Sustaining School Colleagues’ Commitment to a Long-term Professional Experience Partnership

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated school participants' perceptions of the benefits, challenges and supportive factors related to their involvement in a long-term school/university professional experience partnership. Data were collected through interviews with coordinators and a written survey completed by mentor teachers from 4 schools. The findings indicate that participants perceived the program to have a number of benefits for both staff and school students and that participation was supported by effective communication, flexible funding arrangements, local autonomy to interpret and adapt the program and the continuity arising from the long-term nature of the partnership. The benefits and supportive factors appear to have compensated for challenges such as organisational demands, negotiating university expectations and stresses on workload, time, space and resources. The discussion focuses on features that appear to have contributed to the sustainability of the partnership over many years.

School Co-ordinators: Leaders of Learning in Professional Experience

“…Given the changing landscapes (Clandinin, 2009) of schools and universities and the ever-increasing complexity of being a teacher, this is a noteworthy distinction. Peters (2011) also confirmed the importance of the Coordinator's pedagogical role in her study of a long-term school-university partnership in a first year professional experience program. She found that Co-ordinators were central to providing a supportive culture in each of the schools where the partnership flourished.…”

How can educational innovations become sustainable? A review of the empirical literature

“…For optimal knowledge sharing, it is essential that this is done effectively. In the cross-sectional study by Peters (2011), for example, participants valued knowledge sharing in the form of written materials about the program, and phone-calls and emails from the coordinators; accessibility of information was most important. Multiple studies found that an example of important information that should be shared within the school is the program's effectiveness: what is working and what needs adapting (Benz et al, 2004;Zehetmeier, 2015;Elder and Prochnow, 2016).…”

“…It is therefore important to give teachers (but also parents and students, for example) ownership of and responsibility for the process (e.g., Kirtman, 2002;Jesson and Limbrick, 2014), and to collaborate closely with teachers (Payneeandy and Auckloo, 2012). They should be engaged in the decision-making process by means of shared leadership (e.g., Alanís and Rodríguez, 2008;Furman Shaharabani and Tal, 2017) and should be given local autonomy (Peters, 2011;Postholm, 2011). Teachers should therefore be educated to become teacher leaders (e.g., Elias, 2010), which is necessary for a sustainable educational future (Edwards Groves and Rönnerman, 2013).…”

“…Multiple studies also showed that facilitation needs to take the form of providing the relevant connections within appropriate networks (Lewin et al, 2009;Zehetmeier, 2015) and a safe working environment (Kafyulilo et al, 2016) in order to foster sustainability. Peters (2011) found that when issues around workload, space, planning and resource are not optimal, sustainability can be hindered.…”

From preparation to practice: Tensions and connections

“…Some suggest that simply providing a practice setting for student teachers is not sufficient, especially given the complexities and challenges of teaching in today's schools and centres (Hagger, Burn, Mutton, & Brindley, 2008;Haigh & Ward, 2004). Questions have been raised regarding practicum arrangements, with Peters (2011), for example, questioning the practice of randomly assigning student teachers to mentor teachers who may or may not see their role as modelling best practice. Indeed, Sinclair, Munns and Woodward (2005) found that mentor teachers often deliberately contradicted university concepts of best practice by telling students to forget about what is taught to them at the university.…”