Rethinking Teacher Education Programs

Program Overview

The lesson of recent school reform studies and commentaries is clear: the success of the national imperative to increase student achievement so that all students meet the challenging standards of today's new economy hinges heavily on high quality teaching. But recognizing the need for quality teaching is just a beginning. Educators need a solid understanding of reform principles and the ways that work- and school-based learning can enhance curriculum and instruction. And higher education institutions must develop a new vision for teacher education programs to align with education-and-work reforms and other standards-based educational reforms. For instance, what have we learned so far at NCRVE-member institutions? How can the university capacity be enhanced? What mechanisms and structures are needed to build new models for teacher preparation? These and other key issues need to be addressed to guide redesign initiatives in efforts to link contextual relevancy (e.g., workplace learning) to teacher preparation.

Supporting Redesign Initiatives

The focus of the 1998 NCRVE Teacher Initiative is to revise and document results of redesign plans for teacher education programs at NCRVE-member institutions. The University of California-Berkeley, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will participate in documenting and assessing the resources and strategies needed to build their capacity to redesign and strengthen teacher education programs, building upon their NCRVE experience and resources.

Through a 4-6 month demonstration project approach, the participating institutions will use teams--composed of deans, NCRVE researchers, and teacher education faculty--to document institutional supports and ways to enhance institutional capacity. Teams will receive the resources, institutional support, and experience needed to integrate education-and-work reforms into new designs for teacher education. The goal is to enhance institutional capacity by allowing deans, department heads, and interdisciplinary faculty teams to re-examine their current system and develop a new vision for teacher education. These sites will serve as future demonstration sites for other universities interested in reviewing institutional structures that support teacher education programs.

To support and guide the teams, two 2-day seminars focusing on enhancing university capacity will be held. Each seminar will reflect a key theme for the redesign of teacher education, such as integrating work- and school-based learning, enhancing career development options, and connecting secondary and postsecondary institutions. The first seminar will be conducted at Virginia Tech in September 1998. The second seminar will be held at the annual meeting of the American Vocational Association in December 1998.

UC-Berkeley: Preparing Teachers to Teach in Secondary College and Career Programs

The high proportion of multilingual, multicultural students in California and the increasing need of employers to find qualified workers, particularly targeting urban youth in mathematics and science, have contributed to the project design at UC-Berkeley. California high schools contain approximately 200 career academies (schools-within-schools where 50 to 100 students take classes together from the same teachers for three or four years). Classes include subjects required for college admission and a technical or vocational course related to the academy theme. Teaching in a career academy requires new teaching skills. Teachers must have knowledge of the occupations or industries addressed by the curriculum, as well as the ability to integrate work-related applications with academic and theoretical concepts (Raizen 1989; Steinberg 1998), to work in teams with other teachers to link curriculum across different subjects, and to collaborate with employers on the supervision of students.

Two secondary programs in the Graduate School of Education--English with a Cross-cultural Language and Academic Development (CLAD) certificate, and the Masters and Credential in Science and Mathematics Education (MACSME) program--provide a powerful way to reach future teacher leaders. The project goal is to bring together student teacher supervisors and teachers from career academies to investigate how the programs can integrate college-and-career themes into the curriculum. Proposed plans include introducing student teachers to secondary school programs that include work-based learning and collaboration, working with local teachers to clarify how to prepare student teachers for work-related content and experiential learning related to their discipline, and exploring the possibility of combining some CLAD and MACSME cohort placements to enhance both programs. The project will focus on work-based learning and its correlation with the mission and principles of the Graduate School of Education. Working agreements will be established where possible, and the results will be shared with the other participating NCRVE institutions. A report explaining the rationale and possible plans for integrating college-and-career methods into the secondary teacher education programs will be produced by September 1998.

Contact: Jerilyn Harris, (510) 642-7977, email: jerilynh@uclink4.berkeley.edu.

Virginia Tech: Team Building in Teacher Education

The Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI) redesign initiative will build on previous efforts, emphasizing team building through communication and focusing more closely on the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) as a way to bridge narrow programmatic views. The SOLs are rigorous new standards in the academic areas of English, social studies, science, and mathematics. Students must attain a designated number of "certified"credits (passing both the state exams and the courses themselves), and 75% of students must pass the tests or the school will lose accreditation. Teachers and administrators are concerned, and that is beginning to be reflected by not placing student teachers in classes with mandated tests. However, reading, writing, science, and math skills need to be learned in context and reinforced throughout the curriculum, not taught in isolation, if they are to be mastered.

The initiative will bring together faculty from teacher education licensure programs to discuss integration of curriculum, especially related to programs such as High Schools that Work (a program that blends academic and vocational education to raise student achievement). Three schools--William Byrd High School, Cave Spring High School, and Salem High School--will be invited to bring a team of vocational/industrial teachers, pre-service teachers, and teachers from at least two of the tested academic areas to a conference designed to explore how SOLs can be integrated into the curriculum. The goal of the conference is to begin the team building process across disciplines within the high schools, within the university, and between the schools and the university. The conference will serve as a springboard for further activities that will help build collaboration, such as a Web site on teacher education or a NetForum to maintain and broaden conversations that began at the conference. The proposal at Virginia Tech is based on the belief that schools which integrate learning across disciplines will be schools that succeed. The initiative is supported by previous NCRVE research conducted at VPI, including teacher induction and licensure, professional development of vocational teachers, the role of teachers in curriculum integrations, and designing integrated curriculum.

Contact: Patricia Kelly, (540) 231-5174, email: kellyp@vt.edu.

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Strengthening Connections for Families and Jobs

Over the past decade, UW efforts have concentrated on strengthening the connections between education, work, and family. In this context, the importance of prospective Family and Consumer Education (FCE) teachers becoming familiar with education strategies that hinge on "developing effective connections" has been identified and targeted for improvement. These connections include the need for future teachers to design integrated curriculum, understand integration issues, and develop effective partnerships among schools, families, and communities.

Specifically, the UW-Madison initiative will seek resources to redesign the FCE program to strengthen connections that are essential to developing effective family- and job-focused programs. These linkages include employers in fields such as dietetics, food service, and child care services; academic subject areas and performance standards in areas such as science, math, language arts, and social studies; parents and other family members; and community members and agencies. The redesign effort will seek to help future Family and Consumer Educators learn strategies for linking and coordinating programs offered in secondary schools, post-secondary and higher education institutions, community colleges, and business and industry.

The project will involve educators, community educational providers, and businesses in a reflective process to examine the UW-Madison program and make recommendations on how to strengthen the connections. The anticipated result is to recommend revisions for three FCE undergraduate courses-Program Planning in Family and Consumer Education, Pre-student Teaching in Family and Consumer Education, and Student Teaching in Family and Consumer Education. Changes will address the goals and conceptual structure of the courses, the learning opportunities provided in the courses, the strategies used to evaluate learning in the courses, and the value of any proposed changes along with the appropriate theoretical foundations for practice. The initiative will be supported by prior NCRVE research conducted at UW-Madison on professional development and workplace learning; family, education, and work; and the impact of school reform in vocational education.

Contact: Wendy Way, (608) 262-1963, email: wlway@facstaff.wisc.edu.