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Nancy L. Zimpher Chancellor, The State University of New York Kenneth R. Howey Senior Fellow, Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government

CAEP Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting Clinical Practice and Partnerships

Washington DC May 21, 2012

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Two Major Challenges

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The Leaking Student Pipeline

In New York, for every 100 ninth grade students…

… 57 students graduate from high school four years later.

… 41 students immediately enter college.

… 31 students are still enrolled in their second year.

… 19 students in New York, graduate with either an associate’s

degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six years.

In Colorado, for every 100 ninth grade students…

… 70 students graduate from high school four years later.

… 44 students immediately enter college.

… 26 students are still enrolled in their second year.

… 22 students in Colorado, graduate with either an associate’s degree within three years or a bachelor’s degree within six years.

New York Colorado

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The Leaking Teacher Pipeline

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The Fix

Blue Ribbon Panel

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“He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all.”

Sir William Osler, M.D., C.M., (1849-1919)

Sir William Osler

Abraham Flexner

The Flexner Report (1910)

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Improving the Clinical Practice of Educators

Improving P-12 Learning and Achievement

“The National Research Council recently identified clinical preparation as one of the three ‘aspects of teacher preparation that are likely to have the highest potential for effects on outcomes for students,’ along with content knowledge and quality of candidate teachers.” -Transforming Teacher Education

Through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare

Effective Teachers

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10 Design Principles

1. Student learning is the focus 2. Clinical preparation is integrated

throughout every facet of teacher education in a dynamic way

3. A candidate’s progress and the elements of a preparation program are continuously judged on the basis of data

4. Programs prepare teachers who are experts in content and how to teach it and are also innovators, collaborators, and problem solvers

5. Candidates learn in an interactive professional community

6. Clinical educators and coaches are rigorously selected and prepared and drawn from both higher education and the P-12 sector

7. Specific sites are designed and funded to support embedded clinical preparation

8. Technology applications foster high-impact preparation

9. A powerful R&D agenda and systemic gathering and use of data supports continuous improvement in teacher preparation

10. Strategic partnerships are imperative for powerful clinical preparation

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“Most states require student teaching, the majority requiring somewhere between 10 and 14 weeks. With few exceptions, they are silent on what this crucially important experience should look like, and how programs should be held accountable.” -Transforming Teacher Education

Through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare

Effective Teachers

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A Practice-based Profession

What do we need to do?

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We need… Strategies to Prepare Candidates to Address Student Needs

•Make candidates aware of who their students are through community mapping exercises

•Work with experienced faculty to diagnose and work with children who pose difficult problems

•Enable candidates to analyze student work and refine their assessment systems

•Action research focuses candidates and mentors on efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning

•Use of an “inquiry stance” on teaching to encourage a community where everybody is a learner and a researcher

•Instructional rounds allow candidates to take turns engaging school and university faculty and candidates to reflect on learning and teaching at particular points in time

•A “Defense of Learning” approach helps focus candidates on their responsibility for student learning

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Licensed Mentors We need…

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Embedded in Strategic Partnerships We need…

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Fused Funding We need…

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We need… Regulation and Accreditation

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Teacher Policies: The U.S. Context

Highly decentralized

Many providers; multiple pathways

Professional accreditation voluntary

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Promising Developments for Leveraging Change

Creation of new unified professional accrediting body committed to increase rigor (national but voluntary)

Growing emphasis on performance and data

Common core student standards (2 subjects)

New teacher licensure standards (national but voluntary)

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Panel Recommendation 1:

More Rigorous Accountability Implications for Accreditation:

Develop new professional accreditation standards that raise the bar

-Commission on Standards

-Task Force on Performance Data

Implications for State Program Approval and Licensing:

Link state program approval to professional accreditation

Encourage use of new InTASC licensing standards and hold all programs to the same standards

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Panel Recommendation 2: Strengthening Candidate Selection and Placement

Implications for Accreditation:

Better address recruiting and admissions in standards

-Teacher Preparation: Building Evidence for Sound Policy, National Research Council, 2010

-Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top Third Graduates to a Career in Teaching. McKinsey & Co. 2010

Require all candidates to have in-depth clinical experiences in diverse/high-needs schools and demonstrate effect on student learning

Implications for State Program Approval and Licensing:

Require candidates to have in-depth clinical experiences in diverse/high-needs schools

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Panel Recommendation 3: Curriculum, Incentives, and Staffing

Implications for Accreditation:

Standards could address the 10 Design Principles

-Could expect trained higher education and P-12 clinical faculty* to work with candidates/novices as the norm

Implications for State Program Approval and Licensing:

Ensure extended embedded school experiences; qualified clinical educators; new incentives for higher ed

*Reference: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Educating Nurses; Educating Physicians

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Panel Recommendation 4: Supporting Partnerships

Implications for Accreditation:

Standards could expect programs to initiate partnerships to:

– Improve student learning

– Identify and work in diverse/high needs schools

– Develop candidate ability to teach challenging students

– Serve the needs of schools/districts

Implications for State Program Approval and Licensing:

Partnership setting will help candidates meet new state performance assessments

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Panel Recommendation 5: Expanding the Knowledge Base

Implications for Accreditation:

Need for R&D agenda

Accreditation provides opportunities for R&D

– Transformation Initiative

– Inquiry Brief

Implications for State Program Approval and Licensing:

New information from state databases

Build in teacher-as-researcher expectation as in other nations

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9 State Alliances

Commitment to pilot clinically-based approaches

Identify and remove barriers to innovation

Develop prototypes

Conduct research on what works

Scale up

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State Pilots

State partners to pilot networks of clinically

rich preparation targeted at high needs schools

Alliance Member States

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A Closer Look at the Nature of Laboratory and Clinical Experiences

and

The Charge to State Alliances

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Core Assumption

Rigorous clinical preparation is not defined by a protracted experience in one or more schools. Is is rather determined by a continuing array of specific clinical strategies occurring in theory/practice cycles which over time, increasingly demonstrate the effects of teaching and corollary instructional activities on student learning.

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Then…

…Now

This is Not Your Grandfather’s Student Teaching

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Simulation

Laboratory

Teaching Clinic Assessment Center

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The Lab Results…

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Possible Priorities for Alliance Teams

Priority One: The identification, adaptation, and testing of specific clinical strategies across sites. Priority Two: Building upon the above, a second priority could be the further design of a set of rigorous procedures for the selection and further preparation of both clinical faculty and clinic teachers and coaches. Priority Three: The identification, further design, and development of prototypical Professional Development (PDSs), Partner, or Portal Schools. Priority Four: The further design and development of hybrid PDSs, Partner or Portal Schools. Priority Five: Putting in place improvements in the assessment of teacher preparation programs including teacher candidate development and proficiency as well as evidence of impact on student learning.

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What Are Clinical Strategies?

Specific Coaching Models Lesson Study Teaching Clinics Grand Rounds Student/Teacher Work Samples Case Study and Case Development Professional Learning Communities Empirically Supported Observation Tools Distributed Advisors Teacher and Student Work Samples Teaching Portfolios Multiple Forms of Assessment

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Four Elements of Rigorous Coaching

Exposition

Demonstration and Examination

Guided Practice

Documentation of Teacher and Student Learning

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Lesson Study

In this particular clinic format one member of a study group or inquiry team teaches a lesson while other teachers observe. The lessons are videotaped and reviewed so that the thinking of the teacher can be made explicit at key points in this activity. After observation, feedback, and analysis, the original lesson is revised for a different group of students and taught by another member of the team.

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Case Literature

Studies of Students Problems of Practice Exemplary Practice Analysis of Curriculum Units

Four Types of Cases

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A Possible Plan of Action for State Alliances

Temporary Systems Small Action Teams Asset-scanning and Mapping Rapid Prototyping Mutual Adaptation

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Clinical Faculty and Clinic Teachers

Selection Preparation Allocated Time Compensation Evaluation

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Partnerships are commonly out of balance

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Professional Development Schools (PDS) Principles

Principle One. Teaching and learning for understanding. Principle Two. Creating a learning community. Principle Three. Teaching and learning for understanding for all children. Principle Four. Continuing learning by teachers, teacher educators, and administrators. Principle Five. Thoughtful long-term inquiry into teaching and learning. Principle Six. Inventing a new institution.

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PDS Hybrids: Simultaneous Renewal and Fused Funding

For professional development schools as clinical sites

Developing stronger career lattices, professional learning communities, and boundary-spanning roles

Maximizing new technologies to advance teaching and learning and assessment

Changing the basic structure of early and elementary schooling

Turning around high-need, underperforming schools

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Distributed Mentoring and Simultaneous Renewal

This PDS did not employ an individual mentor for prospective and novice teachers but rather developed a distributed consulting teacher structure.

•Coaching

•Standards

•Community

•Student Study

•Portfolio

•Confidant

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Maximizing New Technologies to Advance Teaching and Learning

New Tech high schools (www.newtechnetwork.org) are a prototype of model of 21st century schools.

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Changing the Structure of Early and Elementary Schooling

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Opportunity Five for State Alliances: Improved Data and Assessment

5 P-12 student learning must serve as the focal point for the design and implementation of clinically based teacher preparation, and for the assessment of newly minted teachers and the programs that have prepared them. Candidates need to develop practice that advances student knowledge as defined by, for example, the Common Core State Standards, for those subjects for which they have been developed (p.5).

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Resources Online

Additional resources are available online on NCATE’s website: http://bit.ly/9caJVJ Or http://www.ncate.org/Public/ResearchReports/NCATEInitiatives/BlueRibbonPanel/tabid/715/Default.aspx

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Nancy L. Zimpher Chancellor, The State University of New York Kenneth R. Howey Senior Fellow, Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government

CAEP Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting Clinical Practice and Partnerships Washington DC May 21, 2012