88. School Partnerships

What does it mean to have a collaborative learning community inclusive of faculty, professionals in the field, and current students? In this episode Dr. Christine Walsh and Kara Shore join us to explore one such partnership that is rich in mentorship, professional development, and mutual respect that could serve as a model for other schools and programs.

Christine is a visiting assistant professor and professional development liaison in the curriculum and instruction department at SUNY Oswego. Kara is a Principal at Leighton elementary school here in Oswego.

Show Notes

Transcript

John: What does it mean to have a collaborative learning community inclusive of faculty, professionals in the field, and current students? In this episode we explore one such partnership that is rich in mentorship, professional development, and mutual respect that could serve as a model for other schools and programs.

[MUSIC]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

[MUSIC]

John: Our guests today are Dr. Christine Walsh and Kara Shore. Christine is a visiting assistant professor and professional development liaison in the curriculum and instruction department at SUNY Oswego. Kara is a Principal at Leighton elementary school here in Oswego. Welcome.

Kara: Thank you.

Christine: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Rebecca: Today’s teas are…

Kara: Sweet tea…

Christine: …and Jasmine tea.

Rebecca: Those sound good.

John: Ginger Peach Black tea.

Rebecca: And I have Christmas tea in July.

John: So we’ve invited you here to discuss the partnership between the Curriculum and Instruction department at SUNY Oswego and Leighton Elementary School. Tell us a little bit about that program and how it got started.

Christine: Sure, I’ll start. SUNY Oswego’s School of Education has a long standing relationship with Oswego City School District. I came to the college in 1990 and we had already been working together in preparation of high quality teachers, both elementary teachers and secondary teachers…. teachers in the school district except our in-service students for practicum for student teaching placements. And so in the 90s, we began a PDS—Professional Development School—partnership across Oswego County, and Oswego City School District has really been at the forefront of that since the 90s. I’ve been the PDS liaison here for about 10 years and so it just makes sense to continue enriching that partnership in many different ways. And this is our third year now in the Leighton-Fitzhugh learning community and it really is reaching its richest quality at this point, and in part because of Kara coming in as principal there.

Kara: Thank you, Chris, for saying that—for me when I came in three years ago, really got off the ground running as far as starting this partnership. And we did some planning in the first summer that I came. And really what we talked about was, and these are kind of Chris’s words I’ll use—how can we make it clinically rich—was the term that she used and, kind of thinking about that as we go forward, how can we make it so that our student teachers, or rather the student teachers that come to us from SUNY Oswego, how can we make it so that they are really getting all the experiences that they would have once they’re hired as a teacher? And so we know that from being teachers ourselves that six to eight weeks of student teaching and maybe some practicum hours is certainly helpful in that goal, but it’s really not seeing the whole picture of really what happens in a school day to day and so that’s really kind of where we started from. And then it was all the details that we had to get situated so that we can make sure that it was clinically enriched for those students that were coming into the program.

Christine: The superintendent in the Oswego district now, Dean Goewey, actually approached people in our President’s office here at the college and he said, “What can we do to really cement this relationship to go beyond what other districts are doing with SUNY Oswego School of Ed, to honor a clinically rich experience for undergrads for pre-service teachers, and bring professional development in for in-service teachers?” And so he kind of has a vision of this very strong collaborative learning community. And he said, “I’m going to give a classroom in Leighton elementary school to SUNY Oswego. This is going to be a dedicated room. The technology belongs to SUNY, the equipment, the furniture belongs to SUNY, faculty from SUNY will teach their courses there.” And so our students now take courses right at Leighton—their three education courses in the fall are right at Leighton—so we bring their faculty in to meet Kara’s faculty and staff. They’re an integral part of the professional development we do with teachers, our pre-service candidates are a part of our professional development now which in other districts, pre-service teachers really don’t become a part of professional development—they’re just taking their coursework—but we like to see the two populations together, send the same messages to both groups, and it is a true learning community. We sit down every month, and all the planning is collaborative. And in those ways, it’s really become so much richer than we expected.

Kara: And really, by the students being part of that professional development, they are able to have that professional development and their classes right on our campus at Leighton and then they’re able to take that learning and go right into the classroom. So it’s not removed by a few days or a few weeks, it can happen right away. So, as we know with all learning, you can put it into practice right away, you have a better chance of solidifying what it is that you’ll be doing when you’re working with the children.

Rebecca: What do our students say about that experience of taking classes at Leighton and then being able to have that direct experience in the classroom?

Christine: I do want to start off by saying that we’ve morphed from the Leighton learning community into the Leighton-Fitzhugh learning community, because Leighton is a relatively small building now that the district office is housed there and we had so many pre-service candidates interested in being in the program, we now rely on the Fitzhugh elementary school right down the road, and the principal and teachers there are very much a part of this learning community too. And so our candidates take their classes and go right into the classrooms at Leighton or they jump in their car and they go right into classrooms at Fitzhugh and it’s seamless for them. I think they appreciate that they’re not just on campus. They know that they need to learn as much from people in schools as they’re learning from people at the college and without one of those partners, they’re not getting a really true learning experience and a realistic learning experience. We need the K-12 setting for teacher preparation, and we feel they need us in many ways as well. And so it’s not an either-or situation, I think we respect the whole package and our students now, we can see the light bulbs going off for the pre-service teachers. And they go right from class where they hear about this particular theory or method of instruction, and then they go right into their host teachers classroom and they work with children for so many more hours than what our state ed requires for teacher prep and they see it happening and they say “No, I really don’t like how that’s working,” and they question it and they really are more critical thinkers because they’re in the schools more. So they’ve got that theory-practice connection down pat.

Kara: And I would say that just my own experience as a student teacher way back when, I would have never thought to go into the principal’s office. I don’t think I remember who the principals were in the places that I was put into as a practicum student and/or student teacher. And really, I have connections with those students. So not only are they working with us day to day, they really become part of our staff in everything that they do. They’re eating lunch in the same places the teachers are eating their lunch, often. Sometimes they’re in their own classroom, so the college classroom rather so that they can have their privacy but a lot of times they’re right with our teachers even down to eating their lunch. I have parent meetings and when I have parent meetings with students, they are part of those meetings. We have CSE meetings which are special education meetings, we have open house, all those things that invite our parents in to speak with us about their children, and now these pre-service teachers, these student teachers from SUNY Oswego, they are all a part of that process. So I really get to know them as well as they get to know me so I think that’s a big distinction between what we would normally see if students are just doing those six weeks.

Rebecca: I can imagine that most students don’t think of going to the principal’s office because that would be a bad thing. [LAUGHTER]

Kara: That’s right. That’s right and we’ve got to change that, right? That paradigm shift on that. So it’s very true, it’s very true.

John: It seems like a much richer experience than they typically would receive in in-service teaching where they’re just there for a few days or portion of days each week with much more immersion in a much more realistic environment.

Christine: Absolutely. Right from the beginning, we know that the college culture and climate is so different from what we live in the schools. Our schedules are different, our calendars are different, the whole energy is different in these two settings. And so it’s so interesting to work with one foot in both places, and our candidates too, they need to be flexible because things don’t always go as planned when they’re out in the schools or when they’re at the college and they have to juggle more things on a regular basis than a typical practicum student or student teacher, but we think that’s a good thing because they have the support there. They have the support from more college people in that same location, they have support from the building principal, the host teachers in that building. It is a real learning community because there’s no hierarchy and that’s a model that I think is so important for new teachers to grasp… that it doesn’t have to be that we have to have a boss or a boss of a boss and that teachers are leaders and they need to be able to connect and communicate with administrators, teachers, it doesn’t matter what your title is. And I’m finding in our learning community, we really have that communication without the fear of hierarchical constraints, which happens in a lot of places.

Kara: Yeah, and I’m really glad you mentioned that Chris—to kind of backtrack a little bit what you said a few minutes ago—it’s that professionalism. It’s understanding what it is you need to do when you walk into a school building and how you need to carry yourself. And sometimes that’s not something we might learn in a college class. But it just becomes natural because they see everyone around them and they experience what everyone else is doing. And so because of that, it just sort of happens on its own, which is, I think that and of itself, if I’m going to interview some candidates in the summer, and I’m interviewing candidates that really had those experiences and they can talk about those experiences, that interview is going to look a lot different than just someone that’s kind of talking to me about maybe theory that they have learned in a classroom. Not that that’s a bad thing—that’s a really good thing and an important thing—but if they can actually talk about how they put that into practice, that learning that happened in the classroom, that’s going to be a real strong candidate that I know is ready to go and is ready to work with whatever students come in front of them.

Rebecca: I can imagine that in a lot of disciplines, not just education, that students have a mental model of whatever the discipline or whatever the job is going to be that’s very different from what it actually is and in part because their experience of it may be from a consumer point of view or as a student rather than as a faculty member. It’s the different side of the coin. Or maybe they have pictures of what that might be from media, which doesn’t include all of the nuance that we actually experience in our jobs. So I can really imagine how much being immersed in that way can really help them understand the interconnectedness and how all these pieces work together rather than thinking, “Here’s my little hole that I’m going to exist in.” rather than realizing that everything’s connected and that you do have to adjust based on other people, bigger picture things, strategies that are being used within the entire school rather than just in a particular classroom, et cetera.

Kara: Yeah, and I think you find out very quickly if this is what you want to do. There’s lots of articles out there, lots of data, that shows that there’s a lot of teacher burnout, and so in trying to be proactive around that, I think this is one of the ways that we do that because I think students come out and they really know, “Is this for me, is this what I have passion for? Is this what I want to be doing for the next 20 years?” So I think it really gives them that guidance as well.

Christine: It’s not an easy job, not at all. Sometimes when you’re sitting on campus in a college class and you’re studying, you’re reading out of a book, you’re reading articles, you’re reading current literature, you’re talking theories, you’re talking methods, without the practical context to connect it to, and not just a short time that you’re in this context, but you’re really—like you were saying—you’re immersed in this context over and over and over, that’s when connections are going to be made. And so those practices inform both what we do at the college, and then we reflect on what’s happening, and that informs hopefully what the public schools are doing and how they can change.

John: One of the things you mentioned was the professional development aspect of this for teachers in the school. Could you tell us more about that program and how that works?

Christine: This fall, for example, we start out with a cohort of practical students. It is the semester before they student teach. We bring them out. We start in August, the schools don’t start until September, so we have a little bit of time to meet them, work with them. We’ve already recruited host teachers that we’d like to match them with, and we have an orientation at the beginning of that semester because hearing expectations right from the beginning in the school, that they are expected to do this work in has been found to be super valuable. So host teachers hear what the expectations are for their work with our candidates. Candidates hear expectations, not only from our principal, but the PDS liaisons and their professors that semester so everyone’s on the same page for this whole semester. This is what we expect our experience to be like. This is what our requirements are. This is what professionalism looks like in a public school versus walking around a college campus in terms of behavior, dress, social media. I love this work because we take the elephant right out of the room right from day one. There are no questions about what is expected in a public school classroom with children. And in this day and age, you have to be extra, extra cautious, careful, explicit. And it’s different from hanging around a college campus for four years.

Kara: Right, and we’ve been fortunate the last couple of years—maybe even three—but I think it’s been the last couple of years, we’ve been able to invite those pre-service teachers when we have opening day for staff. They’ve been a part of that. So we’ve done some team building exercises and just really get to know each other and that’s what we kind of do when we come back as a staff just to say hi to everyone, and “Welcome back, and how was your summer? And how did things go? And what’s something you’d like to talk about that you’d like to celebrate? What are some goals for the beginning of the school year? What are you thinking?” And they’re all a part of that. So not only are they getting to know our staff,as far as pedagogy goes, but they’re also getting to know our staff as, “What are your interests? What are our interests? What do we have in common?” And I think that’s critically important. As we work with students—no matter what grade level you work with students—making connections with students, we know how important that is. We know that that’s always been important, but we know that in 2019, it’s extra important that we are making relationships with kids. And so the teachers themselves are learning how to do that with these pre-service teachers and they’re learning how to do it back with their host teachers so that when students come into the room when school starts, they’re ready to do that. They’re ready to make those relationships from day one because they’ve already practiced that in the summer.

Rebecca: What a great way to have everyone feel included. I think that sometimes the internships, pre-service teachers, kind of drop-in drop-out like they don’t ever feel fully integrated or included and it sounds really great that when your staff come back, they’re all a part of the same thing.

Kara: Yes. And a perfect example of that is that when our student teachers are out sometimes—because we all are out sometimes, we all get sick sometimes—the students are asking where they are. They asked me were those pre-service teachers are. That would have never happened in the past so I think that’s a great concrete example of how much the kids really start to depend on them being in the classroom.

Rebecca: Can you elaborate a little bit more on what your students get from our college students being present so frequently?

Kara: Sure, absolutely. So we sort of know as teachers and buildings that the more that we can differentiate what students are learning, meaning the more that we can give them experiences and they can actually work with and be concrete… let me give you an example. Let’s say we’re getting ready for our science fair. And so for our science fair, typically, we would have one classroom teacher, we might have a teaching assistant in a room, and we might have anywhere between 20 and 25 students. So you can imagine that the teacher kind of goes through, “This is what needs to be on your poster board.” But then the students have to work independently. They usually will have a rubric and they can go through that rubric and they can look at all the things that should be on the poster board. And then when they’re all done with the finished product, the teacher might rotate around the room, they’re finished with the product. The teacher sort of goes over with them what that looks like. That’s fine, except for you are an end product and you hope it all went well. Okay. But with other student teachers in the room from SUNY Oswego, they are working with kids, two and three kids at a time, and they’re really helping them through that process. So by the time they have a finished product—for example, a science fair project—those students are really able to talk about what it is that they went through when they were learning it. And the student teachers—pre-service teachers—are able to really talk about where students started, and where that growth came from and as they went along, what that looked like. And that’s very different than just saying, “I’m the teacher standing in front of the room, this is what you’re going to learn, and then I’m going to grade you on this product of what I think you should have learned,” versus actually doing it and being a part of the process. So certainly they are doing that every single day and that’s across all disciplines. That’s in social studies, that’s in math, that’s in science, that’s in ELA. Also, we’re able to really take our reading groups, we’re really able to look at data and say, “These are the two or three students that really need this extra support. Now we have that person to give them that extra support.” So great to look at data—very important—but if you don’t have the staffing to then support that, when those students need that extra help, that what happens is kids get into groups, and so you might have a group of six or seven students and they’re still this high and low. That all goes away because we have those extra students that are able to do that and able to teach that reading just like alongside with the supervision of the teacher, of course, but they’re able to really work independently with those students and give them what they really need.

Rebecca: So, much more personalized learning is happening.

Kara: Absolutely.

Christine: We hear stories all the time from the host teachers at Leighton and Fitzhugh, about how much more they can accomplish in a lesson or in a given day. Some of our students even before student teaching, our college students are there three full days a week and taking courses. And so they get to see the children from when they get off the bus until when they get back on the bus at the end of the day, up to three full days a week. And so we watch them go from full-time college student to semi-professional, and then through student teaching into a full professional life—and it’s a really beautiful transformation within a year, their last year of college. But without this setting and without the collaboration, those stories wouldn’t be coming out and the richness really wouldn’t be there. But the professional development is a big part of that. We have a list of PD offerings every semester for host teachers and candidates. It begins with the orientation that we talked about, the opening day for teachers that Kara talked about that our candidates are invited to every year, and then we do something called instructional rounds where our candidates and classroom teachers are invited to do a lesson study. Two of Kara’s teachers had volunteered to do demonstration lessons for their colleagues and our candidates. And so we structure a data collection tool where we’re looking for specific pieces of instruction and elements of classroom learning and teaching and we literally go in and observe the teacher and then we debrief with the teacher afterwards, and it’s a really great form of professional development. Our candidates learn a lot, the in-service teachers, the practicing teachers learn a lot about their own teaching, “What am I doing? What am I not doing? How could I do that better?” And then they can start using their colleagues as resources. Many say, “Gee, I didn’t know you knew how to do that. How did you learn how to do that? Can you teach me how to do that?” So the learning community really is just bolstered by all the PD that we offer to both schools.

Kara: YEAH, And I’m really glad you said that, Chris, because that’s something that I have found to be just really, really an important piece of all this is that often, once we become practitioners out there in the field, we kind of go with what we learn and go with what we think we do well and that’s how that works. And so having that growth mindset, that growth model, is something that we know we should be as teachers. We should be lifelong learners, but how do we actually do that? And so by having that PD, instead of being told, “This is going to be the flavor of the week that we’re going to do for this month,” or “This school year, this is what we’re going to do, and we’re all going to jump on board, and this is how we’re going to teach reading,” let’s say for example. And we do it and certainly we’re good about following through and being good soldiers, but we don’t really know why we do it. And we don’t really know if we’ve grown because we don’t have that time to really reflect. This really gives us that opportunity to do that. An example I have of that is one of the professors Dr. Duffy, who is a professor here at SUNY Oswego. She did some PD around spelling and she did it with the adults—including myself—and there were things that we didn’t know. So we know as adults that we know how to read, but we didn’t really know why we knew how to read or how to read, and so the students really almost knew more than we knew, because they had been learning it and for them, it wasn’t anything that had to be retaught or relearned. And so we actually were reaching out to them for them to help us so that we could be working with the students. And that’s magical. That dynamic is not going to happen in any other setting, that we as the practitioners would be reaching out to the pre-service teachers. So I think that’s a good example of something that really, what we learn is going right into the classroom and how it’s a partnership, not, “I’m the supervisor and you’re sort of the student.” It’s really that partnership. That’s just I think a good example of that.

Rebecca: It sounds like really powerful interdependence. That doesn’t always happen.

Kara: Absolutely.

Christine: It is now. I think it has grown to be that.

Rebecca: Yeah, I can imagine things don’t always start that way. You have to really get to know and trust.

Christine: Trust is a huge part. If we go back three years, I remember walking into Kara’s office and introducing myself. “I’m your PS liaison!” “Oh, okay. Nice to meet you.” It was her very first month on the Leighton campus and, “I have a classroom in your building,” and “Let’s go see my classroom,” and it’s very awkward. It is awkward because it’s brand new for both of us, we don’t know each other, we think that we understand the vision, but it hasn’t really been created yet. All the pieces haven’t been thought through and it’s up to us to create whatever it is. And so it’s exciting and a little scary and weird all at the same time.

Kara: I would agree. We all come from a different place and so we all prioritize differently and I think what we had to do is we had to get in sync with that and have an understanding of the other person’s role and perspective. And I think that’s where we’ve all shown growth so that we can really provide the best model possible for those students that are coming in to learn from us.

Rebecca: It already sounds a lot, like really rich and deep and full of trust so I can imagine that it will continue getting even more rich as your partnership grows over time.

John: And it’s really convenient how close Leighton is to the college. It’s less than two miles away, so students can even walk there and back.

Kara: Yes, absolutely. In fact, I have—this is aside—but we have two students from SUNY Oswego that are part of our AmeriCorps program, and one of the students actually walks from campus so that makes a big difference that students have that accessibility.

Rebecca: So you’ve talked a little bit about the professional development aspect and the relationship that the campus has with providing some professional development opportunities for existing teachers at Leighton and Fitzhugh. Can you talk a little bit more about how that works?

Christine: Sure. We have ongoing professional development based on what our planning committee has decided the teachers would like and what our candidates like and need, and so the planning is always collaborative and then we have a semester long—or year long plan even—but it’s always grounded in what the district has set as their strategic plan, their initiatives. And so because we’ve been a part of Oswego City School District for so many years, we have relationships with people in the district office, in the buildings, we know that they have had two initiatives going on really for the last several years: explicit direct instruction and trauma-based teaching. And then recently they brought in an early literacy initiative that’s across the county. But one great thing about the Leighton-Fitzhugh learning community is that we really zero in on those initiatives. We don’t want our candidates learning things that aren’t going to be useful once they come into their practicum and student teaching. So for example, we have right now, mindfulness classes being offered—not only at Leighton and Fitzhugh but we’ve extended beyond to other buildings in the district. Oswego High School and Oswego Middle School had been involved in those courses for a number of years. We have yoga being taught in three of the buildings in Oswego City School District at no cost to the teachers here, these are all college professional development opportunities that we would like to provide and continue providing to help the district meet their goals. We do PD usually once a semester on giving and receiving quality feedback. So we know one of the sticky points of being in a relationship with a pre-service teacher, for the classroom teacher, is they’ve been dealing with children for many, many years. They haven’t necessarily been communicating with adults in an evaluative or critical thinking kind of way, and so we know the host teachers really are in a position to help our candidates in constructive ways. We don’t want them to be overly critical, but they have to be able to say when they see something going on, “I’d like to sit down and talk about this,” and really hit the nail on the head with that. And at the same time, our candidates—as they mature and become professionals—they have to have the language and the courage to go to the principal or go to the host teacher and say, “I’m really struggling with such and such, can you help me with this?” So giving and receiving quality feedback is a topic for PD that we’ve done a number of times. Co-teaching is a PD that we offer that’s very successful too.

Kara: I think just to add to that, Chris, I think that when the students and the teachers are working together to problem solve through what’s going on when they’re in the classroom, they can always refer back to those experiences that they’ve had during those PD sessions. So it’s not only that it works well when they’re working with students, but it also helps them work together as a team because truly, once the student has been there—I would say after their first or second practicum experience and they’re really part of that pre-service teaching mode—they really are doing that planning with the teacher. And so to be able to have those skills of feedback like Chris had said, is really important because often there isn’t enough time in the day to do that once you’ve started teaching. Once you’re live, you’re live. So to be able to do that ahead of time and even know what questions to ask, or what feedback to give, or why that would even be important, I don’t think is something we would have done before, and now it’s just part of our routine.

Rebecca: That just sounds really great.

John: It does, and one of the things I really like about it.. you mentioned the growth mindset idea. But when our students are there working with teachers and seeing that they’re going through professional development with them, I would think that would help build a growth mindset and help encourage them to become lifelong learners and realize that this is an ongoing process. That’s a really nice aspect of the program.

Christine: Absolutely. For too long we’ve seen such a division between what we experience in a teacher ed program on campus and what the real job looks like, feels like, demands of us, and really we have broken down a lot of that. We’re not completely there yet—we have a lot of work still to do—but for public school people to respect the contributions of teacher educators and for us to respect the jobs, the intense super-demanding jobs of classroom teachers and principals and then to bring all of that together, I think that’s where the power is.

Kara: I think it really forces us to reflect as practitioners because you have these folks around that are really depending on you and looking up to you and watching and we are modeling for them. And so really being able to talk about that, it’s one thing to be doing the job, but after you’ve done it for a while, you don’t so much really talk about it with anyone anymore. But really, that conversation has to happen so that it is rich for those students when they come into our building. So, it helps us be better I think, too, because we want to make sure that we’re doing right by our students that come in.

Christine: It heightens the professionalism just by having us in the building. And it helps us question how and why we do what we do. And we are watching them in action—it forces them to do the same. What are they seeing right now? And what are they thinking about what they’re seeing? And then we come together and talk about what we’re all seeing.

Kara: You have to be willing to be vulnerable to grow and I think that’s a big piece. And I can’t say enough for my staff that really has taken students and really, that’s the word I would use would to be vulnerable, that they really kind of put themselves out there so that the students will be able to go and teach thousands of students for years to come, which is really the ultimate goal… to be able to do that and to be able to give back to their community. Often many of them stay right here in Oswego and that’s really another one of the initiatives that the superintendent is looking at is, “How do we keep our community vibrant? And how do we keep students going?” And I think that’s definitely a piece of that.

Christine: In one of our PDs we invite the HR, the personnel director from Oswego City Schools in for a few minutes so that she can show our candidates how to apply for substitute teaching positions in the district. And it is quite a process, to go through the online application to come in for the interview, to become Board of Education approved. And so our candidates have to want to substitute teach to go through that whole process. But there’s such a shortage right now of high-quality substitute teachers everywhere we look. And so we feel at the college that we want to help address that problem by encouraging our candidates to apply to sub, get board approved. They’re very happy that they can then make some money and then be present in the school more if they could substitute teach and be present in their classrooms more than what they’re required to be. That’s the best marriage of all. We’re really helping both institutions with it. And we do have several board approved candidates in both buildings right now getting great subbing experience.

Kara: I would agree and I think that it really gives them a sense of value. Often they come in and out of fairness to the student teachers—the pre-service teachers, I know I keep using those words interchangeably—but I think that it’s a big commitment for them, and Chris kind of alluded to that. They really have to set their own lives aside to make this commitment because they are spending so much time with us. And I think it validates all of their hard work that we would trust that they could sub and they could be with those students. I think that gives them a sense of confidence and a sense of competency that the work that they have been doing is certainly the same kind of work that they’ll be doing when they’re out in their profession,—hopefully—a few months down the road once they graduate and get a position. So it’s about can you do the job, but also we know in teaching that you psychologically you have to be present all the time and you have to give 100 percent to the kids all the time. They expect that, they need that, they deserve that. And I think for our pre-service teachers to be able to actually do that, and to develop their own style, that’s another piece that you don’t necessarily get with the six weeks. But with us, they have learned what their own style is and how they’re going to go about managing a classroom and teaching the students in front of them.

Rebecca: I can imagine, especially in teaching teachers, but also in other areas that you’re teaching professionals. I’m a graphic designer, I teach graphic designers, which is also a professional degree, that the more you interact and integrate with the profession and know what’s going on and know what the challenges are, the better you can instruct your students and adjust the curriculum in higher ed to better serve what students are actually going to need in the field. So I can imagine, Chris, that being so embedded in the district right now in the way that this program is working, that you’ve learned a ton about how we should be educating future teachers, and have you had any adjustments to the curriculum as a result?

Christine: Well, I think that I am in a unique position being at the college full time and part of my load being out in schools. And so I do bring a lot of information to both groups as I learn it. I bring observations to both groups. I think that’s the only way good change can happen is if we keep those lines open and keep watching and learning from each other. We do have a ways to go, I think. Ideas are kind of popping in my head right now about ways in the future that we could really start bringing college folks and public school people together. Years and years ago I wrote a grant so that half of my load at the college could be covered and I taught a half day every day in a sixth grade ELA classroom in Oswego County with an ELA teacher. We co-taught every day and then on Fridays, I brought my literacy students out to that building to watch us co-teach and then debrief our literacy lesson afterwards. And it was ages ago that that happened, but I still think “Wow, how could we really start learning from each other in very practical ways, and then bring that back to our respective roles? So has our curriculum changed? I think it is starting to. We have a strong link with state education (as do public schools), our standards are changing, state ed regs are changing, what they require of for certification for our in-service teachers it’s constantly changing, and so we have to be in communication with CiTi BOCES, with public schools, with state ed, we can’t be isolated. And we have to keep reaching out and seeing that the schools are continually reaching out to us to be partners in that. So, taking a look at a syllabus, for example, and let’s sit around the table and we’re all looking at a copy of the same syllabus for a methods of instruction course. And all the eyes looking at that document are coming at it with a different lens and wow, what a conversation that would be. “Well, I think the new teacher should have this and this and this in there,” and other people think, “Oh, no, we don’t need as much of this as we have. Let’s take it out,” and just getting into those deep, professional discussions about what’s the most important thing for new teachers to know. I hope that we can keep going in that direction.

Kara: And I think as students go back to their professors, and talk about their assignments and what it is that they’re doing and give their experiences, I think that plants some seeds, and I think that’s what we can hope for going forward.

Christine: One of our methods professors said to me recently, “After I taught this course the first time, I looked at it and said, ‘You know what, they don’t need two research projects. They’re out in the field, they’re out with children all the time. I’m going to cut one of those out. I’m just going to do one research project and get rid of the other one and let them do some action research in the classroom.” Teachers are collecting data all the time on many different things. They’re observing kids in so many different ways and so that’s the research that is valuable, that we can learn so much from. We need books, we need articles, we need current research studies on teaching and learning. But we need action research that’s going on every day with kids in classrooms, too.

John: I noticed in an article on your arrival here that you had done some work at NORAD, before moving into teaching. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Kara: Sure. Yes, I was in the Air Force and I actually was stationed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, it was about 1990, 1991, and I actually got to work in NORAD. And so that’s where we tracked Santa Claus. So, when I first came to Oswego and they asked the questions around what makes you unique and so we always kind of talk about, “Yeah, I worked inside of a mountain and we track Santa Claus.” And certainly, the United States Air Force does other things besides track Santa Claus there, but certainly it’s all about that problem solving. So when I was in the Air Force, very much there is always an end result. And we don’t give up and we have to figure out a way. There is no “Oh, it didn’t work out. We’ll try better next time.” It’s “We’ll keep working at it till it does work out.” And I think there’s some real same sort of ideas here when we talk about this partnership, that we keep growing and we keep learning, we keep problem solving, and that we don’t give up. Because think about how sad the children would be if Santa Claus didn’t come, right? and NORAD failed… So we want to do the same, think about how our children would fail if we weren’t doing our very best for them every day in a school setting. So, I think they definitely are the same in that way and I think the other thing is that when I was certainly working there, really it’s about how can we do things smarter, how can we do things differently, so that we can still get the same result but we’re not getting “stuck in the weeds” as they say, and I think that we did that at NORAD and I think we certainly are doing that with this program. What are those things that are critical and key to making it—like Chris has always said—that clinically rich environment for our students, for the students of the campus, for all the practitioners that are working with them? So, I would say those are the two things that are alike. No Santa Claus that Leighton though, but while I’m still working on it. [LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: Sightings coming soon.

Kara: Yes, right, sightings coming soon. That’s right.

John: Although apparently there’s Christmas Tea in July.

Rebecca: Yeah, well, you know… hey…

Kara: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Rebecca: We always wrap up by asking what’s next?

Christine: Oh my goodness, we have a wonderful cohort coming in in the Fall, I can’t wait to meet them. I’m just excited to keep going into classrooms and seeing the work that our candidates are able to do. We did not have as high enough expectations of them until we began rich partnerships in schools. These candidates are able to do so much more before they even come student teaching than we ever imagined that they could and so capturing that, capturing concrete ways that they are growing in ways that we’re affecting the children in the elementary school—Kara says we’re not going to stop until we figure this out—we need tangible evidence that this is powerful and that it’s working. We know that it is, it’s not just anecdotal, so we want to look at it through a research lens.

Kara: Right. And I think that the way that we do that is that trust that Chris talked about earlier. I think the more we and/or the way we continue to have that trust with each other, the more we’re going to be able to talk about what’s working well, what are some things that we might want to do differently, and what does that look like? And then let’s actually try it, let’s not just talk about it, but let’s really put it into practice and then see what happens. If we have to take a step back, then we do. But if we don’t, then we know that this is something going forward that we can kind of put in our toolbox.

Rebecca: Sounds really exciting. Thank you so much for spending some time with us and telling us about this partnership.

Christine: You’re welcome.

Kara: Thank you for having us.

[MUSIC]

John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.

John: Editing assistance provided by Kim Fisher, Chris Wallace, Kelly Knight, Joseph Bandru, Jacob Alverson, Brittany Jones, and Gabriella Perez.