Breaking the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ through collaboration: A school-university partnership in teacher education for high needs schools

In 2008 the University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Department of Education (TasED) entered into a high-level partnership agreement. The Partnership in Teaching Excellence, funded from the Federal Smarter Schools National PartnershipsImproving Teacher Quality agreement, included higher education funded places for teachers wishing to complete a Master’s degree, and at the other end of the profession, an innovative alternative teacher education pathway for final-year pre-service teachers (PSTs), run as a competitive scholarship program. The intent of the program was 3-fold, to assist PSTs in becoming quality reflective practitioners with capacity to work in high needs schools, explore ways of improving mentor teachers and PST’s reciprocal relationships, and increase the retention of teachers in TasED schools. Begun at a time of intense industrial action, the partnership program appeared rather one-sided with little apparent benefit conferring to the University, and was at all times highly contentious.

Using Kagan’s 6 stages of collaboration as a framework, and drawing on interviews with the first cohort of scholarship PSTs, and a range of personal files documenting the beginnings of the partnership, including minutes of meetings, PST results, and unpublished reviews commissioned by the TasED, this chapter explores the beginnings of the partnership, as together those on the ground worked out what ‘partnership’ meant. It presents an evaluation of those initial successful first years, including the learning outcomes of the PSTs, and discusses the lessons learned for establishing future university/school partnership. The partnership programme continued to 2013, when Federal funding for the project was discontinued.

This chapter is published in the book University Partnerships for Pre-service and Teacher Development Vol 10

Editors:

Barbara Cozza
St. John’s University, USA

Patrick Blessinger
International HETL Association and St. John’s University, USA

PART I: CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES
  • NOVEL APPROACHES IN UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS: AN INTRODUCTION TO UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS FOR PRE-SERVICE AND TEACHER DEVELOPMENT – Barbara Cozza and Patrick Blessinger
  • A SCOTTISH CONSORTIUM OF HIGHER AND FURTHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: DEVELOPING COLLABORATION THROUGH CRITICAL INCIDENTS – Aileen Ackland, Gary Roberts, Ann Swinney, and David Wallace
PART II: SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES
  • STUDENTS HELPING STUDENTS: AN ELL PARENT TUTORING PROGRAM PARTNERSHIP – Hope J. Hartman
  • THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN SUPPORTING TEACHERS IN GENERAL EDUCATION TO DEVELOP LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS RELATED TO WORKING LIFE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP – Lenita Hietanen and Essi Kesälahti
  • MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL COLLABORATIVE INITIATIVES BETWEEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND A UNIVERSITY TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAM – Joyce R. Jeewek
  • AN ANALYSIS OF A BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM FOR TEACHER EDUCATION – Ana Lúcia Manrique and Douglas da Silva Tinti
  • DEVELOPING LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIONS TO ENHANCE THE STUDENT LEARNING EXPERIENCE THROUGH UNIVERSITY-COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS – Timothy R. N. Murphy, Jon E. C. Tan, Esther Luna, Pilar Folgueiras Bertomeu, Andrew Furco, Colin L. Harrison, Peter Laurence, Doug Martin, and Gary Walker
  • BREAKING THE APPRENTICESHIP OF OBSERVATION THROUGH COLLABORATION: A SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP IN TEACHER EDUCATION FOR HIGH NEEDS SCHOOLS – Karin Oerlemans
  • THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER AS A COLLABORATIVE APPRENTICESHIP – Nicholas J. Shudak and Robin M. Wiebers
  • THE CHALLENGE OF SCHOOL-LED TEACHER EDUCATION FOR THOSE WORKING WITHIN TRADITIONAL TEACHER EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS: A CASE OF ROMAN RIDING – d’Reen Struthers
  • DIFFERENT DRUMBEATS: A UNIVERSITY-MUSEUM-SCHOOL COLLABORATION TO INFORM HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES LEARNING THROUGH INTEGRATION OF VISUAL EVIDENCE – Linda S. Watts
  • CREATING NEW PATHWAYS FOR PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN UNIVERSITIES AND COMMUNITIES – Colleen M. Wilson, Donald H. Horner, Jr., Tammy Ryan, Rachel Green, and Adele Hanlon
  • THE ROLE OF TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS OK MODES MODEL IN FACILITATING SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT – Jaleh Hassaskhah
  • GUATEMALA AND UNITED STATES PARTNERSHIP RENEWS TEACHING AND LEARNING – Tammy Ryan, Barbara Laster, and Jeanne Cobb
  • EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS IN DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY – David C. Young and Andrew Foran