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The outcomes examined in this study are indicators of increasing professionalism of educators, and the extent to which these reforms have made a systemic impact by creating durable, equivalent changes in the institutions within the partnerships. Five dimensions of professionalism were identified as indicators of progress toward enhancing the professionalism of educators. They include the development of (a) a culture of inquiry; (b) ongoing teacher development; (c) collaborative cultures; (d) expanding professional networks, and (e) a strong client orientation. These dimensions of professionalism were examined across each partnership initiative. The push for teacher professionalism is usually discussed in terms of K - 12 teachers, because they have the most direct opportunity to influence students, and thus are assumed to be the critical change agents in education reform (Fullan, 1994; Sarason, 1993). Rarely are these standards of professionalism discussed in regards to teacher educators in colleges and universities. However, if one criterion for professional status is rigorous training and standards for entry into the occupation, then it is vital that these standards also apply to those charged with the preparation of future teachers.
Recent national studies suggest that there is cause for concern in this area. The Holmes Group (1995) reported that only a small minority of university faculty are comfortable working in public schools. A 1993 survey, "Research about Teacher Education," reported that although university faculty participation in public school settings is increasing, on average, teacher education professors have been out of K -12 classrooms for 15 years, and a "fair number of education faculty are uninformed about major standards-setting, professional development, and assessment activity in this country" (Bradley, 1994, p.2).
Although each of the partnerships has as part of their mission the simultaneous renewal of teacher education and schools, in each site the greatest emphasis has been on teacher and school development. Consequently, that is also where the greatest impact can be seen. All three of the reform efforts have made substantial progress in changing the culture of schools. While significant changes have been made, or are in the process of being implemented in the teacher education programs, progress in terms of the outcomes is far less pronounced. The visitor can detect pockets of promising outcomes here and there, but these places are not always connected, nor is there an underlying infrastructure to further connect and sustain them.
The outcome findings reported in this section are integrated across sites but are differentiated by organizational level as outcomes were usually quite different at the school and university levels. Developments in the partnership organizations are also discussed.
Lieberman and Miller (1992) described five essential elements that combine to create a culture of inquiry in schools. This culture of inquiry requires that teacher development activities include:
notions of colleagueship, openness, and trust; they provide time and space for disciplined inquiry; they focus on teacher learning of content-in-context; they provide opportunities for new leadership roles; and they become engaged in networking activities and coalition building beyond the boundaries of the school. (p.13)
Similarly, the Holmes Group (1995) calls for "improvement-oriented inquiry" that has two components.
One kind of inquiry calls for acquiring and exercising the habits of reflecting, questioning, and trying out and evaluating ways of teaching by one’s self and with colleagues . . . . A second kind of inquiry involves systematic research and development aimed at generating and applying new knowledge by members of both the school and university faculty involved with the PDS. Practice becomes the locus of inquiry. (pp.81 - 82)
Across the three school-university partnerships, the strongest impact has been at the school level, where norms and ways of working together have changed significantly, varying in degrees depending on building leadership and the length of involvement in the partnership endeavor. The most profound changes in the culture of schools have occurred in the oldest initiative, in Southern Maine, where the Southern Maine Partnership (SMP) is in its tenth year of existence.
School-Level Outcomes
The district renewal effort was just beginning in the Gorham School District when the notion of a partnership was formulated. To ensure that the partnership would address the most important concerns of local schools, the Southern Maine Partnership began by establishing the link between research and school improvement. At the same time, the principal and one teacher in rural Lovell, Maine, applied for a small grant to fund "Research into Practice." The project’s goals were to (a) create and enable dialogue about current educational research; (b) provide a format for peer observation on a regular basis; and (c) create a professional climate that promotes risk taking, growth, and collaboration.
The SMP entered the scene and provided ongoing support and socialization into the norms of continuous learning. It began as an informal network of teachers and administrators who tackled issues that were of concern to practicing educators. The purpose was to discuss current educational research and its implications for the classroom. The core of the Partnership’s teaching and learning activities was a network of Educators’ Groups, in which K - 12 educators (including principals and superintendents) met monthly across districts to discuss readings and explore innovative practices. The response to the partnership format flourished with leadership from several key supporters, including the dean of the college of education, district superintendents, and building principals. The monthly meetings provided teachers the opportunity to learn where to access current literature, and it gave teachers a forum for discussing what they were doing in their schools and classrooms.
More important than the content of discussions were the norms developed surrounding the discussions. The purpose of the forums was to challenge participants to look critically at their own practice, and to question commonly held assumptions and current paradigms. The groups were "owned" by the participants who were free to determine the agenda, creating a safe and supportive environment in which the norms of reflective practice could flourish.
These norms of engaging in critical dialogue and reflection were taken back to individual school buildings, where they began to permeate the culture of the participating schools. The climate at White Rock School is characteristic of long-time SMP members. One teacher’s description of the school’s atmosphere and her colleague’s attitudes exemplifies this culture. "They [teachers] keep pushing each other to excel, and then they are also there to celebrate and boost each other up. We are so bonded, we have worked at developing a culture that encourages continuous improvement, and we keep working hard to feel good."
In West Virginia, the Benedum Project proposal process has begun to foster a culture of inquiry by promoting norms of reflection, practice improvement, evaluation, and collegiality. Criteria for funding proposals includes documentation of how each proposal is aligned with the PDS belief statements (which includes that all within a PDS are learners) and the school’s vision and strategic plans. At East Dale Elementary and among the core group of active participants at Morgantown High, these reflective practices are apparent in their proposals, the curriculum developed, changes made in instructional practices, and the dynamics of school governance and collegial relationships within the school and with university faculty. Although this culture hasn’t permeated the entire high school, more and more faculty are gradually becoming involved.
Partnership-Level Outcomes
As described in the previous section, the SMP has had a major long-lasting effect on its member schools and school districts. The organization promotes questioning, reflective practice, and continuous improvement by sponsoring and supporting a wide range of restructuring projects.
The Learning Consortium has always had a commitment to evaluate all of its programs to determine their effectiveness, and to identify needed changes and improvements. There has also been a commitment to disseminate what has been learned through the partnership. A substantial amount has been shared through articles, presentations at conferences and workshops, and in-house reports. Although research has not been an integral part of the Consortium’s work, this aspect is growing. Increased awareness and expertise in the boards have facilitated this focus.
The most significant influence of the Consortium on its members has probably been on those most actively involved in steering and planning committees, which has been effective for dissemination, as these are the people in positions to affect policy within their boards. The partnership has fostered questioning of current and future practices, and has been an important vehicle for sharing information and "best practices." The climate of the Consortium was described as "healthy competition among the boards -- they keep pushing each other to improve." On the individual level, one member felt she had learned about a number of resources, how to best direct her energy, and most importantly she had developed an extensive professional network with other boards and with the university.
The Benedum Project began to promote a culture of inquiry by mobilizing cross-sector committees to oversee the redesign of the teacher education program and PDS development, through the establishment of criteria for funding proposals, and by providing support for collaborative research projects. In addition, the project staff was committed to documenting and disseminating the work of the partnership, through a number of papers and conference presentations. Evaluations of the project’s efforts have been limited to date. No baseline data were collected prior to the beginning of the project, and there has been no systematic collection of evaluation data. At the urging of the funding agency, evaluation efforts have recently begun that involve participation from all of the PDSs. Evaluation of the college’s teacher education program, however, is not included in those plans.
University-Level Outcomes
In each of the three universities, there are signs that the culture of the college of education is beginning to change, but the changes have been gradual and are less pervasive than in the schools. The new emphasis on research at FEUT in Toronto, and the addition of new faculty with strong research backgrounds has begun to change the culture. Initial faculty development efforts have stimulated faculty discussion and study groups, and there have also been a few joint research projects with OISE and the boards.
In Southern Maine, while the strong relationships between the individual university and school-based cosite directors have produced a great deal of mutual learning, the reflective culture that has been the hallmark of reform is not as prevalent within the College of Education itself. Currently there is no quality control and little communication about course content or instructional methods across the five ETEP sites. Teacher interns indicated the need for improvements in the content and format of courses, and in the quality of professors’ teaching.
In West Virginia, the initial enthusiasm for creating a new teacher education program stimulated a great deal of questioning, discussion, and assessment of current practices. However, most faculty felt that experience has not had a lasting effect on the culture of the college. The new design is viewed more as a finished product than as a work in progress that requires continual evaluation and revision. Some faculty indicated that the climate didn’t promote self-criticism. "It’s as though the university is advocating teacher reform for them (in the schools) but not for us (in the university)."
Preservice-Level Outcomes
The quality of university course work is a major issue in all three sites. Traditional criticisms of teacher education programs concerning irrelevant theory that is disconnected from practical concerns still apply in places to these three programs. There also seem to be few mechanisms for critical examination of university courses, either in content or pedagogy. While there are examples in every site of exceptional instructors who integrate theory and practice, the only consistently strong program is the small elementary Learning Consortium Pilot program in Toronto. Let us describe this program in a bit more detail.
In the LC Option, there is a dedicated team of faculty who plan together and also work with partner schools. Students are socialized into professional norms of inquiry and collegial dialogue through a program requirement to maintain a portfolio throughout the year. While students are free to choose many of the entries in their portfolios, there are some specific requirements. Student portfolios must cover three general areas: pragmatic, theoretical, and experiential. In addition, students are required to share their reflective writing with others: colleagues, cooperating teachers, or university instructors, and to get feedback in writing from others on their ideas. This has proved an effective vehicle for stimulating dialogue and identifying common areas of interest among colleagues -- an example of the need for pressure and support in early implementation of change initiatives referred to by Huberman & Miles (1984).
In Southern Maine, the field-based experience is exemplary, but the course work is weak. In Gorham, the interactive response journal and portfolio process embeds reflection into the intern’s learning. Student teachers reported that the reflection required to build a portfolio was very helpful in understanding their own development, and it taught them what a powerful tool self-reflection can be. Similarly, the response journals required in the Gorham program were a useful tool for stimulating reflection and dialogue between the student interns and the site coordinators, and between the interns and their cooperating teachers. Interns used the journals to ask questions, which were responded to sometimes in writing and sometimes in face-to-face discussions. The amount of feedback in the journals demonstrated a real investment on the part of cooperating teachers in the student teacher’s development.
Student interns reported that while the ETEP program is far more challenging than most teacher education programs, the course work was demanding because of the amount of work, not the content. Interns noted a significant elementary bias in many core courses that were less relevant to secondary interns. There was also a fair amount of redundancy and "busy work" that was often not connected to their school experiences.
The new design for teacher education at WVU incorporates ongoing training in reflection and research through a professional inquiry course and a teacher-as-researcher course. The current program provides little in the way of socialization into a culture of inquiry. Student teachers are required to keep a reflective journal, but there is little structure to stimulate thoughtful reflection or discussion about issues of teaching and learning. Currently the cohort model provides important emotional support, but little structure to promote professional collegiality within it. Professional dialogue is largely dependent on the relationship between the student teacher and cooperating teacher: in Teacher Education Centers, the frequent observation and feedback from the site coordinator provide student teachers with constructive feedback for improving their teaching; where there is no site coordinator, the evaluation process, based on a few brief observations from university supervisors, is not effective in the eyes of either student teachers or cooperating teachers.
In all three sites, students were either required or encouraged to keep reflective journals and develop portfolios. However, only where these vehicles for reflection were required and where they structured ongoing feedback did they serve as a valuable tools. When journals are not read and responded to, they are either done hurriedly or not done at all -- the opportunity for developing deeper insights is lost.
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[Assessment of Outcomes: Overview of General Findings: Professionalism and Institutionalization (part 2 of 4)]