School University Partnerships

Rethinking School-University Partnerships: A New Way Forward provides educational leaders in K-12 schools and colleges of education with insight, advice, and direction into the task of creating partnerships. In current times, colleges of education and local school districts need each other like never before. School districts struggle with pipeline, recruitment, and retention issues. Colleges of education face declining enrollment and a shifting educational landscape that fundamentally changes the way that teachers are trained and what local school districts expect their teachers to be able to do. It is with these overlapping constraints and converging interests that partnerships emerge as a foundational strategy for strengthening the education of our teachers. With nearly 80 contributors from 16 states (and Jamaica) representing 39 educational institutions, the partnerships described in this book are different from the ways in which colleges of education and school districts have traditionally worked with one another. In the past, these loose relationships centered primarily on student teaching and/or field experience placements. In this arrangement, the relationship was directed towards ensuring that the local schools were amenable to hosting students from the college of education so that the student/candidate could complete the requirements to earn a teaching license. In our view, this paradigm needs to be enlarged and shifted.

This volume looks at school-university partnerships from sociocultural perspectives of learning that view participation in social practice as fundamental to the process of learning. Its two major themes – school-university partnership and sociocultural and social theories of learning – have both been treated extensively in the literature. It is the bringing together of these two themes that makes this book unique. In this examination of an evolving model of school-university partnership, the Unified Professional Development Project in Hong Kong, the authors analyze the learning that takes place as the participants (student-teachers, mentor teachers, and university supervisors) mutually engage in the enterprise of improving teaching and learning in schools, developing shared practices, and creating new communities of practice. Although it describes one specific context, the book is not just about this locale. Rather, the Unified Professional Development Project is used as a context for theorizing more generally a social theory of learning for school-university partnerships that is relevant to any other similar context. This book will interest teacher educators, researchers in teacher education and teacher development, policy makers, and school practitioners who are involved in school-university partnerships.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

THIS IS A UNIQUE BOOK. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLING AND THE WAY IN WHICH PARTNERSHIPS MAY HELP TO STRENGTHEN AND IMPROVE THEM AND THE INSTITUTIONS THAT PARTNER WITH THEM, YOU SHOULD READ IT! School partnerships have a long history in the United States. The inception of public schooling was a type of partnership with the community. The concept of local school boards and local control was integral to the establishment of schools and the idea that public education was a public good has deep roots in the country. Partnerships denote relationships which are mutually beneficial to the parties involved and which result in joint benefits for those who create and engage in them. The partnerships presented in this book provide ample evidence of the value and benefits of these arrangements. The book contains stories and research about school partnerships from a variety of groups and perspectives, which are focused upon multiple issues within educational institutions and communities within the United States. The final chapter, presents an analysis across all the partnerships to identify the elements that fostered and hindered their success and the primary lessons learned. This analysis should provide meaningful information for those engaged in developing and operating similar partnerships or those involved in conducting research on or about them. Although the cases presented in this book occur within the United States, the findings may also have relevance for similar initiatives in other countries. Praise for Creating School Partnerships that Work: A Guide for Practice and Research: Kudos to Dana Griggs and Frances Kochan for compiling the rich accountings of eight different school partnerships all in one place. Readers will learn a great deal from both the individual accountings of a broad array of partnerships as well as the collective analysis of the partnerships and lessons learned across them. Creating School Partnerships that Work:A Guide for Research and Practice is a must-read book for anyone who ever has been, is, or desires to be involved in any type of school partnership. Nancy Fichtman Dana, Professor, School of Teaching and Learning University of Florida, Gainesville Creating School Partnerships that Work: A Guide for Research and Practice is a must read for scholars, researchers, practitioners, and community members seeking to identify elements of successful school partnerships that foster students' academic and personal successes. This edited volume shares stakeholders' perspectives on multi-dimensional school partnerships, which have successfully led to sustained collaborations across diverse purposes that are mutually beneficial for all groups. The usefulness of the content analysis presented in the final chapter, which identifies elements both fostering and hindering partnerships with recommendations, cannot be overstated. Mary Barbara Trube, Professor Emerita, Ohio University-Chillicothe Contributing Faculty & Dissertation Mentor, Walden University Early Childhood Education Adjunct Faculty, Florida SouthWestern State College Mentor & Early Childhood Consultant, ILEAD Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

This book provides new knowledge, insights and experience about school-university partnerships. Drawing upon evidence from international research of the world’s most improved systems, and learning from a UK research council funded ‘knowledge exchange’ project, it reveals that when the profound differences between the practice worlds of schools and the theoretical worlds of university academics are embraced and cherished, rather than eschewed, school-university partnerships become exciting avenues of learning which connect, challenge and transform the thinking and practice of all those involved. Over its eight chapters, the book explores uncertainties, challenges and possibilities faced by those who seek to create, develop and sustain school-university partnerships that aspire to improve the practice and understanding of the leadership of teaching and learning in schools. It explicates and elucidates precepts, principles and practices for achieving such successful partnerships between higher education and school leaders, and contextualises these in terms of policy wide developments internationally. This book will appeal to school leaders internationally, leadership training organisations, and academics who lead postgraduate leadership and management programmes.

This volume examines the diverse ways in which universities and colleges around the world are partnering and collaborating with other institutions to fulfil their missions and visions.

Working with educators at all academic levels involved in WAC partnerships, the authors and editors of this collection demonstrate successful models of collaboration between schools and institutions so others can emulate and promote this type of collaboration.

This volume examines the diverse ways in which universities and colleges around the world are partnering and collaborating with other institutions to fulfil their missions and visions.

Now more than ever, the collaboration of researchers and practitioners from both PreK-12 and higher education in partnership and in research is imperative for solving problems in teaching and learning and for instituting fundamental change in education. There is growing empirical work on educational change and improvement in school-university partnership settings that should be explored. This applied research and research design impacts the initiation and institution of change in partnership settings. Thus, the role of research is an essential lever for reform. Practical perspectives are necessary to share for shaping a future in partnerships and to promote collaborative action and inquiry in school-university and professional development partnership settings. This includes changes in the partnerships’ classroom teaching, in school and college policies, student outcomes, course content, and in partnerships’ teacher education programs. Change and Improvement in School-University Partnership Settings: Emerging Research and Opportunities spotlights the types of research, research designs, and exemplar studies that were successful in producing changes and improvements in the longitudinal partnerships the author founded and directed. The chapters reveal what worked and why it worked along with brief descriptions of the exemplar studies that served as catalysts for change. In addition, a brief history of the partnership movement in America is given along with an overview of the current landscape of the different types of education partnerships prevalent today and their key research features. This book is ideal for researchers, scholars, teacher-researchers, change agents, professors, teacher educators, students, and graduate fellows interested in conducting practical and effective applied research for change and improvement in school-university partnership settings.