Eloise Lopez Metcalfe

1. UCLA Center X Teacher Education Program Eloise Lopez Metcalfe Grow Your Own SummitChicago, Illinois May 12, 2006

2. The Center X ExperimentIn 1994, we asked: Is it possible to create a teacher education program that would attract a racially diverse group of college students with more than good grades—students who wanted to become urban teachers in order to further social justice in the world around them—and then engage them for two years in an intensive program focused exclusively on the theories and practices they would need to stay and be successful in high-poverty urban schools? Jeannie Oakes, Founder Megan Franke, Director

3. Center X Teacher Education Program • An explicit commitment to social justice, made real by continual struggle about what it means and how it is enacted in urban schools • Engaging a diverse group of faculty and teacher candidates in small, long-term learning communities (teams and cohorts) • Viewing learning as social and dialogical inquiry within communities of practice • Constant grounding of practice in theory and of theory in practice, both in university courses and in K-12 fieldwork

4. A social justice perspective • Considers the values & politics that pervade education, as well as the technical matters of teaching and learning • Asks critical questions about how conventional schooling came to be and about who benefits from the status quo • Pays attention to inequalities & seeks alternatives • Treats cultural & linguistic diversity as an asset to teaching and learning

5. Our Mission • Provide high-status preservice education and radically improve urban schooling for California’s racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse children

6. Goal…prepare teachers with • Commitment • Capacity • Resilience

7. Four roles for TEP Teachers • Caring advocate for all students • Reflective, Inquiry based practitioner • Generative change agent • Community Builder

8. All about learning • Learning as a social activity • Identity • Knowledge and skills • Inquiry • Community

9. Identity

10. Inquiry • Learning occurs through ongoing dialogue • Formal and informal • Inquiry groups • Car rides

11. Knowledge and skills • Develop as we do our work • In apprenticeship • In scholarship and practice

12. Multiple communities Urban schools Urban communities UCLA families Situated in work Developing relationships Community projects Cohort model Urban Education Network Community

13. We believe that our theory of learning, enacted across multiple sites, supports teachers to become skilled classroom practitioners as well as public intellectuals who work for educational equity and access through multiple forms of democratic participation

14. “What we need in teacher education is not better generic strategies for “teaching multicultural education” or “teaching for diversity” nor more lessons about basket making and other customs in non-Anglo cultures. Instead, I propose that what we need are generative ways for prospective teachers, experienced teachers, and teacher educators alike to work together in communities of learners – to explore and consider their own assumptions,understand the values and practices of families and cultures that are different from their own, and construct pedagogy that takes these into account in locally appropriate and culturally sensitive ways.” (Marilyn Cochran-Smith)

15. Center X Teacher Education Program • Integrating the technical dimensions of teaching with the moral, cultural and political • Emphasizing the importance of knowing communities as well as knowing schools and classrooms • Extending formal preparation into the first year of teaching • Maintaining connections and support beyond the first year

16. TEP Description 2 year program focusing on Social Justice in Los Angeles Partnership Schools: • Year 1 • coursework, observation participation, student teaching (preliminary credential) • Year 2 • full-time teaching, weekly seminar, inquiry project (Masters Degree)

17. Two Year Graduate Program Novice Year: Embedded Assessments and Teaching Event Preliminary Credential

18. Resident Year: Advanced Study Course Work Resident Year Inquiry Master of Education Professional Clear Credential

19. Center Schools

20. Center Schools have:

21. Center Schools: Challenges • StudyingCeers in Motion • Purpose • Our study • Focusing on careers • Tracing career development • Career pathways • Role changes • Shifter survey • Work and workplaces • Reasons for shifting • Future plans • The Education Profession • Questions

22. Research Projects Retention: Karen Hunter Quartz Workforce: Kim Barraza Lawerence Social Justice Inquiry: Rae Jeane Williams

23. Longitudinal Research • 7-year study: 2000-2006 • 10 cohorts of UCLA Center X graduates (n=1,100) • Survey and qualitative methods • Secondary/comparative databases: NCES Schools and Staffing Survey and California State Department of Education data

24. Increased Retention

25. Diversifying the Workforce

26. Diversity of Students

27. 6 Case Inquiries • Lisa Winberg - Connecting With Parents Through Oral Histories • Genessee Quizon - Critical Literacy in the First Grade • Courtney Moore - The Homework Dilemma • Nathaniel Pickering - Mister What’s with All this Gay Stuff?: Students’ Feelings About Queer Issues • Claudia Rojas - Students Organizing for Educational Change • Chi Nguyen - The Impact of Grouping Practices in a Chemistry Class

28. Theoretical Frame Social Cultural Theory • Vygotsky (1934, 1980) • Freire (1971) • Lave & Wenger (1991) • Moll (1992, 2005) • Valencia & Solorzano (1997) Learning Theory • Collins, Brown & Newmann, 1989; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Franke & Grouws, 1997 Language & Literacy Theory • Cummins, 2001; Gee, 1990; Labov, 1969)

29. Social Justice Inquiry Project Findings - 6 Teaching Practices • Complexity – they are aware of the complexity of urban issues • Reflection – they continue to examine their roles as educators • Challenge – they question conventional teaching practices • Knowledge – they increase their understandings of social justice issues • Responsibility – they accept responsibility for student learning • High Expectations – they have high expectations of all students

30. A necessary, but insufficient definition of teacher quality: • Expert in the subjects they teach; • Understand how children learn; • Use pedagogical strategies that make subject matter knowledge accessible to students.

31. What more does high quality urban teaching require? • Choose to teach low-income students in communities of color • Engage students from whom society expects little in producing work of high intellectual quality • Develop challenging “urban” curriculum • Enhance students’ college access & life chances • Bridge the multiple worlds of home, community, and school • Contribute to developing a community of professionals • Engage in activism to disrupt the status quo of schools in low-income communities of color • Commit for the long haul

32. Learning to Struggle • Keeping our graduates working in the schools that need them the most demands that they understand how to struggle within unsupportive systems in order to further both the life chances of their students and a broader quest for social justice

33. Struggling for Justice • No teacher leaves Center X believing that their good intentions, social convictions, or their own privileged educations alone could create good schooling for their students • Theories, knowledge and skill • Building coalitions

34. too angry to leave too well-prepared to leave too supported to leave too activist to leave