The challenges of scaling-up and sustaining professional development school partnerships

This article addresses the challenges PDS partnerships face as they go to scale. Based on Coburn's (2005) notions of scale, the article uses organizational theory to analyze data from a ten-year qualitative meta-synthesis of PDS partnership research. Based upon the analysis, the article offers four recommendations: PDS partnerships should sustain strong trajectories of research regarding their work; Stakeholders in PDS partnerships need to ensure that faculty and staff have adequate support to thrive; PDS partnerships need to be based upon enabling bureaucratic structures; and PDS partners need to create opportunities to engage with each other in positive, normative spaces.     

Providing school-based learning in elementary school mathematics: the case of a professional development school partnership

Abstract

School–university partnerships also known as professional development school (PDS) partnerships provide potential for universities and schools to establish partnerships that can benefit university faculty, school teachers, university students, and school students. This study examines the impact of a PDS partnership in which the author served as a school-based mathematics coach for two years in a high-need elementary school. Data sources included interviews, surveys, and field notes from classroom observations. Inductive qualitative analyses which were situated in a multi-level framework for researching professional development found that teachers posed more cognitively demanding mathematical tasks and high-level questions in year two compared to year one of this project. Further, student achievement was noted on both state-wide and district-created assessments. Also teachers reported that the school-based approach to professional development led to some teachers taking on more informal leadership roles to support their colleagues’ mathematics instruction. Implications for school-based learning opportunities across the world include the need to establish specific university–school partnerships, and carefully designing research studies to examine the impact of these learning opportunities.     

The Role of Stories in the Formation of a University/Public School Collaborative Identity

This paper describes how two women, a university professor and a public school teacher, discovered how they had used the power of stories to develop the trust and understandings which were precursors to their engagement in collaborative teacher research. Stories became an intervention that promoted dialogue and helped to establish a collaborative identity. Collaboration between universities and public schools allows educators to engage jointly in research and rethinking of practice. The paper discusses the difficulties they experienced trying to break down barriers while bringing both voices to their writing and research. It also raises numerous questions about university/public school partnerships and the time, energy, and commitment needed to recognize the potential of this type of inquiry to the ‘world’ of teacher research.     

Preservice teachers’ inquiry in a professional development school context: Implications for the practicum

Professional development school (PDS) contexts are increasingly being viewed as powerful sites for the preparation of future teachers in the USA. One of their documented strengths is in the fostering of preservice teachers’ inquiry within collaborative frameworks that result from the partnerships between university teacher education programmes and schools. This article focuses on one inquiry-based PDS programme, describes five inquiry projects carried out by interns in the programme, and presents interns’ perceptions on engaging in inquiry during their yearlong internship. The discussion that follows explores the potential of the inquiry approach in PDS contexts to reform the teacher education practicum.     

Primary pupils' creative writing: enacting identities in a Community of Writers

This paper focuses on a Community of Writers creative writing project where 25 primary school pupils from lower socio‐economic backgrounds took part in creative writing workshops over a 2‐week period at a higher education institution. Using practitioner enquiry and discourse analysis, this paper views identity as participation in ‘figured worlds’ and highlights the relationship between the children's creative writing outputs and their shifting identities (Holland et al., 1998 ). A case is made that children's authentic creative writing can be nurtured by a community that promotes intertextuality and ‘hybridity’ (Bakhtin, 1981 ) as well as balancing pedagogical ‘structure’ and ‘freedom’ (Davies et al., 2012 ) in order to provide textual space for writers to enact different identities. At a time when the global figuring power of performativity (Ball, 2003 ) actively restricts the ways in which teachers and children interact, this paper also presents an informed argument for the value of school–university research partnerships.     

Professional learning during a schools–university partnership Master of Education course: teachers’ perspectives of their learning experiences

An extensive body of research has indicated the benefits of collaborative, contextualised and enquiry-based learning for teachers’ professional development and school improvement. Yet professional learning is also known to be constrained by a number of factors, including the organisational limitations of schools, conflicting cultural practices and wider political demands. Schools–university partnerships have been developed to overcome some of these difficulties by transcending particular school contexts and offering alternative theoretical and practical perspectives. The complex combination of motivations, backgrounds and working contexts in such partnership work calls for attention to the individual and collective learning experiences of those involved, including the ways in which school and university contexts are, or could be, effectively bridged. This paper focuses on understanding the learning experienced by a cohort of teachers and school leaders involved in a two-year schools–university partnership Master of Education (M.Ed.) course in England. A mixed group of 15 experienced primary and secondary teachers and school leaders reflected on their learning at five points of time during and shortly after completing their M.Ed. course. Qualitative analysis of the group’s interview responses and reflective writing led to the identification of six related aspects of personal and professional learning experience: being a learner; learning as part of professional practice; widening repertoire; changing as a learner; personal growth; and critically adaptive practice. The identification and visual representation of these aspects of experience emerging within the group offers useful insight into teachers’ perspectives on learning in school and university contexts and their experiences of progression over time. We conclude that more explicit and central attention to the professional and personal learning elements of schools–university partnerships can help to resolve some of the binary ‘theory–practice’ tensions that have been extensively discussed in relation to partnership programmes and teacher professional development. There is a need to acknowledge variation in teachers’ learning experiences within schools–university partnerships, bearing in mind the ongoing nature of this reflective process with each new group of school and university colleagues. Analysis of participants’ learning experiences in school and university contexts also draws attention to the wider structures, values and cultures that influence, and are influenced by, schools–university partnership work.     

University–School Partnerships in English Pre-service Teacher Education: A Dialogic Inquiry into a Co-teaching Initiative

Evidence has been accumulating for some time about the impact of standards-based education reforms on schools and schooling, but there has been little research investigating the influence of these reforms on university-based initial teacher education (ITE). This article critically inquiries into the effects of these reforms on an ITE co-teaching project where a secondary English teacher in a school was seconded to work for a year as a teacher educator in an Australian university in a praxis-based partnership. Using Cavarero’s framing of ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives, and Bakhtinian discourse theory, the authors present three autobiographical narratives exploring different perspectives on their experiences in the co-teaching partnership. The article affirms the value of school–university praxis partnerships for speaking back to standards-based reforms, but acknowledges that this speaking back involves complex relational and dialogic work in grappling with institutional and system-wide policies and practices.     

基于有声思维法的中西方思维差异研究

作为一种实证性研究,有声思维借鉴了认知心理学的研究模式,试图通过实证,探究大脑的思维认知过程。本文采用"有声思维"的方法收集中外十名大学生在母语写作过程中的数据,并从选词、句型和语篇结构方面对数据进行整理和分析,得出中英思维差异主要体现在三大类:形合和意合、主观型和客观型、归纳型和演绎型。     

PDS Collaboration as Third Space: An analysis of the quality of learning experiences in a PDS partnership

This article documents the self-study processes and findings of a collaborative research group that examined a professional development school (PDS) partnership. Drawing on the scholarship of self-study of teacher education practices and theoretical perspectives consistent with third space, we conceived our collaborative study group as a learning community aimed at uncovering the complexities of school–university partnerships while seeking new directions for an effective partnership. Data were collected from a variety of sources. Themes were developed based on some identified areas of focus consistent with the group's objectives, which included deciphering the state of our PDS collaboration, our preservice teachers' learning experiences, and insight into faculty as learners in professional relationship. The study revealed that experiential disparity existed within and among faculty and students in various PDS sites as a result of poor communication as well as divergent models of collaboration and philosophical goals between faculty and mentor teachers. Disparity in the learning experiences among the preservice teachers was attributed to the quality and scope of the partnership. This study resulted in better understanding of our roles as hybrid educators and recognition of mentor teachers as critical bridges in a PDS partnership.     

The Challenges Never Stop! Two Decades of Reaching for the Best in Clinical Practice

The University of South Carolina Professional Development School (USC PDS) Network has been engaged in designing and redesigning school–university partnerships for more than 20 years with a focus on ensuring that school-based practice lies at the heart of candidate preparation. In 2012–2013, the USC PDS Network once again reexamined their program design to identify and build upon those elements that have proven successful. This article shares the journey and lessons learned in the evolution of the USC PDS Network, including the results of the most recent reexamination. The focus is on challenges inherent in the creation of effective school–university collaboration and insights into key components of success, including relationship building, leadership and administrative support, sense of purpose, organizational structures, and adaptability to change.     

Hidden voices: L2 students’ compensatory writing strategies

This qualitative research study examines how 12 undergraduate second-language learners understood the concept of citations in academic writing. The following questions guided this study: What are the participants’ beliefs about citing research? How do students conceive the role and function of citations in their writing assignments? How do they make decisions about what and what not to cite? Results indicated that students believed that citations were a superficial accessory to the main text and only cited information to comply with teacher directives, thereby, sacrificing their own empowerment in the writing process. To overcome their unfamiliarity with academic prose, students created specific compensatory writing strategies. Although this study included only L2 students, the findings are consistent with the research involving monolingual students. This research can inform educators about the need to engage undergraduate students in participatory discussions about the role, function, and power of referencing within a privileged academic discourse.     

语篇分析理论对高校英语翻译教材建设的作用

高校英语翻译教学改革需要有配套的建立于语篇分析理论之上的新型教材。西方语篇翻译理论对我国高校英语翻译教材的编写和使用具有诸多的影响和要求,其中三个方面的要求值得特别重视,这样可以更好地培养学生的语篇意识,提高学生的翻译能力。     

Power and representation: A postcolonial reading of global partnerships and teacher development through North—South study visits

This paper critically analyses the neo‐liberal discourse informing global education policy and practice. We use postcolonial theory to deconstruct the contexts for global educational partnerships, highlighting how issues of power and representation are central to their development and the learning that takes place within them. Teacher development through North—South study visits is one way of challenging teachers’ worldviews, but these are not always effective. We argue that study visit courses, where learning is facilitated by differently knowledgeable others, have the potential to be more effective, but only if the courses are underpinned by postcolonial theory and informed by socio‐cultural pedagogy.     

Early Childhood Teacher Learning Through a Professional Development School Program in Hong Kong

Emphasis on continuing professional development is seen as an important aspect of educational reform at all levels of education. In recent years, a number of colleges and universities have established partnerships for the professional development of teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. However, there have been few partnerships within the Professional Development School Program (PDS) established in early childhood settings. Thus, this paper explores the growth and development of two kindergarten teachers after their school participated in a PDS in Hong Kong.     

美国教师教育的新模式及其对我国的启示

美国专业发展学校（PDS）是一种新的教师培养模式,是通过强化中小学和大学的合作伙伴关系,共同培养教师、开展合作研究而建立起来的,其在促进教师专业发展方面取得了可喜成果,对我国教师教育有重要的启示。结合我国教师教育改革与发展的趋势特点,我们应该在实践与理论上借鉴PDS的经验,这既符合国际教师教育改革的趋势,也是我国教师教育发展的大方向。     

衔接理论应用于大学英语读写教学中的行动研究

大一学生普遍对衔接理论知之甚少,无法在阅读与写作中有效运用衔接理论,从篇章上把握文章。针对这一现状,笔者把行动研究带入英语读写课堂教学中,以期通过在真实课堂亲身体验行动研究来促进学生对衔接理论的掌握。通过此项行动研究,增强了学生的篇章意识,提高了学生的读写能力。     

Partnerships and parents – relationships in tutorial programmes

The tutorial system is considered to be a useful pedagogical intervention to improve student retention, particularly in the context of a first-year student’s experience of entering university. For these novice students to achieve academic success, it is important that they are given access to the subject-specific knowledge and practices in their different disciplines, that is, that they acquire ‘epistemological access’. A recent study of the tutorial system in a South African university (Layton, D.M. [2013]. A social realist account of the tutorial system at the University of Johannesburg (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown), sought to discover to what extent tutorials were discursively constructed as being about the enablement of epistemological access. This paper focuses on two discourses that emerged from the study – the parent discourse and the partnership discourse. Both discourses were concerned with relationships between key stakeholders in the tutorial programme. Given that tutorials are considered to be spaces in which more intimate learning can take place than in the anonymous environment of the large lecture hall, an interrogation of the relationships fostered in tutorials is important. The parent discourse, in which students were positioned as ‘kids’ needing care, was supportive of new students but ran the risk of being patronising and reductionist. The partnerships discourse, in which tutors and academics were seen to be working together towards the common goal of student success, was seen to be enabling of epistemological access. But it required a commitment to teaching endeavours that was in tension with the institutional focus on research. Through a social realist analysis of the two discourses constructing relationships in the tutorial system, we conclude that these discourses have the power to both constrain and enable the extent to which the tutorial system can be a site of epistemological access.     

试论高校内部和谐权力话语关系的构建——基于对J省高校的调查研究

文章通过对J省高校内部权力运行情况调查,比照当下教育语境阐释高校内部三种权力话语:一是以行政管理人员为主的行政权力话语;二是以教学科研人员为主的学术权力话语;三是以学生为主的学生权力话语。三种权力话语的阐释,意在以权力话语理论为指导,突破以往的认知限制,促进三种权力话语的有效对话,以三权相互独立又相互制衡的大学治理理念,构建大学组织的和谐权力配置模式。     

Students’ writing ‘in transition’ from A-levels to university: how assessment drives students’ understandings,practices and discourses

The lament that ‘students can’t write’ remains loud and defiant, even after years of research pointing to the myriad factors that make students’ writing challenging, particularly when they move into university. This paper reports on a longitudinal, ethnographic study which explored students’ writing ‘in transition’, from A-levels to university in the UK, through the critical lens offered by the academic literacies conceptual framing. This paper offers critical analysis of the ways that students, teachers and institutions position writing at A-level and university, exploring the assumptions and beliefs that underpin their understandings and practices using Ivani?’s framework of discourses of writing. The analysis proposes that the centrality of assessment in the treatment of language at both levels creates an ‘assessment discourse of writing’, which originates in school, and becomes a defining and restrictive frame for students’ writing as they move into higher education. The analysis further suggests that assessment is the principal cause for the students’ challenges with adapting to the writing requirements of university. Moreover, assessment is used as a metalanguage for discussing writing at A-levels, and can become an unhelpful ‘anchor of continuance’ for students as they move into university.     

Teaching and assessing writing skills at university level: a comparison of practices in French and Colombian universities

Background: The analysis of teachers’ conceptions about writing at university level allows the study of teaching practices associated with academic writing. At the same time, it is important to consider the context (disciplines, culture, institution, pedagogical organisation, etc.) where these practices take place.

Purpose: The present article explores the teachers’ conceptions about teaching and assessing writing skills at university level from two academic programmes of psychology: one in France and one in Colombia, through two questions: (a) the writing skills that teachers expect their students to acquire from attending their courses, and (b) the criteria used by the teachers to assess the written performance of their students. The main purpose is to analyse the teaching and evaluation practices that teachers describe in their discourse, taking into account the discipline and some similarities and differences between cultural contexts.

Sample: Ten university psychology teachers, five French and five Colombian, participated voluntarily in the study. The teachers were a heterogeneous group in terms of their ages and number of years of work experience. They taught a range of courses or subjects in the area of psychology.

Design and methods: The research was conducted using a qualitative method. The university teachers’ conceptions were collected during semi-structured interviews. A content analysis of the interviews, using an inductive approach, was undertaken.

Results: The analysis of the discourse indicates that the teachers focus their teaching practices on some specificities of the academic writing, and that they mainly assess different types of students’ knowledge. Additionally, a gap was observed between teaching and assessment practices, which concerns the cognitive dimensions of writing and the rules of academic discourse. This gap seems more evident in French teachers’ discourses. Colombian teachers described, in the main, teaching practices focused on the norms of academic writing.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that some similarities between the teachers’ conceptions are associated with the discipline. Specific differences could be explained by culturally distinct pedagogical practices related to the manner of teaching at university level.