School University Partnerships In Action

This book provides new knowledge, insights and experience about school-university partnerships. Drawing upon evidence from international research of the world’s most improved systems, and learning from a UK research council funded ‘knowledge exchange’ project, it reveals that when the profound differences between the practice worlds of schools and the theoretical worlds of university academics are embraced and cherished, rather than eschewed, school-university partnerships become exciting avenues of learning which connect, challenge and transform the thinking and practice of all those involved. Over its eight chapters, the book explores uncertainties, challenges and possibilities faced by those who seek to create, develop and sustain school-university partnerships that aspire to improve the practice and understanding of the leadership of teaching and learning in schools. It explicates and elucidates precepts, principles and practices for achieving such successful partnerships between higher education and school leaders, and contextualises these in terms of policy wide developments internationally. This book will appeal to school leaders internationally, leadership training organisations, and academics who lead postgraduate leadership and management programmes.

Rethinking School-University Partnerships: A New Way Forward provides educational leaders in K-12 schools and colleges of education with insight, advice, and direction into the task of creating partnerships. In current times, colleges of education and local school districts need each other like never before. School districts struggle with pipeline, recruitment, and retention issues. Colleges of education face declining enrollment and a shifting educational landscape that fundamentally changes the way that teachers are trained and what local school districts expect their teachers to be able to do. It is with these overlapping constraints and converging interests that partnerships emerge as a foundational strategy for strengthening the education of our teachers. With nearly 80 contributors from 16 states (and Jamaica) representing 39 educational institutions, the partnerships described in this book are different from the ways in which colleges of education and school districts have traditionally worked with one another. In the past, these loose relationships centered primarily on student teaching and/or field experience placements. In this arrangement, the relationship was directed towards ensuring that the local schools were amenable to hosting students from the college of education so that the student/candidate could complete the requirements to earn a teaching license. In our view, this paradigm needs to be enlarged and shifted.

This book addresses the complex issues that arise in school-university collaborative action research projects. Employing sociocultural perspectives on examining professional practices of in-service teachers, it examines the complexities of negotiating beliefs, identities and interpersonal relations when educators from two different institutional cultures collaborate. Specifically, the book explores issues such as the discourses that are operative in school-university collaboration for English language teacher education; the way in which beliefs, interpersonal relations and identities are negotiated in school-university partnership; what tensions and complexities operate in collaborative action research discourse in an educational context; and how school-university collaboration can be achieved. The book adopts a critical perspective and provides arguments from a non-Western sociocultural perspective.

Now more than ever, the collaboration of researchers and practitioners from both PreK-12 and higher education in partnership and in research is imperative for solving problems in teaching and learning and for instituting fundamental change in education. There is growing empirical work on educational change and improvement in school-university partnership settings that should be explored. This applied research and research design impacts the initiation and institution of change in partnership settings. Thus, the role of research is an essential lever for reform. Practical perspectives are necessary to share for shaping a future in partnerships and to promote collaborative action and inquiry in school-university and professional development partnership settings. This includes changes in the partnerships’ classroom teaching, in school and college policies, student outcomes, course content, and in partnerships’ teacher education programs. Change and Improvement in School-University Partnership Settings: Emerging Research and Opportunities spotlights the types of research, research designs, and exemplar studies that were successful in producing changes and improvements in the longitudinal partnerships the author founded and directed. The chapters reveal what worked and why it worked along with brief descriptions of the exemplar studies that served as catalysts for change. In addition, a brief history of the partnership movement in America is given along with an overview of the current landscape of the different types of education partnerships prevalent today and their key research features. This book is ideal for researchers, scholars, teacher-researchers, change agents, professors, teacher educators, students, and graduate fellows interested in conducting practical and effective applied research for change and improvement in school-university partnership settings.

"Partnerships in Action explores, at multiple levels, a university-school-community partnership in action. The chapters provide rich and dynamic accounts of the activities that make up this partnership, within a context of extreme social inequality. The contributors share an enduring commitment to whole-school improvement. They describe how, through interdisciplinary collaboration, they negotiate the multiple political, social and structural complexities which arise in the coming together of the partners. The book's uniqueness lies in its combination of practical implementation and sound theoretical scholarship from a range of disciplines. Not only does the partnership strengthen the university's commitment to community-engagement, but it offers new insights to all students, stakeholders, academic staff, and social researchers - in universities, education departments and NGOs - with an interest in improving schooling, and building social justice."--Back cover.

"Partnerships in Action explores, at multiple levels, a university-school-community partnership in action. The chapters provide rich and dynamic accounts of the activities that make up this partnership, within a context of extreme social inequality. The contributors share an enduring commitment to whole-school improvement. They describe how, through interdisciplinary collaboration, they negotiate the multiple political, social and structural complexities which arise in the coming together of the partners. The book's uniqueness lies in its combination of practical implementation and sound theoretical scholarship from a range of disciplines. Not only does the partnership strengthen the university's commitment to community-engagement, but it offers new insights to all students, stakeholders, academic staff, and social researchers - in universities, education departments and NGOs - with an interest in improving schooling, and building social justice."--Back cover.

Teacher education in the United States is changing to meet new policy demands for centering clinical practice and developing robust school-university partnerships to better prepare high-quality teachers for tomorrow’s schools. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SCHOOLS (PDSs) have recently been cited in national reports as exemplars of high-quality school-university partnerships in the clinical preparation of teachers. According to the National Association for Professional Development Schools, PDSs have Nine Essentials that distinguish them from other school-university collaborations. But even with that guidance, working across the boundaries of schools and universities remains messy, complex, and, quite frankly, hard. That’s why, perhaps, there is such diversity in school-university partnerships. For the last thirty years, educators have been fascinated yet puzzled with how to build PDSs. Clinically Based Teacher Education in Action: Cases from PDSs addresses that perplexity by providing images of the possible in school-university collaboration. Each chapter closely examines one of the NAPDS Nine Essentials and then provides three cases from PDSs that target that particular essential. In this way, readers can see how different PDSs from across the globe are innovating to actualize that essential in PDS development. The editors provide commentary, addressing themes across the three cases. Each chapter ends with questions to start collaborative conversations and a field-based activity meant to propel your PDS work forward.