The Power of Partnerships One College’s journey to growth and understanding…

First some background… From the CAEP Accreditation Manual, Standard 2: “…close partnerships between EPPs and public school districts, individual schools, and other community organizations can create especially effective environments for clinical experiences. These partnerships should be continuously functioning and should feature shared decision-making about crucial aspects of the preparation experiences and collaboration among all clinical faculty” (p. 16). Raising the bar in a brave new world…

And then some history… “Transforming Educator Preparation” Conference Atlanta, Georgia 2-4 September 2014 TEP Action Plan leading to grant award

Our demographic Northwest Georgia region; Title I Three formalized school partnerships – Dade, Walker, and Catoosa counties Principals and school leaders have demonstrated a compelling commitment to partner with Covenant College Covenant College partners with these systems for field experiences and clinical practice

Our proposal The broad goal – collaborate with our partners to retool fieldwork and clinical practice so that our teacher candidates have more opportunities to blend research with real-life teaching practice: Diverse learners, using assessment data to drive instruction, creating effective long-term plans, positive learning environments, and academic challenge for all students

Our proposal, continued The specific goal – Work with P-12 partners to define the nature of clinical practice including co-teaching, selection and roles of school-based faculty; quality of training of school- based clinical faculty; quality of university and school-based support of candidates during clinical practice; quality of professional learning for university faculty that emphasizes development and refinement of skills in modeling teaching, coaching, and conferencing with candidates; and assessment of clinical practice (GaNTEP, goal iii).

What we did… Three (2) Strategic Events: 1.A conference focusing on key partnerships between teacher candidates and mentor teachers 2.A professional learning day for Covenant College teacher candidates on TKES (snow and ice day…) 3.Post clinical practice roundtable feedback sessions with mentor teachers

How? 1. Collaboration & Professional learning Enhancing the Preparation of New Teachers Conference; 14 NOV Sponsored, planned and developed by Covenant College and two of our partnering school districts – Dade and Walker counties Attendees included Covenant College teacher candidates, faculty members, and administration; mentor teachers and Principals from host schools; Superintendents from Dade and Walker county; and numerous county officials

EPNT Conference components An overview of the 14 week clinical practice experience An edTPA workshop to help mentor teachers understand how to support teacher candidates through the process of Tasks 1- 4 A TKES workshop designed to inform teacher candidates about the new normative assessments for teachers in the field A RESA-led training in best practices using the co-teaching model in the clinical experience Valuable time was also given for mentor teachers and our teacher candidates to talk and get to know one another over lunch, breaks, and other planned times during the day

Feedback on EPNT Survey from MTs and TCs?

How? 2. Professional learning day Goal – follow-up TKES workshop by Josh Ingle, Principal at Dade County High School. Well… TKES information alternatively presented during TCs weekly seminar

How? 3. MT Roundtable feedback sessions Meeting with mentor teachers during their post planning: Clinical experience? edTPA implementation/challenges? How to better prepare teacher candidates for the specific needs of the host school? Specific advice and counsel as to how to enhance our collaborative partnership? Use of standardized questionnaire to capture data of interviews for analysis and use of results… Use of results for December 11, 2015 Partner Meeting

Some excerpts… “I got a better understanding of how edTPA worked and how to help my student teacher get prepared.” Grade 4 teacher “Meeting my student teacher face-to-face and getting to share about my students before she ever came was fantastic….” Grade 1 teacher “My student teacher helped me understand and use the co- teaching model effectively… so much better than the old way where {I} leave her alone in the classroom.” Grade 5 teacher “I was kind of skeptical at first, but partnering up was the best thing ever!” Grade 2 teacher

Lessons learned and next steps CAEP is going to require us to more and more leverage our partnerships to include host schools in co-developing tools such as clinical practice evaluations, dispositions, lesson observation forms, etc. Teacher leadership (TKES) can be demonstrated through mentor teaching – a mutual benefit Communication positively enhanced regarding communication of timelines, processes and products of edTPA Continuing to meet formally with partner schools – December 11, 2015 – Co-teaching model, edTPA workshop, Clinical Practice Final Evaluation form (comparing it with TKES), and increased one-on-one time between MTs and TCs.

Questions and discussion?