Collaborative Reform and Other Improbable Dreams
The Challenges of Professional Development Schools
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Examines Professional Development Schools, or "teaching schools," and the myriad complex issues, from policy to personnel, that surround their operation.
Description
This book discusses a ten-year process of teacher education reform at a major public research university (The Ohio State University) and the challenges that ensued. The thirteen Professional Development Schools (PDSs) described are diverse, yet they share a focus on school/university collaboration, reform in teacher education, professional developments, and inquiry. The authors speak frankly about their history, outcomes, and hopes for the future. The message is that school/university collaboration is a potentially rich approach to reform, yet fraught with challenges, demands, and an uncertain future.
Contributors include Cynthia Dickens, Rhonda Dailey-Dickinson, Don Cramer, Marilyn Johnston, Patricia Enciso, Becky Kirschner, Theresa Rogers, Barbara Seidl, Francee Eldredge, Kathleen Ibom, Lisa Maloney, Mike Thomas, Patricia Brosnan, Diana Erchick, Holly Thronton, Sue Chase, Merry Merryfield, Steven Miller, Stanley Ray, Tim Dove, Todd Kenreich, Barbara Levak, Dan Hoffman, Anna Soter, Beth Carnate, George Newell, Steven Hoffman, Rachel Moots, Barbara Thomson, Eugenie Maxwell, Lizbeth Kelley, William Gathergood, Keith Hall, Michael Parsons, Sandra Stroot, Mary O'Sullivan, Deborah Tannehill, Deborah Wilburn Robinson, Gwendolyn Cartledge, John Cooper, Ralph Gardner III, Timothy Heron, William Heward, Richard Howell, Diana Sainato. Foreword by Nancy Zimpher and Introduction by Marilyn Johnston. Conclusion by Patti Brosnan, Don Cramer, Tim Dove, and Marilyn Johnston.
At The Ohio State University, Marilyn Johnston is Professor of Social Studies Education and author of Contradictions in Collaboration: New Thinking in School University Partnerships, Patti Brosnan is Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, Don Cramer is former PDS Principal and is currently Program Director for the Office of Professional Practices. Tim Dove is a middle school social studies teacher in Worthington, Ohio.
Reviews
"Faculty at The Ohio State University and local school administrators and teachers have been working together since 1986 to change how we prepare new teachers and promote professional development. This has meant changing our institutions while working in them and studying both the process and outcomes as we go. The context, challenges, and consequences of this large scale reform are complex and uneven but some of the outcomes are clear: teacher education is done differently now, professors and teachers teach differently, and the schools and university have changed in significant ways. " — Marilyn Johnston, from the Introduction
"There are a number of sources that detail collaborative efforts but few books that explore the issues in such depth, and none that I am aware of that so clearly explicate the benefits and the difficulties of school/university work. This set of contributors builds a case study of a major effort, which to me is one of the strengths of the book. " — Taffy Raphael, Oakland University