Key Components and Supporting Structures:

Frameworks that Foster Collaboration

The Professional Developoment System model being implementated by the Watson School of Education and its university-school partnership in southeastern North Carolina is designed to create more effective learning environments and performance improvements in both public school settings and in teacher education programs.

To accomplish these ends, the efforts must be both complex and pervasive. The complexity of the Professional Development System has demanded supporting structures to sustain fluidity and promote continuity throughout the partnership.

PDS Partners Meeting

A supporting structure that initiates our collaborative approach each semester is the highly successful Partners’ Meeting held for interns, their university supervisors, and the site coordinators from the schools in which the interns have been placed. This informal meeting encourages open dialogue and alleviates some of the anxiety interns might be feeling prior to their internship.

Collaboratively university supervisors and site coordinators review procedures with the interns and interns have the opportunity to ask questions and clarify policy matters. Together the new colleagues develop a schedule for their site seminars and evaluative visits, review the coaching plan and map out the first several weeks of the practicum.

Site Seminars

The site seminar is a framework unique to the Watson School of Education’s Professional Development System. It enables important dialogue to occur among educators surrounding critical educational issues not easily resolved on one’s own. Interns are required to attend a specified number of seminars where reflective practices are expected and supported. School partners are encouraged to attend and contribute to the reflective process.

This design feature promotes regular analysis of events and outcomes as they relate to teaching and learning objectives. Such consideration is not commonly available to teachers within the context of normal school settings but is often desired by teachers and has been shown to be a key component in professional growth for teachers at all levels of the profession.

Technology Inreach and Outreach

The Watson School has created two Emerging Technology Liaison positions that engage all partners in technology education and application. This key component supports technology competence by developing understanding and use of emerging educational technology. In collaboration with school district personnel, efforts have involved university faculty, teachers, site coordinators and principals from all partnership schools in technology-focused seminars and hands-on technology workshops. The creation of these roles has allowed university faculty and public school partners to be more closely aligned in the application of educational technology.

Learn more about the Technology Liaisons >

Collaborative Intern Placement Meetings

Responding to feedback that mutual input is necessary from university and school partners if equitable and meaningful placements are to occur, the WSE Field Experience Coordinator and PDS Director have established a more collaborative framework for the intern placement process.

Beginning in 1998, these two university representatives began traveling to each district to meet with the key contact person, partnership school administrators and site coordinators. The desired outcomes are to improve the communication of issues related to internship placements and to make collaborative decisions regarding the best match of intern and partnership teacher.

All participants in the placement process have a better understanding of the uniqueness of the intern and are better able to discuss what will be most beneficial for both the intern’s development and for the partnership teacher and classroom students.

Cohort Grouping of Teacher Candidates

Cohort grouping of students in field and internship experiences is an important supporting structure. Candidates are placed in cohorts, or groups of peers, during much of the fieldwork and all of the full-time internships to ensure the development of professional support groups for the students and their host educators.

Supporting the belief that adults and children learn best in the context of practice, cohort grouping facilitates regular site seminars during which partnership teachers, interns and university faculty focus on learning and teaching that takes advantage of research and practitioner knowledge and provides a timely structure to discuss day-to-day insights, issues and challenges related to their classroom.

These cohorts also offer an opportunity to apply learning in a supportive environment; develop collegial relationships between partnership teachers, university supervisors, and interns; support reflection and evaluation of growth; and create a forum for fresh perspectives on current teaching practices.