Creating Visions for
University-School Partnerships

A Volume in:

Research in Professional Development Schools

Series Editors:

JoAnne Ferrara

Janice L. Nath

Irma N. Guadarrama

Research in Professional Development Schools

Series Editors:

JoAnne Ferrara
Manhattanville College

Janice L. Nath
University of Houston

Irma N. Guadarrama
University of Texas—Pan Am

University and School Connections:
Research Studies in Professional Development Schools (2008)
Edited by Irma N. Guadarrama, John Ramsey, and Janice L. Nath

Advances in Community Thought and Research (2005)
Edited by Irma N. Guadarrama, University of Texas - Pan Am; John Ramsey, University of Houston and Janice L. Nath, University of Houston

Forging Alliances in Community and Thought (2002)
Edited by Irma N. Guadarrama

This book is sponsored by

The mission of NAPDS is to advocate for and support
a professional development school model that is committed to:
student learning; clinical educator preparation;
reciprocal professional development; and shared inquiry.

Creating Visions for
University-School Partnerships

Edited by

JoAnne Ferrara

Janice L. Nath

Irma N. Guadarrama

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.
Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The CIP data for this book can be found on the Library of Congress website (loc.gov).

Paperback: 978-1-62396-771-0

Hardcover: 978-1-62396-772-7

eBook: 978-1-62396-773-4

Copyright © 2014 Information Age Publishing Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission

from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction xi

PART I

CLINICALLY RICH PRACTICES

1. Partnering to Achieve Authentic and Mutually Beneficial Teacher Preparation Through Innovative Clinical Practices 3

Anne Dahlman, Carrie Chapman, Patricia Hoffman, Ginger Zierdt,
April Rosendale, Pamely Kennedy, Scott Page, Allen Hoffman, and Paul Preimesberger

2. Measuring Classroom Teaching Effectiveness and Using Findings to Make Changes: A PDS Video-Based Action Research Study 21

Linda A. Catelli, Joan Carlino, and Gina Marie Petraglia

3. Clinically Rich Practices in Teacher Education: Review and Recommendations 43

Janna Dresden, Julie Kittleson, and Julianne Wenner

4. Student Achievement from Anchor Action Research Studies in High-Needs, Urban Professional Development Schools:
A Meta Analysis 61

William Curlette, Robert Hendrick, Susan Ogletree, and Gwendolyn Benson

5. Assessing Teacher Quality and Teacher Effectiveness Through Professional Development School Partnerships 73

Sally Yahnke, M. Gail Shroyer, and Amanda Morales

6. PDS as Passport to the World: Preparing the Next Generation of Educators for a Global Community 87

Prixita del Prado Hill, Leslie Day, Nancy A. Chicola,
and Hibajene Shandomo

PART II

STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVE

7. When a Professional Development School Program Becomes Unsustainable: Trying to Keep the Best of Both Worlds 105

Laura A. Mitchell, Janice L. Nath, and Myrna D. Cohen

8. Alumni Perceptions of Their School—University Partnership Programs 129

Emilie Rodger, Greg Prater, and Michael Blocher

9. Lessons Learned in Strengthening and Sustaining School–University Partnership Networks 141

Stephanie L. Savick and Sarah Anne Eckert

10. The University and Elementary School: A Partnership Focusing on Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade (K–5) Student Learning 167

Fran Greb, Naomi Kirkman, and Brett Grunau

11. Preparing Preservice Teachers in a PDS Context: Insights into Field-Based Methods Courses 179

Christina Siry, JoAnne Ferrara, and Diane E. Lang

PART III

ENRICHING CONTENT AREA INSTRUCTION

12. Tutoring in Mathematics: Affect on Professional Development School (PDS) Preservice Teachers’ Perception of Teaching Mathematics and Effect on Student Achievement 195

Jeanne Tunks and Caroline O’Brien

13. Early Field Experiences in Mathematics: What a Professional Development School Model Allows Future Teachers to Do 217

Paula Guerra, Stacy DeLaCruz, and Maggie Phillips

14. Utilizing a University–School Partnership to Improve the Academic Achievement of Middle School Students (Including Those with Special Needs) by Instituting School-Wide Co-Teaching 231

Debra Leach, Lisa Johnson, Felix Blumhardt, and Cindy Bush

15. A School–University Partnership’s Use of Action Research as an Inservice Clinical Response Initiative to Develop The Literacy-Based Instructional Practices Of Teachers 245

David A. Walker and Portia M. Downey

16. Partnering to Strengthen the Teaching of Foundational
Literacy Skills 259

Katherine Egan Cunningham

PART IV

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT

17. Supporting Mathematics Learning in a PDS Network: The Parents’ Perspective 283

Jeanne Tunks and Julie Williams

18. Another Level in a PDS Partnership: Bringing Families and
Teacher Candidates Together 299

Julie Rosenthal, Maika Bonafe, and Mary Lebron

19. Negotiating the Expanded Roles of PDS Liaisons in Full-Service Community Schools 317

JoAnne Ferrara and Diane Gómez

About the Contributors 327

v

vi CONTENTS

Contents vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, we express our gratitude to those individuals who work tirelessly in professional development schools (PDSs) to build a vision for transforming the profession while also creating settings where unlimited possibilities exist for all stakeholders—especially the children in the school settings. Without the efforts of these dedicated educators to push the PDS agenda forward, we could not share the outstanding practices happening in the field.

We are forever grateful to Renee Roff for volunteering her free time, her copy editing expertise, and, most importantly, her ongoing encouragement during the process.

We thank our publisher, George Johnson for giving us the venue to showcase the work of PDS authors across the nation.

Introduction

As with the other volumes in this series, Volume 5 highlights the ways in which professional development schools (PDSs) provide a rich context for practitioner inquiry. Series contributors describe various methods of engagement in practitioner inquiry to foster collaboration and reflection among stakeholders. Through a lens of collaboration grounded in inquiry, these PDS researchers generate possible solutions to the complex problems facing PreK–16 educators. The diversity of their work represents perspectives of classroom teachers, preservice teachers, school leaders, and university faculty who grapple with identifying “ways of knowing” and “ways of doing” that enhance educational outcomes for PreK–12 students while also serving to transform the profession. Authors describe the richness of PDSs’ work to support continuous improvement, to provide innovation, and to discover powerful insights so that informed decision making that is based upon “what works” can take place. We are honored to showcase the efforts of these PDS scholars in Volume 5 and share with you the collective wisdom for improving schools and increasing the quality of teaching.

This volume is organized around four themes: (1) clinically rich practices, (2) stakeholders’ perspectives, (3) enriching content area instruction, and (4) family engagement. For the most part, the themes launched new ways for researchers to think about student success through PDS engagement. Although the chapters share a common focus, each one illustrates the unique PDS features that ignited researchers to further investigate areas of interest.

Section I (Clinically Rich Practices) offers solutions to the recent criticism leveled at educator preparation programs’ inability to respond to ever-changing needs of today’s classrooms. The sentiment expressed by researchers in these chapters underscores how colleges of education redesigned programs, coursework, and fieldwork components so that opportunities are made available for teacher candidates to be deeply embedded in the life of a school. Section I makes the case for the role of PDSs as perfect sites for clinically rich practices, replete with possibilities for making critical connections between theory and practice for preservice teachers and simultaneously serving to further the growth of all PDS stakeholders. The chapters remind us that PDSs are settings where practice-based leaning is the norm and the classroom is a laboratory for inquiry and learning.

In the first chapter, Dahlman, Chapman, Hoffman, Zierdt, Rosendale, Kennedy, Page, Hoffman, and Preimesberger share four specific examples of clinically rich practices from PDS partnerships between a university and eight partner school districts that have been successful in preparing teacher candidates for effective teaching practices. The specific strategies, together with supporting data and reflections, created win–win opportunities for all stakeholders.

In keeping with strategies to enrich clinical practice, Catelli, Carlino, and Petraglia examined classroom teaching effectiveness through an action research study at a PDS. This chapter focuses on the use of video-based findings to make changes in the PDS partnership. The study is the third in a series of five linked action studies. The overall project goal was to change and improve PreK–12 classroom teaching and the clinical aspects of their college’s teacher education programs in an integrative way.

Dresden, Kittleson, and Wenner examine the causes for a renewed interest in clinically rich practices. Their discussion briefly investigates the use of clinically rich practices in other professions, reviews the theory and research on clinically rich practices in teacher education today, considers the vital role of professional development schools in facilitating these approaches to teacher education, and introduces the suite of clinically rich practices used in their undergraduate teacher preparation courses.

Curlette, Hendrick, Olgetree, and Benson in this section discuss clinical teaching employed through anchor action research (AAR) studies to evaluate the teacher preparation efforts in PDSs through K–12 student achievement. As a part of the teacher–intern–professor (TIP) Group, the intern participated in the planning and delivering of a unit of instruction that used a pretest and posttest as assessments. This study contributes a summary of 10 PDS studies that overall have a statistically significant effect size for student achievement using meta-analysis. The study demonstrated a clinical approach to teaching combined with a statistical approach to overcome small sample sizes through meta-analysis to show student academic achievement gains in PDSs.

Yanke, Shroyer, and Morales described a vision to collaboratively examine and promote teacher quality and teacher effectiveness across the educational continuum while simultaneously improving K–12 education for all students and educators within a PDS partnership that led to the development of an evidence-based teacher quality supervision model and performance portfolio process to determine both teacher quality and teacher effectiveness. Their chapter provides evidence that teacher quality and teacher effectiveness can be achieved through careful examination and assessment of preservice candidates and the teacher preparation program by all PDS partners involved in the assessment process.

Finally, Section I concludes with del Prado Hill, Day, Chicola, and Shandomo’s international PDS model. For 22 years, Buffalo State’s award-winning PDS consortium has worked to extend its sphere of influence beyond the campus to support the development of new and experienced teachers through local partnerships. Their consortium now partners with more than 45 PDS sites locally, regionally, and internationally. Responding to demographic changes in the city and beyond, Buffalo State expanded its commitment to support the development of children, teachers, and faculty to be global citizens. This chapter details the story of Buffalo State’s journey, with excerpts from teacher candidates, and offers suggestions for developing effective international PDS partnerships.

Stakeholders’ perspectives as means to inform decision making within PDS sites are the overarching foci of Section II. Through the collection of diverse data sets, including case studies, surveys, focus groups, questionnaires, artifacts, program evaluation, and student metrics, authors offer methods for strengthening PDSs, which, in turn, create effective educator preparation programs. Authors discuss the value of PDS participants’ ongoing engagement in self-study as one of many instruments to foster continual growth and renewal in the dynamic, ever-changing entities known as PDSs.

We begin this section with a study from Michell, Nath, and Cohen, which investigates a program that was forced to change from an established PDS model to a modified version and focuses upon perceptions of the differences before and after. Authors posit that although teacher educators hope that they can maintain many types of university/school partnerships, not all professional development school (PDS) programs have been sustainable—for a variety of reasons. By comparing pre- and post-PDS implementation in a teacher education program, researchers found elements that could allow for better decision making or modifications when it becomes impossible for a teacher education program to preserve its full-fledged PDS model. This could, in turn, allow the basic premises of many crucial elements of PDS work to continue, even when the entire model cannot be supported.

In this study, Rodger, Prater, and Blocher discuss the results of a survey of alumni who participated in professional development school (PDS) training at their institution. Their purpose was to determine whether the teacher candidates from three different school/university teacher training programs felt that the program’s intensity was ultimately beneficial. The study obtained information from the alumni to gain insight on their self-perceived practices in the classroom that they had acquired during their PDS experience.

Savick and Eckert’s chapter describes their efforts as PDS coordinators at one institute of higher education (university) in Maryland to revitalize a network of 21 individual PDS sites. Through providing a historical overview of PDS at the university and documenting the strategic steps taken, this chapter uses an institutional framework to outline one method for creating self-sustaining partnerships. The chapter relies on documentary data, interviews, and first-hand observations to understand the systemic changes necessary to build a self-sustaining network.

“Learning together” is the focus of the study conducted by Grebs, Kirkman, and Grunau as they examine an ever-evolving eight-year school–university partnership providing opportunities for elementary students, university students, and faculty to come together as partners in learning. Utilizing the expertise of faculty from multiple colleges within the university, the elementary school curriculum was enriched through hands-on experiences both in the elementary school and on the college campus. The cross-curricular experiences that focused on student learning in this sustained and committed partnership provided benefits at both the university and the elementary school.

Siry, Ferrara, and Lang address the benefits of learning together to support the integration of theory and practice in preservice teacher education. This chapter elaborates the ways in which a series of three one-semester field-based teacher education courses were redesigned and co-taught by university faculty and elementary school teachers to facilitate teacher candidates learning to teach through supported, shared experiences in a PDS. Models of the courses and data excerpts from preservice teachers are provided in order to provide a variety of insights into the use of field-based methods courses.

Section III (Enriching Content Area Instruction) takes a refreshing look at strategies to enrich content area instruction. Researchers identify a range of PDS initiatives designed to target learning outcomes for PreK–12 students, teacher candidates, inservice teachers, school leaders, and university faculty. The diversity of studies in this section serves to highlight the interdependent nature of PDS work and ways in which PDSs continue to respond to constituents’ multifaceted needs. A commonality among the research studies presented here is to uncover innovative approaches to address literacy development and mathematics instruction through co-teaching, action research, peer coaching, or professional development sessions for inservice teachers.

Tunks and O’Brien described a PDS project whereby PDS preservice teachers learned to tutor elementary and middle school students in mathematics. Both the university and schools in the PDS collaborative adjusted instruction, space, time, and general support for preservice teachers to tutor students. One result was an effective change in preservice teachers’ perceptions of themselves as teachers of mathematics. A second result was significant achievement differences at the p<.05 level across all six years.

The work of Guerra, De La Cruz, and Phillips yielded positive results for all parties involved in field experiences in PDSs, which are vital to their teacher preparation program. This chapter describes research conducted with teacher candidates who taught a mathematics lesson to third graders in front of the collaborating teacher and peers. The peers provided feedback on the lessons. Data revealed that preparing to teach and teaching children as a section of field experiences pushes candidates to critically consider three areas: (1) student thinking, (2) mathematics content, and (3) their own practice.

Leach, Johnson, Blumhardt, and Bush investigate engagement in collaborative research to improve learning for all students as a cornerstone of university–school partnerships. This chapter examines the impact of co-teaching on the academic achievement of middle school students in an inclusive general education classroom setting. Using a quasi-experimental design, statistical analyses of standardized test results indicated greater gains made by students with and without learning disabilities when compared to their non-co-taught peers.

Continuing in this section, Walker and Downey address the problem of inadequate student literacy skills by creating an action research-based professional development program to assist high school teachers in a PDS. Results indicated that teachers used their action research findings to inform their practice, theory, and/or research, based in literacy skills, to assist students, colleagues, and preservice educators. Concepts such as (1) modeling best practices, (2) using multiple methods of measurement for assessment, (3) the use of higher-order thinking skills and transition time to a new or revisited literacy-based task or theory, and (4) the pertinence of engagement have all emerged as important elements for inservice practice as well as enhancement of student learning.

This section concludes with Cunningham describing her role in a three-year research study on a professional development initiative focused on foundational literacy skills and the outcomes for teachers, student teachers, and students. She discusses how the teaching of foundational literacy skills remains one of the greatest needs for teachers at the K–2 levels, particularly for teachers who are working with high populations of English language learners from low-income households. In addition, she shares how the PDS liaison was instrumental in supporting teachers and administrators at their PDS to navigate the dilemmas that surfaced as teachers underwent training in methods with which they were unfamiliar and how that impacted curriculum and instruction as well as the teachers’ beliefs about literacy learning.

Section IV (Family Engagement) underscores the important roles PDSs play in supporting family engagement in underserved communities. The chapters encourage readers to create a range of experiences for teacher candidates to learn the value of working with families to support students’ academic success while simultaneously strengthening the notion of parents as key partners in their child’s education. Included in this section is a fresh look at the role PDS liaisons play in a community school serving under-resourced students and families.

In “Supporting Mathematics Learning in a PDS Network,” Tunks and Williams address a need to engage Latino parents and children in community mathematics learning events. From this need, Fiesta Math Night/Fiesta de Noche de Matematicas was formed through the collaborative efforts of teachers, PDS interns, and university personnel. The events, across six years, served approximately 7,000 parents and children. In the final year of the project, 2012, parents were observed at FMN, were asked to complete surveys, and were interviewed. Results of the data analysis indicated that parents’ perspectives of the events were positive, primarily because the parents were engaged in a fun, inclusive, and culturally relevant mathematics learning environment with their children.

Rosenthal, Bonafe, and Lebron’s chapter addresses the need to support literacy efforts through a collaboration between the university faculty, teacher candidates, and school–parent liaison. This chapter focuses on assistance that the school–parent liaison provided in a section of a literacy course to engage teacher candidates in working with families of children. The results of this collaborative effort are reported, which include the impact that candidates’ attitudes have about family involvement at this large, urban PDS, as well as developing their strategy use and efficacy for engaging families.

Ferrara and Gómez describe the expanded roles of two PDS liaisons as they negotiated the new dimensions of working to facilitate collaboration among all the partners in a full-service community school while fostering a focus on whole-child education. Qualitative data sources from the classroom teachers, partners, and liaisons demonstrate how the NAPDS’ essentials 1, 3, and 8 are fundamental to the success of all partners of the full service PDS community school.

This volume continues the journey of entities throughout the country in their quest to share their work on PDSs. Authors have investigated diverse areas of research—all of which give us a more vivid picture of the work that partnerships are doing in the effort to bridge the theory-to-practice gap. What becomes clear is that these partnerships are worthwhile and should be studied continuously due to their promise for improving teaching and learning at every level, but most importantly, for our students.

JoAnne, Janice, and Irma