Plan for Direct and Periodic Involvement of Teacher Education Faculty Members Final Report of the Missouri Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Direct and Periodic Involvement Task Force

Adopted September 27, 1988

Missouri Statute 168.400.3, RSMO, requires faculty teaching or supervising teacher education students to further their professional development through periodic, direct personal involvement in the public schools in grades kindergarten through twelve. The following plan was developed by a subcommittee of the Missouri Association of Colleges of Teacher Education to meet the intent of this legislation. These voluntary guidelines provide a basis for the development of individual campus initiatives.

Goal: 

To enhance the quality of teacher preparation programs in the State of Missouri through professional involvement of teacher education faculty members in public school settings.

Objectives:

1. Acquaint teacher education faculty with new ideas, concepts and programs found in the public schools.

2. Enable teacher education faculty to reidentify with the day to day experiences of classroom teachers and the public school environment.

3. Provide teacher education faculty the opportunity to develop ideas for action research and apply research findings to classroom situation.

4. Provide teacher education faculty with opportunities to identify resources (persons/programs, etc.) for possible inclusion in the teacher education program.

5. Improve communication between the teacher education program and the school community.

6. Provide opportunities for teacher education faculty to develop professional growth plans.

Principles Governing Effective Programs of Direct Involvement of Teacher Educators in the Schools.

1. Programs must be planned. Incidental, haphazard or ad hoc arrangement between teacher educators and local-schools are not likely to be very effective; furthermore, they may be detrimental to the teacher education program if they remove teacher educators from their other responsibilities too often; also they may be disruptive to the local school program if they a-e not carefully integrated.

2. Programs must be cooperative. Programs should be mutually beneficial to both teacher education programs and to local schools. To that end, all parties should be involved in planning and monitoring the effectiveness of each program.

3. Programs must be adequately supported. Effective programs are likely to require considerable effort, time, and perhaps expense on the part of the teacher educator's employing institutions. Faculty must be adequately compensated in one form or another (i.e., reduced teaching loads and reduction of other duties.) Teacher educators who are required simply to add "direct and periodic Involvement" onto their already fragmented lives and schedules are not likely to profit by the experience. Nor are they likely to make a favorable impression on their colleagues in the K-12 schools.

4. Programs must be continuing, regular or on-going. They should not be isolated episodes concocted merely to fulfill the requirement of a specified number of days in the schools. Attention should be given to preparation for the experience and to follow up after the primary experience. Insomuch as possible, programs should be integrated in the regular routine of school and college; they should be carefully planned and rigorously monitored. Activities scheduled for the teacher educators should be appropriate to their preparation and relevant to their assignments in the teacher educator program.

5. Programs should be flexible. Each teacher educator should be able to choose from among several models and select the model that will be appropriate to his or her situation. No one model is likely to be effective in all institutions; in fact, no one model will work for all teacher educators in the same institution.

6. Programs must be comprehensive. They should apply to all individuals directly involved in teacher education, whether they be housed in colleges or departments of education or in other academic units. They should apply, likewise, to educators of counselors, librarians, administrators and other school personnel. Professors who teach courses in evaluation or assessment of teachers should be required to return to the classrooms of teachers whose students are like those who will be evaluated. Programs also should be provided for teachers of child and adolescent psychology, the psychology of learning, standardized testing and courses that deal directly with students, schools or instruction.

7. Programs should be evaluated for their effectiveness. Such evaluation should include evaluation of the effectiveness of the program by the teacher educators involved, by their immediate supervisors, and by the school personnel with whom they work. They should be evaluated for the effectiveness of their contribution to the teacher education program, to the teacher educator's morale and self-perception, and to the school programs in which they take place.

Five Possible Approaches to Programs of Direct Involvement of Teacher Educators in the Schools Might Include:

1. The leave of absence model. Teacher educators would be given faculty development leaves of absence for a specified time (i.e., a quarter, a semester, or even a year) to take on an appropriate assignment in a school. The assignment could involve team-teaching with regularly assigned staff, assignment of full responsibility for a position, and/or successive assignments for brief but reasonable periods in several positions, perhaps even at different grade levels or in different buildings. Year-long assignments may involve compensation from the school either to the teacher educators involved or to their home institutions.

2. Released time model. This would work similar to the model described above, except that the teacher educator would not be assigned to the school full-time for the period specified but for one-quarter, one-third, or one-half time. In other words, teacher educators would be relieved of a portion of their university responsibilities during a given term and, in turn, would devote a commensurate amount of time to the public schools to which they would be assigned. In these instances, colleges or departments of education would need to employ personnel to assume the vacated responsibilities.

3. Exchange model. Qualified personnel in public schools and in teacher education institutions would simply exchange responsibilities for an agreed upon amount of time. They would continue to receive salary and other benefits from their own institutions. This model is patterned after exchange programs between American universities' and foreign universities' faculties.

4. Partnership model. Teacher educators over a period of three years would work in partnership with colleagues in a local school district. They may teach model lessons or units, assist in student assessment, serve in the schools to develop and pilot curricula, team teach with beginning teachers, and so forth. In other words, they would do work needed by the local schools that would involve them directly in classrooms and with students. In turn, their colleagues in the schools would agree for the same period of time to make presentations to professional education classes on the college campus, host student aides and observers from the teacher education programs, supervise student teachers, and cooperate in developing and revising trainer educations programs. As a result, both teachers and teacher educators would be working together on a continual and regular basis, the days of direct involvement may occur over the three-year period. This model is patterned after the relationship between teacher educators and clinic teachers in laboratory schools.

5. Integrated activities model. The teacher educators may be directly involved in the schools (in fact, assigned to the schools for certain days of the week) as a part of their regular university assignment (See examples).

Professional Development Plan

Each teacher education program in the State of Missouri will develop its own Professional Development Plan for each teacher education faculty member. This plan will be developed in collaboration with the head of the teacher education unit or other designated administrator and should be kept on is by the head of the teacher education unit.

Involvement Activities

These suggested activities should be individualized for each member based on teaching assignment, felt needs, and so forth. A diversity of activities will need to be completed by each faculty member. The types of activities and the timeline to achieve completion should be clearly shown in an individual faculty member's 5-year Professional Development Plan.

1. Substitute teaching.

2. Collaborative or team-teaching. For example: Planning and teaching a three week unit in Social Studies.

3. Full-time teaching. For example: A semester sabbatical with the Public Schools.

4. Teaching a school-based methods course. For example: Planning with a class-room teacher and providing some direct instruction to Public School students.

5. Planning and implementing incentive grants.

6. Serving on professional development committees.

8. Serving on curricular committees, school improvement committees, etc.

9. Providing technical assistance/support as requested by the local school districts.

10. Serving on Career Ladder committees.

11. Planning and conducting cooperative field-based research.

12. Involvement in co-curricular/extra curricular activities, especially at the junior/senior high levels.

13. Attendance at public school inservice programs and State Department inservice programs.

14. Involvement in local/state professional teacher organizations such as MSTA, NEA, IRA, etc.

15. Involvement with appropriate age group students in a setting other than public school, such as Boy/Girl Scouts, YMCA, Boy's Club, etc.

16. Supervision of Student Teachers in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools.

17. Other similar activities.