She continues:Discussion in the PDS literature says that the stu-dents benefit, and the teachers benefit. But it's the university people who really get renewed! You know, I'm doing the best teaching I've ever done. And that's every semester. I get better and better, and it's because we keep trying new things. We're constantly looking for ways to improve—sharing, pushing each other. Here everyone is a learner. And the PDS students are helping me learn. They see me in that light, as a fellow learner. We talk together about getting better.
In the geography classroom, teacher candidate Tom has just completed his lesson. It's 10 o'clock. Rocky students work independently, occasionally discussing Tom's assignment with the regular classroom teacher. The two teacher candidates who observed Tom move with him into the hall. They discuss a student who challenged Tom by talking throughout the lesson. Tom responds: "His questions and comments are on-task. But he's not listening to me. I don't want to stop him from thinking. But at the same time, he's distracting the other students." The observers ask, "Have you talked with the other students? Is he a bother to them? Or is he helping? That's what you need to find out."
Tom nods. He then admits he didn't know this material as well as he has known other material. The observers tell him he appeared confident, and Tom shrugs. Then his face brightens. "Hey, you know what? While I was up there, I thought of the perfect activity. A different way to teach this. I know how I'm going to do this next time!"
In Room 406, Rocky history students sit in small groups. Teacher candidate Lew occasionally monitors their work, but mostly he socializes with one group of students. Several students try to get his attention. They eventually give up and stop even pretending to be interested in the task. The regular teacher, Kurt Knierim, unobtrusively weaves among student desks. He answers questions, clarifies the task, and sends concerned glances to Val Middleton, watching from the back of the room.
After the class leaves, the observers, along with Middleton and Knierim, sit down with Lew. "What was going on?" asks Middleton. The teacher candidates' responses are candid.
Lew admits that he spent only 30 minutes preparing for the class. A peer says, "Mr. Knierim is going to have to fill in your holes tomorrow. I've seen your process, Lew. Thirty minutes isn't enough time." Another teacher candidate describes how she teaches her cat everything she is going to teach the next day. "I'm better after I do it a few times. You might try something like that."
The conversation moves to brainstorming ways to fix what they all agree was a bad lesson. First, Lew sees the need to apologize to the students—to tell them that his lesson didn't prepare them as much as they need to be prepared. The observers urge him to be positive, to learn from his experience.
Then a teacher candidate raises another concern: "The students are having difficulty telling when you're serious and when you aren't." Lew looks at the floor. "I can do better," he says. Knierim puts his hand on Lew's shoulder and says, "You'll get it." The teacher candidates and Middleton gather their materials and walk to the PDS classroom, where their noon-hour seminar has already begun.
Three Rocky teachers sit among the candidates. They have volunteered their lunch hour to talk about student apathy and are sharing stories about what works for them. One teacher enthusiastically says: "We're talking about students feeling connected. Being involved. Actively participating."
A teacher candidate haltingly asks, "Do you take it personally when students react poorly to your teaching? Does it bother you?"
"Absolutely," the English teacher and coach responds. "It's what makes you a good teacher. Constantly looking. You personalize it. And keep looking for ways to make it better." The math teacher nods. "I think you should personalize it. Keep looking for ways to reach that kid. It's not unusual to lose sleep. If you're not connected, if you don't care, it'll get worse."
As third period approaches, the teacher candidates thank the teachers for their time, and the group disperses.
During the seminar, Elliott has been sitting with the Kansas visitors. She explains that teachers' PDS participation often extends far beyond mentoring in the classroom. This semester alone, more than 20 Rocky teachers have volunteered to discuss topics at the noon-hour seminars. The Special Needs Department has re-arranged one teacher's schedule so that she could teach in the university methods class. Teachers currently mentoring a teacher candidate or working with a student teacher also attend reflective seminars each month, discussing content from the university course, sharing ideas, discussing readings, and brainstorming solutions to problems. The school's administrators attend the seminars and teach in the PDS methods class. This semester the three associate principals team-taught a unit on school law.
At 3:30, four Rocky teachers, a student teacher, and three university faculty gather in the main office conference room. Principal Karen Dixon joins the group for their monthly PDS advisory meeting.
Nearly everyone present adds an item to the agenda. Elliott wants to discuss piloting a new student-teaching model, and she also proposes that the second-semester student teachers formally mentor the incoming teacher candidates. Dixon asks the group to think about how the PDS should be connected to the school's governance. Teachers raise several possibilities: "It's the Professional Development School that's the catalyst for all the staff development in the building. Maybe we should merge with the staff development committee." Another teacher says, "The PDS transcends them [the standing committees] all. It is climate; it is curriculum; it is staff development."
Dixon also wants to discuss who, other than she, should chair the advisory meetings. "I don't want to control the agenda and our direction." French teacher Liz Urban, concerned about the school's action research project, wants to discuss ways to improve the process. Student teacher Jim isn't sure he's been a valuable addition to the group. "Just as I'm figuring out how everything works, it's time for me to leave, and for someone new to join." For over an hour, the team discusses the agenda items. Rejecting the adequacy of the status quo, they often mention "the next level" of their work.
At 5 o'clock, the meeting adjourns. Two teachers stay to talk with the university researcher studying the Rocky Professional Development School. The three are continuing an earlier conversation about benefits of the Professional Development School. Tom List, a social studies teacher who regularly works with PDS students and student teachers, offers his view:I was never at a worthwhile professional conference prior to PDS. But now, the opportunities are coming fast and furious. The cross-school conversations are valuable. Talking to other schools' teachers who have answers to problems we face is incredible! And the work with content-area professors—for the first time ever, this partnership has presented classroom teachers opportunities to meet with colleagues at the university level in our content areas.
Art teacher Rick Takahashi nods. "I feel comfortable asking Val [Middleton] to watch what I'm doing. We have that kind of professionalism." He hesitates, then continues: "It helps me get better. The Professional Development School has broken down the isolation. You see Professional Development students admit not knowing everything. We see that. We're more willing to ask for ideas." At 6 p.m., the three end their conversation and return to the now quiet halls.
Long-Term Commitment
There is a centuries-old Japanese practice of serving tea, called Cha-no-yu, that requires a lifetime of commitment. "The student of Tea," says tea master Sen,learns to arrange things, to understand timing and interludes, to appreciate social graces, and to apply all of these to daily experience. These things are all brought to bear in the simple process of serving and receiving a bowl of tea, and are done with a single purpose—to realize tranquility of mind in communion with one's fellow men (Sen 1979, p. 9).
Contrast the tradition of the tea ceremony, rich in highly contextualized and anticipated movements, to the newly emerging phenomenon of the Professional Development School. The PDS purpose, too, is singular—the improvement of teaching and learning. Yet its students have no master to learn from, no clear model to emulate, no tradition to ponder. Still, the learners strive to understand more fully the acts of teaching and learning, in the belief that their work will improve and that students will ultimately benefit. The PDS model suggests this possibility of lifelong focus on teaching and learning.
The Rocky Mountain High School/Colorado State University Professional Development School is in its fifth year. Its participants strive to achieve the high standards for school/university partnerships set forth by the National Network for Educational Renewal: (1) providing exemplary education for all students, (2) preparing exemplary teachers, (3) providing continuing education for all professionals, and (4) conducting inquiry into educational practice.
The Professional Development School has the potential to become, as the tea master would say, "a way of being" for its participants. French teacher Urban says it "transcends" both Rocky Mountain High School and Colorado State University, which sponsor it. It is becoming a way of thinking about teaching and learning and a way of involving everyone in the process. We see four interrelated aspects of such a commitment:
Permanency. The Rocky Mountain High School/Colorado State University Professional Development School has continued its work even after two key leaders (one from the university and one from the high school) moved on, and it has a permanent, designated classroom at the high school. School faculty see the PDS influencing multiple aspects of the school—from environment to professional development. And perhaps most important, nearly all of the 80-plus faculty, including administrators, have participated in some aspect of the PDS.
High expectations. The university students look and act like school professionals. They respectfully challenge and support one another. Teachers hold high expectations for both the university students and themselves. Elliott is focused on constant improvement of herself, her students, and the PDS structure. The advisory meetings demonstrate an expectation that the PDS work will improve.
A learning community. Elliott attributes improvements in her teaching to her university students and her colleagues. The teacher candidates demonstrate high levels of learning, from both university and high school faculty—and from one another. They listen carefully to their peers' experiences and recommendations. And Rocky Mountain faculty eagerly talk about learning from the university students and the university faculty.
A process. Participants see the PDS as a process of continual improvement. They talk as much about the next level of their work as about the present. Elliott is searching for a new model of student teaching. Rocky faculty wonder about governance issues and ways to get involved in action research. The principal wants to expand leadership and ownership.
For its participants, the Professional Development School has become their place of practice, the place where they can recognize their current expertise and contributions, and then safely and confidently work at improving.
