WEB NEWS RELEASE
Panel Calls for Centering Curricula around Classroom-Ready Training
COLLEGE PARK, MD (October 2010) - Dean Donna Wiseman recently participated in a national panel of experts composed of education leaders calling for teacher education to be "turned upside down" by revamping programs to place clinical practice at the center of teacher preparation. Convened by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), the Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and Partnerships for Improved Student Learning presented a new vision of preparation which will require the development of partnerships with school districts in which teacher education becomes a shared responsibility between P-12 schools and higher education.
These and other sweeping recommendations are part of a report by the Blue Ribbon Panel will involve significant policy and procedural changes in both the state higher education and P-12 education systems and entail revamping longstanding policies and practices that are no longer suited to today's needs. The changes called for will require state higher education officials, governors, and state P-12 commissioner leadership working together to remove policy barriers and create policy supports for the new vision of teacher education.
NCATE president James G. Cibulka talked about why NCATE convened the panel: "There are more students with greater learning needs than ever before; rigorous new standards for students with higher expectations for student achievement; and the need to turn around low-performing schools, to name just a few of the unsolved challenges present today. These unmet needs press education stakeholders at large to make bold, simultaneous systemic changes."
Eight states - California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee - have already agreed to implement the panel's recommendations. As part of the NCATE Alliance for Clinical Teacher Preparation, these states will work with national experts to pilot approaches to implementation and bring new models of clinical preparation to scale. Working with NCATE and other invested organizations, including the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, the Association of Teacher Educators, national teachers' unions and their state and local affiliates, the Alliance also will reach out to and learn from other states working to transform teacher education by implementing recommendations such as these:
- There must be an intense focus on developing teaching practice and P-12 student learning, making clinical practice the centerpiece of the curriculum and interweaving opportunities for teaching experience with academic content and professional courses. Teachers need to be prepared to use research-based developmentally appropriate strategies, assess student progress, and change practice as appropriate for the purpose of improving student learning and meeting students developmental needs.
- Higher education and school districts must share accountability and responsibility with P-12 schools playing a more significant role in designing preparation programs, selecting candidates, assessing candidate performance and progress, and placing them in clinical experiences. Evaluation of teacher candidate effectiveness needs to be a shared responsibility, with accountability closer to the classroom.
- Teacher-training programs must attract more academically prepared and more diverse cohorts of students.
- States and accreditation agencies must strengthen their scrutiny, and preparation programs must become more accountable for meeting school needs and improving P-12 student learning.
- States should help ensure that future teachers are prepared to fill the staffing needs of P-12 schools by creating disincentives for schools of education that prepare teachers in specialties that are not in demand.
- Federal agencies should support a clearly defined research agenda to document and provide evidence of the impact of practices in clinical preparation on teacher effectiveness. The Panels recommendations are consistent with a recent report of the National Research Council which notes that clinical preparation is one of three areas most promising for potential increases in teacher effectiveness in the classroom.
Making these changes, the panel affirms, will go a long way toward improving how the nation delivers, monitors, evaluates, oversees, and staffs preparation to incubate a whole new form of teacher education.
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For more information on the College of Education, visit: www.education.umd.edu
or contact
Halima Cherif, Assistant Director for Communications, at: hcherif@umd.edu
