Professional development schools blend the resources and expertise of universities and schools to study and develop teachers' instructional practices. The very name professional development school suggests just how central the role of teachers' professional growth is in these full-fledged, long-term, school-university partnerships. From its inception, educators intended the professional development school to “develop new visions of teaching and prepare practitioners who can implement these visions” (Holmes Group, 1990, p. 6).
- Varied forms of initial teacher preparation, such as student teaching, field placements, and on-site undergraduate coursework;
- Multiple opportunities for teachers to engage in continuing professional development by working with university faculty members;
- Efforts to increase all students' learning; and
- Research into teaching and learning for the purpose of improving both (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2001).
We have been actively involved in a large, inner-city, preK–8 professional development school for many years. Because of our sustained involvement, teachers in the school view us as insiders—and we feel like insiders—yet we have a broader perspective on education stemming from our university work. Mutual respect and collaborative innovation have emerged through our regular presence, shared journeys, experiments, expertise, and time together. The following stories chronicle how such innovations can unfold in a professional development school.
Sprouting a Network of Buddy Projects
Small groups of juniors in the university's teacher education program have field experiences at the school, and then selected members of those cohorts do their senior student teaching there. As the university liaisons to the professional development school, we supervise those field experiences and internships.
Four years ago, we expanded our presence by teaching one section each of two required undergraduate courses at the school. This new activity increased the amount of time we spent at the school—as well as the number of teacher candidates engaged in in-depth, extended experiences—and allowed teachers in the school to collaborate more extensively with us in the delivery of the courses.
At the same time, the expansion of inclusion in the school increased the teachers' need for professional development in the areas of collaborative learning and teaching. As the resident professional development consultants, we planned and led seminars on collaborative learning and a graduate course on collaborative teaching for the school's teachers. We infused approaches focused on developing caring communities and shared responsibility into the inservice seminars, the graduate course, and our site-based undergraduate courses (Developmental Studies Center, 1996, 1997, 1998). The result: Both novice and experienced teachers at the professional development school were exploring and trying similar ideas about collaborative learning and teaching.
After experiencing a cross-grade buddy reading project through her on-site coursework, one teacher candidate sought to develop such a collaborative learning project by working with 6th graders she would be student teaching during the next semester and students from the prekindergarten classroom where she had done her field placement. She and her current and former cooperating teachers worked together to plan weekly experiences during which the 6th graders, many of whom had low reading skills, met with and read to their prekindergarten buddies. The prekindergarten teacher believed that the buddy project enhanced her early literacy development program. Likewise, the reading teacher observed improved self-esteem and reading confidence among her 6th graders, who also reported an increased sense of responsibility for others.
The project was so successful that the two teachers expanded it after the intern graduated. By then, the 6th grade teacher was enrolled in the graduate-level, collaborative-teaching course that we taught, and her class anecdotes and videotaped vignettes of buddy work inspired other course members to develop their own versions of the program. The teachers had their 7th grade special education students staffing 1st grade learning stations; 1st and 5th graders researching cats together; 3rd graders teaching low-skill 1st graders to read a 3rd-grade-level story; and 2nd graders reading to kindergarten partners. All the teachers reported positive changes in student attitudes toward the students from other age groups. Most also reported an increased sense of self-efficacy among the older students, as well as improvements in students' sense of responsibility for their behavior and preparation during the cross-grade encounters and, for some, during class.
Naturally, we were proud of the teachers' enthusiasm for the approach and of their reports of success; their efforts enhanced the school's focus on building and sustaining a schoolwide learning community. We designed a pamphlet and multimedia slide presentation describing the teachers' buddy work, and the teachers joined us in sharing them with colleagues at the school and at conferences for teacher educators throughout the United States.
The following year, two of the school's middle-school-level mathematics teachers decided to replicate the success of the reading buddy program by initiating a Math Mates partnership between 6th graders and prekindergarten and kindergarten students. Teachers found that 6th graders' geometric conceptualization skills improved as they helped their younger buddies complete simple patterning and shape design tasks.
We expect that cross-grade buddy efforts will continue to expand. This past summer, we built the idea of such projects into our annual summer curriculum training seminar with the school's staff. Because most of the teachers formed partnerships with peers teaching another grade level, we expect to see more multi-age buddy projects blossoming throughout the year.
Responding to Testing Pressures
As we observed growing pressure to raise standardized test scores, we believed that it had a perverse effect on the curriculum and that test results inaccurately represented what our students actually knew and could do. We worked with 3rd and 4th grade teachers, therefore, to develop approaches to complement rather than supplant the curriculum while also improving students' standardized test performance.
Throughout the past year, we helped teachers learn to design and use higher-level thinking questions, tasks, and prompts—similar in structure to those found on state standardized tests but directly related to the content that the students were studying. We modeled how to use cooperative group work and careful questioning to develop students' choice-making abilities, build their critical thinking skills, and actively involve students in analyzing the content of their current studies and in developing strategies to deal with any unfamiliar wording and tasks that they might encounter on tests.
We also encouraged teachers to expose students to a variety of written and visual materials to help students develop the ability to transfer emerging skills and knowledge to unfamiliar visual and print contexts. By examining pictures for content and by learning to identify the main idea and details in alternative, non-textbook passages, the students would be less likely to give up when encountering standardized test items with lengthier sentences or passages, more complicated wording structures and writing styles, or unfamiliar visual representations of information.
Finally, we worked with several of the 4th grade teachers to develop ways to build excitement, enthusiasm, and anticipation—rather than dread—among students in the face of upcoming tests. We encouraged a celebratory approach in which teachers would urge students to look forward to showing off what they knew and could do, offer them modest rewards for their hard work and preparation, and host pre-testing “pep rally” events for students and their parents. We reasoned that involving parents by inviting them to join in test preparation and celebrations would help teachers build home support for test-taking readiness.
As a result of this collaborative work, several teachers began developing multiple-choice and writing exercises that connected to the curriculum but that used visual and reading materials found outside the textbooks and standard curricular materials. One 4th grade regular and special education teacher pair built into their daily instruction higher-level questions and tasks that were tied to the curriculum they taught. We met with the pair several times to review what they had developed and to examine examples of students' steadily improving work.
The 4th grade inclusion pair organized their curriculum around two themes and designed theme- based activities for classroom instruction and homework that were, as much as possible, similar in format to state tests. The teachers also involved parents in their efforts by designing daily practice activities for students and parents to complete at home during the two weeks before the tests. They also held a special kickoff for this test preparation effort, along with a culminating presentation for parents on the thematic activities. Most students and parents completed all the home activities, which surprised the teachers. Further, the teachers observed that the special education students performed uncharacteristically well during the tests by focusing on tasks and responding to open-ended questions using productive strategies and design solutions.
Actual test performance among special education students in the inclusion classroom also improved, despite the students' reading skills, which were well below grade level. In prior years, no special education students in that class had passed any of the three tested subject areas. In the year of the innovations, however, 50 percent of the special education students in that class passed language arts, 63 percent passed mathematics, and all passed science. Test performance also improved across the 3rd and 4th grades, though not as dramatically as among this group of special education students.
Improving Learning Through Thematic Instruction
Another recurring theme at this professional development school has been interdisciplinary, thematic instruction. Four years ago, a team of regular and special education teachers and teacher candidates used reading, social studies, and science themes to develop detailed units, lasting 2–4 weeks, for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms. These units infused multicultural content and incorporated district-required language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science content. We provided each teacher with training, sample literature and other materials, and demonstrations during an extended summer session, as well as follow-up coaching and planning assistance.
Both students and teachers reported that students' interest in and enjoyment of instruction increased, as did their sustained, active engagement in learning tasks. Of interest: Partially included special education students had higher unit test scores than their general education classmates did, despite their having tested lower than their classmates on mastery tests given at the beginning of the year. We concluded that this achievement resulted from extended time devoted to theme-related mathematics, reading, and language arts during pull-out instruction. That extended instruction, tied to the science and social studies content that they studied together with their peers, brought special education students into closer and more frequent contact with the abstract concepts being studied, which resulted in deeper understanding and extended retention.
News of these results spread, and several other teachers became interested in training and support to help them develop thematic units. We offered after-school and Saturday sessions to provide such professional development; however, these sessions did not provide sufficient time to fully develop themes. This past summer, teachers received funds for extended thematic unit planning time. The funds made it possible for five teachers to develop new thematic units ranging in length from two to eight weeks.
Replicating This Approach
Common to each story is the ongoing presence and involvement of liaisons from the university faculty who share a mission with the school and its staff. At its best, the professional development school is a place where paths of college faculty crisscross so regularly with the daily routines and expectations of schoolteachers, students, and administrators that interchange and mutual support are standard; college professors become trusted colleagues rather than idealistic, “clueless” interlopers. The professors become an integral part of the professional development school, bringing with them new ideas, techniques, research findings, and preservice teachers. School life intimately engages the professors, imbuing them with a sensitivity to teachers' professional contexts.
We're not convinced that the professional development school is the only context that promotes mutually edifying professional interaction. Such professional journeys can occur in any school that maintains a pervasive climate of openness to new ideas, inquiry, and reflection, coupled with a culture of collaboration. Nonetheless, opportunities for innovation and professional growth multiply when university faculty members, preservice teachers, and a school's staff commit themselves to a shared mission and join together to promote professional and educational excellence.
