Working Together on Teacher Success: How Schools and Universities Can Bridge Their Culture Gap

Working Together on Teacher Success: How Schools and Universities Can Bridge Their Culture Gap New Teacher Center Winter Symposium February 3, 2009 Joseph McDonald New York University

Acknowledgments • The New York City Department of Education • The Partnership for Teacher Excellence • The Petrie Foundation • The U.S. Department of Education, Teacher Quality Enhancement Program, • Teachers for a New Era Network • Wachovia Foundation

Potential Power of Complementarity University School Theoretical Loosely coupled Skeptical Stable Traditional Prestigious Comparatively lots of resource slack (time, space, human capital, intellectual capital) Grounded Tightly coupled Resolute Unsettled Experimental Battered Comparatively little resource slack

What is needed to Tap the Power of Complementarity? Championship Interpretation Contact Formal Agreement Action space

1. Championship Champions with clout on both sides Aware of the culture gap Appreciate the value of the university’s social capital, and of the school’s grounding. Appreciate other potential yields from complementarity Speak well of the other

2. Interpretation • Bi-cultural liaisons on both sides • Return each other’s phone calls • Show up in each other’s world • Feel empowered in each other’s world • Scout opportunities for mutual self-interest • Expect and handle problems • Interpret one world to the other

3. Contact Co-teaching Critical mass of student teachers and pre-student teachers (resource & pipeline; community of practice & whole-school mentorship) Research involvement Shared space Service on each other’s committees

4. Formal agreement To operate in mutual self-interest To exchange liaisons To scout needs and resources on both sides To license each other’s use of the relationship To work toward critical mass in contact To expect sustainability, but exit gracefully at either partner’s choosing

5. Action Space • Something of mutual interest is at stake. • A community of reliable inquiry has formed. • Multiple sources of knowledge and intuition are brought to bear. • Resources are committed. • There is a sense that we have to take action, and that there is a we.

Such conditions offer the greatest grounds for hope, because they liberate perception & understanding. Donald A. Schon, author of The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic, 1983)

Partnership: Phase Two Build on the structures and culture of the first three years: • Host schools • Liaisons • Research • Action space

Action Space • Co-teaching Inquiries on the Lower East Side • MS 131 course in literacy • Steinhardt/Silver/DOE joint course • Intervisitations • ELL Thinktank • Early Career Project

Go deeper • Collaborate with the DOE’s efforts to encourage evidence-based teaching – using tools like inquiry teams and ARIS • Work to infuse preparation for evidence-based teaching in Inquiries, methods, and student teaching • Work collaboratively with our host schools to make them centers of R&D in evidence-based teaching

Working Together on Teacher Success: How Schools and Universities Can Bridge Their Culture Gap