Collaborating for Transformative Change in Education: Lessons from Within a Teacher-Educator Coalition

This book collates the practitioner stories of university-school partnerships for the renewal of educator preparation (US PREP) teacher preparation programs across the nation, documenting the programs’ efforts to enact scaled transformative practices within their institutions. Examples include the way in which educators engage multiple stakeholders in program improvement, transform the clinical preparation of teacher candidates, develop measures of program success, and create the conditions for transformative change.

Each chapter highlights the efforts of one or more of US PREP’s 32 university-based teacher preparation coalition programs. Together, the chapters offer insight into how a national coalition can effectively support transformation at the local level while creating opportunities for multilayered collaboration within and across institutions. Contributors include teacher educators and educational leaders, and topics of chapters include using data for program decision-making; applying a change management model; establishing governance over school-university partnerships; developing a vision of teaching shared between universities and school districts; promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; and improving teacher and teacher educator professional development. Chapters also present solutions for some of the most prominent challenges in teacher education program improvement, including faculty engagement, stakeholder collaboration, university policy alignment, and state and national accreditation.

Designed as a textbook, this book provides a series of guiding questions after each chapter to promote further reflection and discussion. Ideal for teacher educators, educational leaders, school practitioners, and graduate students of education, this book offers insider information that can help these stakeholders to better facilitate collaboration and participation in the improvement, scale, and sustainability of clinically rich and culturally diverse teacher preparation.

Elina Lampert-Shepel is the chair of the MS Education and Special Education Programs and Associate Professor at Touro University in New York, a US PREP member institution.

Aaron Zimmerman is an assessment analyst in the Office of Data and Analytics at the University of Colorado Boulder.