CHAPTER 1

MARYLAND’S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SCHOOLS (PDSs)

Teacher Education Reform in Maryland

Growing out of a series of public hearings held by the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) during the last half of 1989, there emerged a call for dramatic improvements in teacher preparation, both in pre-service professional preparation and continuing professional development. In response, MHEC charged a Blue Ribbon Task Force with recommending a comprehensive strategy for the reform of teacher preparation in the state. MHEC’s report, "Investing in Teachers: Professional Preparation for the 21st Century," proposed a conceptual framework intended "to enhance elementary/secondary student performance through the more rigorous and relevant preparation of teachers" (1992). The Task Force recommended that reform efforts emphasize rigorous undergraduate education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, a sustained clinical experience of professional practice (at least a year in length), and continuing education opportunities for experienced teachers aligned with state requirements for recertification.

In December 1992, the Secretary of Higher Education invited the co-sponsorship of the State Superintendent of Schools and the joint involvement of the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) to implement the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force. Over the next several months, more than 300 individuals representing public schools, IHEs, business, government, and the community were invited to serve on Design Teams and a State Resource Panel as part of a second task force which provided comment on preliminary reports and recommendations. The Secretary and State Superintendent charged Task Force II to examine the conceptual framework established by Task Force I and recommend specific strategies for implementing reform initiatives by the year 2000. Three design parameters regarding teacher preparation were to guide the work of the Task Force:

· a liberal arts and sciences undergraduate education with breadth and depth, eventually replacing the undergraduate degree in education;

· a comprehensive and intensive clinical preparation program within a public school classroom setting;

· all program elements of teacher education reform integrated with school reform activities.

The result was the seminal document, Teacher Education Task Force Report (commonly referred to as the Redesign of Teacher Education), which was formally adopted by MHEC in May 1995 and endorsed by the State Board of Education in June 1995.

The Redesign of Teacher Education

Since the document’s release, the Redesign of Teacher Education (hereafter referred to as the Redesign) has guided reform efforts in teacher education throughout the state of Maryland. MSDE and MHEC have worked collaboratively to provide funding and technical assistance to IHEs and local school systems to support full implementation of the Redesign. In addition, both agencies have created measurable objectives within their strategic plans to focus state efforts on this implementation.

The Redesign emphasizes a systemic approach to improving teaching and learning in schools through a solid teacher preparation program, grounded in a foundation of content knowledge and pedagogy. In the Redesign, the teacher preparation program is viewed in the broader context of school improvement and is expected to enhance the education of all children. The major recommendations of the Redesign include the following:

· completion of a content degree (including inter- and multi-disciplinary degrees) or a performance-based teacher preparation program, grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, for all prospective teachers;

· multiple points of entry for early and late deciders, as well as career changers, to facilitate the recruitment, retention and graduation of individuals of diverse backgrounds, including underrepresented minorities;

· a rigorous content and performance assessment program linking all aspects of the academic and professional program;

· a sustained, intensive internship within a professional development school (PDS) that exemplifies diversity among students under the guidance of mentor classroom teachers and IHE faculty;

· determination of readiness for state certification through the demonstration of performance competencies;

· increased emphasis on teacher renewal and inservice through PDSs; and

· the development of specific linkages between teacher preparation and statewide school reform efforts.

Soon after the release of the Redesign, Chancellor Donald Langenberg, State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick, and Secretary Patricia Florestano created a unique, very powerful alliance, the Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16. This partnership of the University System of Maryland, the Maryland State Department of Education, and the Maryland Higher Education Commission is committed to three essential issues: first, that the education of all of Maryland’s children is critical to a healthy state; second, that the reform of PreK-16 education in Maryland will only be achieved through bold educational leadership; and third, that the efforts of Maryland secondary and higher education will be more effective if common problems are addressed jointly. Since the establishment of the Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16 in 1995, the group has facilitated educational reform efforts in the state of Maryland.

With policy in place, the Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16 established a Professional Development Design Team charged with producing a detailed plan and schedule leading to “full implementation” of the PDS as a mechanism for teacher education and professional development across the state. The Design Team’s plan was adopted by the Leadership Council of the K-16 Partnership in February 1998. In implementing the plan, a new subcommittee of the Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16, the Superintendents and Deans Committee, was established.

Superintendents and Deans Committee

In October 1999, the Superintendents and Deans Committee, a subcommittee of The Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16, was formed to develop recommendations that specifically address the implementation of PDSs. This committee, consisting of local school system superintendents and deans of IHEs working in collaboration with MSDE and MHEC, has collaborated to create definitions to guide PDS implementation, draft the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools, arrange PDS site visits for Maryland’s superintendents and deans, and author this handbook.

Definitions

In fulfilling its charge, the Superintendents and Deans Committee drafted the following definitions and explanations, which are offered as an attempt to clarify terminology across IHEs and local school systems in the state of Maryland. Other relevant terms are defined in the glossary (See Appendix A).

PDS

A Professional Development School (PDS) is a collaboratively planned and implemented partnership for the academic and clinical preparation of interns and the continuous professional development of both school system and institution of higher education (IHE) faculty. The focus of the PDS partnership is improved student performance through research-based teaching and learning. A PDS may involve a single or multiple schools, school systems and IHEs and may take many forms to reflect specific partnership activities and approaches to improving both teacher education and PreK-12 schools.

PDSs immerse interns into the culture of schools in order to make the clinical experience more meaningful. In Maryland, interns completing a PDS experience spend a minimum of 100 days over two consecutive semesters engaged in the school community learning to teach and having experiences with students of diverse backgrounds and abilities (See the discussion of the extensive internship in Chapter 3). Interns are also expected to document mastery of professional standards for beginning teachers through the development of a portfolio. IHE faculty are expected to become immersed in the school as well, providing on-site coursework and professional development opportunities, and serving on school improvement teams and other coordinating and advisory groups.

PDSs also afford greater professional development opportunities for school staff members. Teachers may assume one or more of many new roles, such as site coordinator, pre-service mentor, or adjunct faculty, to support the PDS. School faculty can also participate in activities such as peer coaching, mentoring, presenting at conferences, or serving on the Coordinating Council. PreK-16 faculty may also engage in other professional collaborations such as team teaching and conducting action research.

PDSs are ever-emerging entities. The PDS’s developmental nature allows each PDS to meet the unique needs of the partners. A new PDS will operate differently and target different outcomes than a mature partnership. This dynamic nature allows PDSs to respond to the needs of the school system and IHE, while encouraging innovation and reform.

PDSs may involve undergraduate and/or graduate programs. Additionally, a PDS may be constituted as a single or multiple site, requiring interns to complete experiences in one or more buildings (See Appendix B, Guidelines for a Multiple-Site Professional Development School). The PDS may also involve one or more IHEs, including community colleges. When more than one IHE is involved in a partnership, special care must be taken to provide integrated professional development and intern placement opportunities to avoid burnout among school faculty.

Intern

An intern is a student in a teacher preparation program who participates as part of a cohort (typically 5 or more) in an extensive internship in a PDS. Interns completing a PDS experience spend a minimum of 100 days over two consecutive semesters engaged in the school community learning to teach.

Compared to traditional student teachers, PDS interns are provided more exposure to the full range of teacher duties (e.g., classroom set-up, committee meetings, faculty meetings, parent conferences, etc.), becoming more comfortable with full teaching responsibilities and more knowledgeable about the school, the PreK-12 students and faculty, and the instructional program.

Literature shows that the leadership skills and instructional effectiveness of PDS interns exceeds those of student teachers trained in a traditional teacher preparation program (Reinhartz & Stetson, 1999). PDS interns feel more confident in their knowledge and skill as professionals and subsequently experience less "culture shock" when they become practicing teachers, feel better equipped to instruct ethnically and linguistically diverse students, and have lower attrition rates during the first few years of teaching (Abdal-Haqq, 1998).

Pre-Service Mentor

A pre-service mentor is a tenured, professionally certificated teacher in the PDS who is responsible for collaborating with the IHE supervisor to provide individualized support to a PDS intern. Pre-service mentors receive ongoing training in guiding, supporting and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of interns.

Pre-service mentors improve their own practice by reflecting with their interns. They are kept abreast of advances in curriculum development and instruction by IHE faculty and interns. Pre-service mentors may also receive release time to observe or work with colleagues.

Finally, participation in the PDS affords pre-service mentors, as well as other staff members, opportunities to participate in on-site courses, workshops, inquiry/action research groups, conferences, and other professional development activities.

Selection criteria and procedures for intern/pre-service mentor matching are often determined at a strategic planning session or by the PDS Coordinating Council.

CHAPTER 2

STANDARDS FOR MARYLAND PDSs

Standards Development

Upon first examination of the status of PDSs in Maryland, the Superintendents and Deans Committee found there was no mechanism to determine whether existing partnerships met the intent of the Redesign. The group decided that a set of standards was needed to guide the implementation and determine the developmental level of PDSs in Maryland.

In developing the standards, the committee recognized that while a PDS may continually be in the process of “becoming”, certain common components are essential to the implementation of the partnership. The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools (See Appendix C) were designed to identify the distinguishing characteristics of PDS and to support the development of quality PDSs.

The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools have been drawn primarily from two sources, which in their own right have served the purposes of PDS implementation and assessment. The first source was the Maryland Common Understandings about Professional Development Schools (Maryland State Department of Education, 1995), which guided a 1995-1997 cross-site review of selected PDSs in Maryland by the State Teacher Education Council (Maryland State Department of Education, 1998). The second source was the Draft Standards for Identifying and Supporting Quality Professional Development Schools (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 1997). These national standards have been valuable for PDS planning in Maryland and other states and have served as the basis of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) PDS on-site review of 20 sites which were specially selected pilot sites. This national project included Towson University’s PDS with Owings Mills Elementary School in Baltimore County, Maryland. The purpose of the 20-site review process was to test the draft standards in a real-life setting and produce data necessary for revising and finalizing them.

The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools, drawn from these two sources, are grounded in the theory and practice of PDSs. They provide current and future PDS stakeholders with clear, concise standards that are relevant to the state’s commitment to provide quality PDS experiences for all interns. The Standards are intended to be used by PDS partners to conduct self-assessments to improve school and IHE programs as well as to guide the development of new PDSs. To help PDS practitioners achieve the standards, developmental guidelines have been created as well.

Standards

The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools are presented in a matrix. The five standards represent important attributes of PDSs. Each is described within the context of four state components of the Redesign: teacher preparation, continuing professional development, research and inquiry, and student achievement (PreK-12 priorities). Within the cells are indicators of how the standard might be met in the particular priority area. The indicators are only examples and are in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of ways the standards may be met. There may be other indicators that equally convey the achievement of or progress toward the standards.

The five Maryland standards for PDSs are as follows:

Learning Community

As a learning community, the PDS recognizes and supports the distinct learning needs of all stakeholders by integrating the development of students and adults. Interns complete extensive internships as a part of the learning community and share responsibility with school faculty for the academic performance of PreK-12 students. In turn, school-based pre-service mentors share responsibility with the teacher preparation program for the academic and clinical performance of interns. Throughout the process, PDS partners model reflective practice and self-initiated learning and assessment. Instruction and professional development at all levels is data-driven and focused on increasing student capabilities.

Collaboration

The mission of the PDS is jointly defined and mutually supported by the IHE and the school(s). Roles and structures are collaboratively designed to support the PDS work and to improve outcomes for PreK-12 students and interns. Arts and sciences, school-based, teacher education, and clinical faculty plan and implement intern curriculum and professional development initiatives centered on student achievement. The partners set standards for participation and learning outcomes together. Respect for the needs and goals of all stakeholders is central to the PDS.

Accountability

The PDS accepts the responsibility of and is held accountable for upholding professional standards for preparing and renewing teachers in accordance with the Redesign. Consequently, PDS partners jointly identify standards for interns and participate in evaluating intern performance. Accomplished PreK-16 faculty are engaged in the mentoring and supervision of interns, and intern development is documented in a portfolio and evaluated against state or national standards for beginning teachers. All PDS stakeholders are held accountable for the achievement of PreK-16 students as measured by performance assessments.

Organization, Roles and Resources

PDS partners allocate resources to support the continuous improvement of teaching and learning. New roles are created and old roles are modified for PreK-16 students, interns, faculty and administrators to achieve the mission of the PDS. Effective communication about PDS plans and structures plays a key role in the linkage with school districts, IHEs, parents, and others. Jointly funded positions are encouraged and supported. Partners provide PDS stakeholders with necessary resources to advance PDS work: vision, time, space, incentives, leadership, technology, and access.

Diversity and Equity

The PDS supports equitable involvement of PreK-16 faculty and interns, as well as equitable support of student outcomes. Teacher candidates have equitable access to the PDS internship, and all PreK-16 faculty have opportunities to participate in PDS activities. The PDS is attentive to issues of equity related to student achievement and seeks to address them through research-based program improvements that enable interns to meet the needs of diverse learners.

Developmental Guidelines

In the summer of 2000, PDS practitioners from a variety of partnerships in Maryland assembled for the PDS Summer Leadership Academy. These “fellows” brought various artifacts from their PDSs and used the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools to classify these artifacts. The documents were used as a basis for the development of Draft Developmental Guidelines for Maryland Professional Development Schools (See Appendix D). These guidelines were developed to facilitate the clear interpretation and smooth implementation of the Standards. The Guidelines are offered as a developmental continuum to further clarify the indicators found in the cells of the PDS Standards matrix. Like the indicators, the guidelines are intended as suggestions, not as a required checklist for PDS implementation.

As a result of the process used for guidelines development, the Guidelines are firmly rooted in practice, and a host of technical assistants throughout the state are available to demonstrate Guidelines in action and to provide support to new PDSs. (See the discussion of Support Networks in Chapter 3.)

Standards Review and Adoption

In March 2000, the state’s deans and directors of teacher education and local school superintendents agreed to endorse the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools and pilot them on a voluntary basis for the 2000-2001 academic year. In addition, four PDS partnerships agreed to use the Standards and Guidelines as implementation tools, serve as demonstration sites for visits, and host “no-fault” site reviews focused on evaluating the Standards and Developmental Guidelines for Maryland Professional Development Schools. The sites received assistance to produce self studies based on the Standards and Guidelines.

Feedback gathered from PDS practitioners who participated in site visits guided final revisions to the Standards and Developmental Guidelines for Maryland Professional Development Schools. The final revisions were adopted by the Superintendents and Deans Committee in October 2002, after the committee ensured alignment with the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education's PDS Standards (see Appendix E for a table demonstrating the alignment of Maryland PDS standards and NCATE PDS standards). Maryland's Standards are currently being integrated with MSDE's program approval process to support the development of quality PDSs within the State.

CHAPTER 3

BEST PRACTICES IN PDSs

Building the Infrastructure

Best practices in PDSs have emerged from the amassed experiences of PDS practitioners in Maryland since the establishment of Maryland’s first PDSs in 1994. The best practices included here are designed for use by a wide variety of PDSs, including single and multiple sites, elementary and secondary partnerships, and graduate and undergraduate programs.

Site Selection

Establishing a PDS infrastructure that encourages PDS development and ensures sustainability depends on conversations of both breadth and depth among all stakeholders of the partnership. These conversations must occur at several levels prior to any commitments being made concerning that development. There must be an initial conversation between the school building administrator or empowered designee and the dean of education or empowered designee. In addition, local school system superintendents or designees must authorize schools wishing to become PDSs. While faculty members must be fully engaged in the collaborative process, the leaders must make the commitments necessary to further the initiative.

Sometimes, good reasons exist for exploring the concept of multiple-site PDS development. In some areas of the state, placements that offer experiences in dealing with students with diverse backgrounds and needs are difficult to provide. Single sites may also have difficulty supporting the needs of a large cohort due to a shortage of accomplished and experienced teachers to serve as pre-service mentors. In these and other circumstances, a multiple-site partnership may be desirable.

Regardless of the number of school sites involved in the PDS, certain questions must be answered by each principal with the school staff before commitments can be made. These include the following:

· Can the site offer interns experiences working with diverse learners?

· Is the site able to provide a sufficient number of experienced, accomplished pre-service mentors to support the cohort of interns (typically five or more)?

· Can the principal envision the development of this partnership evolving into a whole new way of “doing business” at the school?

· Is the principal prepared to engage in (and encourage the staff to engage in) the deep collaboration necessary for the strategic planning of a PDS, particularly in establishing the roles and responsibilities of all the parties involved and in working together to design and implement the School Improvement Plan?

· Is the principal willing to encourage the staff to engage in a needs analysis for collaborative staff development between the site and the IHE?

· Will the principal commit to sharing data concerning student achievement and teacher success (where legally and ethically possible) in an effort to make the PDS accountable?

· Is the principal willing to explore ways to equitably compensate staff members for the time spent in first-level engagement in the PDS process? To explore incentives for staff who engage in this process?

· Does the principal aspire to the creation of a community of learners at the school, a community that engages all who work in the building?

· In the case of a multiple-site partnership, is the principal willing to work collaboratively with other schools to plan and engage in PDS activities?

At the IHE, the IHE administrators and faculty must reflect on and be able to respond to another set of questions prior to making such a commitment:

· Is the IHE able to place a full cohort (typically 5 or more interns) in the PDS for an extensive internship (at least 100 days over two consecutive semesters)?

· Is the IHE willing and able to commit the resources to the site to be able to support the partnership? That is, will the IHE hire and assign sufficient faculty to be present at the site to work with the interns, the pre-service mentors and the school faculty as designed by the collaboration?

· Is the IHE willing to take action to ensure that each partner’s voice has equal weight?

· Does the IHE understand that the need for collaborative staff development must include IHE faculty as well as school faculty and the interns, and that the staff development is dictated by self-assessed needs, not by the IHE alone?

· Is the IHE willing to commit resources to assist in the analysis of data leading to an accountability process for the developing PDS?

· Does the IHE aspire to the creation of a community of learners at the school site; a community that engages all who work in the PDS?

The very nature of a PDS partnership depends on the willingness of all parties to commit to the partnership. Although partnerships usually involve only one school or one small group of schools, school district-level approval and commitment must be secured as well. The design of the partnership is based on outcomes for the PreK-12 students in the school with collaborative staff development and pre-service teacher preparation centered on those outcomes. Local school systems must be helped to understand the congruence of PDSs and school improvement or there will be little incentive to commit time and resources to such partnerships. Initial efforts, then, must be grounded in a strong and supportive relationship with the central office of a school system in order for the partnership to be sustainable.

Likewise, there must be a level of understanding and commitment at the administrative levels of the IHE as well. Examples of concerns that must be addressed in both institutions in order for the PDS to be strong and lasting include the following:

· Are the missions of the institutions compatible? Does each understand the accountability structures that exist for the other? (PreK-12 requirements/High School Assessments and the Redesign; Middle States and State/NCATE Approval, etc.)

· Does each institution recognize that a fully developed and functioning PDS is not something “done to” the site, but instead becomes the identity of the site?

· Does each institution make information about the PDS available to possible employees who will be assigned to the site before securing their commitment?

· Does each understand the importance of collecting and analyzing data to be used in focusing accountability on the partnership regarding the success of PreK-12 students, interns and inservice teachers?

· Does each understand the shared responsibility for providing human and fiscal resources to support PDS activities?

Finally, no PDS can be successful at any level without full collaboration of the faculty at each prospective site. This does not mean that each and every member of the faculty will be equally engaged, nor that each will be equally supportive. The goal is to provide a collaborative experience for all faculty and staff and to provide an atmosphere where developing a community of learners is possible.

Some ways to facilitate whole-faculty involvement include the following:

· Make a presentation to the whole faculty at the potential site outlining the goals and objectives of the PDS and emphasizing the benefits for each stakeholder group. Explain that the overriding goal is to improve the quality of experiences for their own students as well as for themselves.

· Be sure the initial conversations, the very first presentations, set a tone of collegiality and collaboration, where each person has a voice that is heard, and that this tone is adopted as the norm for all such conversations. That a paradigm of equity develops in all conversations and collaborations is critical.

· Stress that this initiative is not top down; stress also that the partnership is not the IHE telling the school faculty what to do; emphasize the concept of a learning community where all stakeholders share in developing and implementing a collaborative plan.

· Provide opportunities for a variety of forms of engagement with the development of the PDS. Some faculty may have had experiences as cooperating teachers in a traditional setting and may be very interested in serving as a pre-service mentor for this more intensive relationship, while others may not be ready for that level of participation, but would enjoy participating as demonstration teachers, as inquiry group members, or as willing ears for the reflections and concerns of the interns or pre-service mentors. Many creative ways exist to include people in partnership activities.

The conversations that precede the commitment to site selection for PDS development are perhaps the most critical elements to the possibility of success at every level for the partnership. Relationship building is critical to such a development. Absent an atmosphere which promotes this blend of missions, goals and objectives, expected outcomes, shared responsibilities and accountabilities, it is not possible to create a partnership which will be more than a project. Selecting and preparing the site are essential before moving to the next level.

Establishing the Coordinating Council

Once a site for PDS development is agreed upon by all stakeholders, the next step is to establish a collaborative governance vehicle (e.g., Coordinating Council) that will serve as the organizing body for the development and implementation of all aspects of the PDS. The Coordinating Council should be co-chaired by school and IHE personnel to immediately demonstrate the collaboration. Every effort should be made to ensure that the membership of the Coordinating Council includes representatives from all stakeholder groups and reflects the diversity of the school and community. The Coordinating Council’s membership might include, but need not be limited to:

· The principal of the school site(s). The principal may designate another administrator to speak for the administrative team or to attend some meetings; however, the principal should make a commitment to be a part of this team wherever and whenever possible.

· The IHE liaison(s). The IHE liaison is critical to the process not only in terms of the knowledge that is brought to the table but also in terms of promoting the spirit of collaboration from the outset.

· The school site coordinator(s). The site coordinator is the one upon whom much of the day-to-day operation, and therefore the ultimate success of the partnership, will depend.

· The chair of the school improvement team and/or the instructional coordinator of the school(s). Planning for the PDS centers on the school improvement plan. Conversations surrounding this process should be grounded in the Coordinating Council.

· Pre-service mentors. These are the people engaged in front-line roles of the PDS. Their voice is an important one in planning and implementing goals and objectives for the PDS.

· Parents. Because PDS seeks to improve instruction for PreK-12 students, a parent presence should be included in PDS planning.

· Interns. Along with the pre-service mentors, interns are on the front line and can respond most efficiently to planning that is reality based as well as useful to the desired outcomes.

· IHE Faculty. Teacher education and arts and sciences faculties provide a critical link between the school(s) and IHE(s).

· Teachers (non-mentor teachers). Non-mentor teachers from the school site(s) provide a wide-lens perspective of the potential impact of PDS activities on the entire school community.

· Students (for secondary partnerships). Secondary students are able to offer valuable insight for designing interventions and activities to promote PreK-12 student learning.

· Community Members. Business partners and community members are able to provide valuable support and resources to the partnership.

The Coordinating Council meets regularly throughout the school year to monitor/evaluate the day-to-day operation of the PDS and progress toward goals and objectives identified in the PDS Strategic Plan. In addition, the Coordinating Council provides a forum for feedback and open communication among stakeholders. The Coordinating Council also may be involved in reporting required by funding agencies and addressing issues of concern. The responsibilities of the Coordinating Council are jointly shared among school and IHE personnel.

Memorandum of Understanding

PDSs require strong commitments to improving teaching and learning for both students and adults. School systems commit to providing sites for interns to complete their PDS experience, as well as pre-service mentors to guide and support them as they become a part of the school culture. In addition, they may commit monetary and/or human resources to support the PDS operation. Other commitments may include efforts to stabilize leadership at the PDS and increased efforts to recruit PDS graduates. IHEs commit to providing cohorts (typically, groups of 5 or larger, who are provided opportunities to work and interact with one another in the same site) to serve as interns in PDSs and faculty to help coordinate their activities. Other commitments include providing professional development opportunities for school staff and participating in school improvement efforts. IHEs may also commit financial and other human resources to support PDS activities. Often, the individual commitments of the IHE and PreK-12 education partners are defined within a Memorandum of Understanding which clarifies the commitment, the expectations and the resources that each party brings to the partnership. The memorandum is endorsed at both the school system level and at an administrative level of the IHE.

Strategic Planning

The success of the PDS revolves around planning and the collaboration involved in the process of clarifying the mission, goals, and expected outcomes of the partnership. The PDS Strategic Plan should support the local School Improvement Plan and the Teacher Preparation Improvement Plan (TPIP) of the IHE. At a minimum, PDS strategic planning should involve all members of the Coordinating Council; provisions for additional teacher representatives should be made, where possible. (Keep in mind that in multiple-site partnerships, all schools and/or IHEs should be represented equally so that planning encompasses the needs of all partners.)

Strategic planning, which may vary in structure from partnership to partnership, should have certain commonalities. This planning should take place at least once a year and should:

· Establish immediately the need for a truly collaborative atmosphere where each voice at the table has equal weight. School personnel may be reluctant at first to take ownership in the partnership in the presence of IHE personnel. Additionally, previously established relationships among school personnel may inhibit collaboration. The co-chairs of the Coordinating Council must assume this task as a priority.

· Establish clearly defined long- and short-term goals and objectives that are written around targeted improvements for PreK-12 students, interns, and PreK-16 faculty. These goals and objectives establish the focus for the PDS and should be closely linked to the school improvement plan(s) of the school(s) involved. During the first year of a partnership, a great deal of relationship/trust building along with information sharing is necessary to build a strong and enduring foundation for the partnership.

· Develop timelines that are challenging but realistic. Life in a school becomes hectic once students return. A timeline that defines when an activity will be completed and the person(s) responsible build the momentum of a partnership.

· Generate expected outcomes for both the long- and short-term goals and objectives. All stakeholders should see fruits of their labors in real-life outcomes. Documentation of results is a necessary part of the inquiry and impact research process.

· Include opportunities for celebration at milestones along the way. Serving refreshments, planning recognition activities, giving token acknowledgement gifts, etc., build an underlying social structure that contributes to trust building and lasting relationships.

Equity

Developing a partnership that envelops all stakeholders in a learning community provides opportunities for intentional rather than tangential focus on issues of equity. Equitable opportunities for interns, school faculty, IHE faculty, and PreK-12 students should be ensured by the processes and procedures adopted by the PDS. Given the demographics of the school, all interns should be given an opportunity to work with students of diverse backgrounds and abilities, including students with special needs. In addition, all school staff should have equitable access to professional development and other activities offered as a result of the partnership. IHE faculty should be provided with equitable opportunities to engage in PDS work, and strategic planning should consciously ensure that all PreK-12 students have equitable access to learning opportunities.

Roles and Responsibilities

Certain participants are essential for the successful implementation of the PDS partnership. Assuming particular roles and their attendant responsibilities is fundamental to creating and sustaining partnerships. Described below are some of the roles and responsibilities of key personnel.

Site Coordinator

The Site Coordinator assumes myriad roles and responsibilities in collaboration with IHE faculty. The contributions of the individual who assumes this role greatly influence the smooth operation and success of the PDS partnership. Typically, the individual who serves in this role is chosen by the school administration in consultation with the IHE liaison. The site coordinator serves as the “point person” or designated representative for the school principal and resolves many questions and problems on behalf of the school administration.

Compensation for the role may take a variety of forms. Some school systems have created budgeted positions that facilitate significant release time; up to one-half of an individual’s assignment time may be allotted to PDS coordination activities. Other models compensate site coordinators by paying them as if they were performing extra duty activities such as sponsoring yearbook development or coaching athletics. Funding has come from IHE partners, the local school system, and grant sources.

The site coordinator typically performs the following duties:

· Places interns with pre-service mentors

· Coordinates school academic schedules with IHE curriculum needs

· Identifies and recruits pre-service mentors

· Conducts meetings and serves as a liaison between IHE faculty and pre-service mentors

· Coordinates the introduction of interns to the school/school staff

· Coordinates PDS site visitations

· Co-hosts PDS site visits

· Disseminates registration forms to school faculty for graduate, undergraduate and workshop course offerings

· Presents at conferences, institutes and other forums to disseminate best practices

· Plans Strategic Planning Institute collaboratively with IHE counterpart

· Attends or co-chairs various meetings such as Coordinating Council meetings

· Maintains archives of documents of the PDS partnership

· Collects and organizes research data

· Assists principal with any PDS-related administrative task

· Disseminates needs assessments to faculty

· Plans activities for interns, such as welcome breakfasts and closing celebration activities

· Coordinates service projects with interns and IHE faculty

· Problem solves for all stakeholders (responsibilities, requirements, concerns, scheduling conflicts)

· Publicizes PDS partnership activities within and beyond the school site

· Facilitates school PDS meetings

· Creates and distributes flyers and notices

IHE Liaison

Just as the school site coordinator is a point person in facilitating the partnership, the IHE liaison is the contact for the IHE. This is the individual whose presence in the school building manifests the regular IHE visibility in the partnership. This person is responsible for approaching PDS work with sensitivity to the needs of the school and with a spirit of true collaboration and respect. Some of the many tasks the IHE liaison performs are as follows:

· Coordinates intern placements with Site Coordinator

· Plans Strategic Planning Institute collaboratively with school system counterpart

· Conducts intern course work on site (if possible)

· Serves as the IHE's presence in the school

· Serves on the school improvement team

· Provides or secures staff development to meet school improvement needs

· Provides or secures training for pre-service mentors

· Observes intern work in the classroom and provides summative and formative feedback

· Collects and organizes research data

· Serves on or co-chairs the Coordinating Council

· Problem solves for all stakeholders (responsibilities, requirements, concerns, scheduling conflicts)

· Co-hosts PDS site visits

· Presents at conferences, institutes and other forums to disseminate best practices

In some cases, the site coordinator and/or the IHE liaison may be jointly funded by the IHE and the school system to aid in institutionalizing the partnership and strengthening the network. In such cases, these jointly funded personnel are called boundary spanners.

IHE Arts & Sciences Faculty

IHE arts and sciences faculty are involved in course delivery, course design, and course content to provide a strong academic background for interns. In addition, they serve on the Coordinating Council and provide support to meet professional development needs defined during PDS strategic planning.

IHE Teacher Education Faculty

IHE teacher education faculty are involved in course delivery, course design, and course content to provide a strong pedagogical background for interns. In addition, they serve on the Coordinating Council and provide support to meet professional development needs defined during PDS strategic planning.

Pre-Service Mentors

Pre-service mentors provide opportunities for interns to experience the blending of theory and practice as they learn to become competent teachers. Interns learn instruction, classroom management and human relations competencies under the tutelage of the pre-service mentor. While coaching interns, pre-service mentors continue working with PreK-12 students, who remain the teacher’s primary responsibility. Even when the intern is providing large-group instruction, the pre-service mentor should be engaged in instructional activities such as small group tutoring or enrichment. The pre-service mentor's roles and responsibilities are as follows:

· Participates in pre-service mentor training

· Provides teacher intern with varied teaching experiences (bit teaching, small group teaching, team teaching, total class instruction, etc.)

· Coaches teacher intern in classroom management, instructional processes, and assessment techniques

· Coaches and reflects with intern

· Observes intern and provides daily formative or summative feedback

· Confers with site coordinator and IHE personnel to maintain ongoing communication

· Contributes to the final evaluation of the intern

· Hosts PDS site visitors

· Presents at conferences, institutes and other forums to disseminate best practices

Principal

The school principal plays an integral role in influencing the success or lack of success of the PDS. The principal must be committed to the identity of the school as a PDS. The principal's enthusiasm, knowledge, and coaching establish and maintain the tone of the PDS partnership. The roles and responsibilities of the principal are numerous and include the following:

· Communicates the progress of the PDS to all stakeholders (parents, business partners, community, school system, IHE and school staff, etc.)

· Collaborates with IHE liaison and site coordinator to arrange logistics for intern placement, pre-service mentor selection, and physical resources to accommodate interns and liaison within the school building

· Plans Strategic Planning Institute collaboratively to address PDS needs and school improvement issues

· Serves on Coordinating Council

· Allocates time for professional development

· Presents to PDS site visitors

· Presents at conferences, institutes and other forums to disseminate best practices

School System Representative

The designation of a PDS coordinator for the local school system or existing agency facilitates communication between the school system and potential IHE partners. The designee may be a member of the department of professional development, curriculum and instruction, or the superintendent's staff. The designation of a PDS coordinator helps to prevent false starts with school/IHE partnerships because the coordinator can communicate at the superintendent's staff level, the curricular and instructional level, and the school level to elicit support for the potential partnership. The roles and responsibilities for the position are as follows:

· Serves as a clearinghouse for the establishment of school/IHE PDS partnerships

· Facilitates communication among PDSs through varied means such as newsletters, PDS Network meetings, etc.

· Marshals system resources to support PDS efforts

· Fosters synergy through uniting PDS efforts

· Addresses concerns that have system-level solutions

· Provides consistency of resources and personnel at PDSs, especially during early phases of development

· Communicates PDS information to system leadership

· Collects and organizes research data

· Serves on various Coordinating Councils

· Presents to PDS site visitors

· Presents at conferences, institutes and other forums to disseminate best practices

· Facilitates recruitment and hiring of interns

Staffing to Promote PDS Institutionalization

PDSs are ongoing entities. When administrative changes occur, school system leaders should select administrators who are willing to support the continued implementation of the PDS. Additionally, information regarding PDS activities and expectations should be shared during the recruitment and hiring of school faculty who will be placed in a PDS. At the IHE, continuity of the PDS should be considered as teaching assignments are made.

Teacher Preparation Programs

Teacher preparation programs vary greatly across institutions. But whether the program is graduate or undergraduate, secondary or elementary, all teacher preparation programs committed to PDS as the capstone experience for interns share the following components:

Placement of Interns

Interns are placed in single- or multiple-site PDSs in cohort groups of approximately five interns per school. The use of intern cohorts and pre-service mentors encourages interdependence and a positive attitude among interns (Yeriun and Grossman, 1993). Various methods exist for determining the placement of an intern with a pre-service mentor. In some PDSs, the intern cohort and potential pre-service mentors meet during the semester prior to the full year experience for a social occasion or an interview. In this case, the IHE liaison and the site coordinator ask for feedback from both groups before they decide upon placements. In some long-standing partnerships where most of the faculty are willing to be pre-service mentors, the IHE liaison and the school site coordinator determine how the matches will be made.

In single site PDSs, interns might not spend the entire year with the same pre-service mentor. Instead, interns may be assigned to pre-service mentor teams or paired pre-service mentors so that the intern is able to experience more than one grade level.

Internship

Literature on teacher preparation points to the extensive internship in a PDS as a critical element of effective teacher education (Darling-Hammond, 1999; National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, 1996). As a result, the Redesign calls for all interns in Maryland to have a yearlong internship in a PDS. Currently, a minimum goal is 100 full days in a PDS across two consecutive semesters. The length of the full-time (5-days/week) portion of the internship varies, with fifteen weeks as a minimum full-time placement. The internship can be accomplished in a variety of ways at single- and multiple-site PDSs. A multiple-site placement may be necessary in some areas of the state to ensure that interns are given an opportunity to teach diverse learners and students with special needs.

Many PDSs offer interns the opportunity to begin their internships when teachers return at the beginning of the school year. This allows interns to begin their immersion in the school by experiencing the full range of pre-opening school activities (e.g., preparing a classroom for instruction, attending in-school and school system professional development meetings, experiencing the pace of a real world school). In the semester prior to the full-time internship, interns benefit from spending at least two days per week at the PDS. This gives them an opportunity to get to know school faculty, students, curricula, and the community. This schedule also allows interns who are in a multiple-site PDSs to spend time in two schools (for example, a paired middle and high school) and develop a comfort level with both schools before the full-time internship begins. The intern can begin the full-time internship with a concentrated focus on teaching.

The extensive internship allows more opportunities for school faculty to be involved in formal and informal instruction of interns. Teachers may make seminar presentations, conduct demonstration lessons, and teach specific lessons within a course. Some PDS partnerships have developed a service project requirement, which allows interns to engage in tutoring, special event planning and other activities to expose the intern to the wide range of school activities.

Many IHEs are able to offer field experiences for teacher candidates prior to the extensive internship. These early placements are highly desirable. When these placements are made within a functioning PDS, interns are often able to provide coaching to pre-internship teacher candidates who are engaged in early field experiences.

Coursework

Teaching in a PDS affords IHE faculty the opportunity to develop integrated course syllabi and to teach courses on site at the PreK-12 school. PreK-16 faculty work together to develop curricula for interns, often during strategic planning sessions. When this occurs, theory and practice naturally merge to produce an integrated teacher preparation program.

Offering coursework on site provides a way for interns to learn about a particular theory or strategy, see it in practice in a classroom, and come back together with other interns and the IHE faculty member to reflect on what they have just seen. Having access to schools places interns in a realistic environment where student achievement is the focus. This focus on student achievement begins to permeate course syllabi as IHE faculty connect the real life experience of schools with their courses.

In many cases, schools make a room available for intern coursework throughout the extensive internship. When coursework is offered on-site at the PDS, greater flexibility in scheduling is allowed. Courses can be planned to fit the natural rhythms of the school day and year. In some instances, school site teachers engage in teaching coursework. In other cases, IHE faculty team-teach courses with qualified school faculty. Providing at least some of the coursework at the school site and integrating course content into school activities is recommended.

Performance Assessment

A PDS offers an ideal environment for performance assessment of PDS interns. Assessment of the interns’ performance is a joint responsibility of the IHE supervisor/faculty member and the pre-service mentor. Since interns and IHE faculty are in schools more often, more opportunities are available to conduct informal and formative assessments.

In PDSs, interns develop standards-based portfolios or ePortfolios (a computer-based version of the portfolio) to demonstrate their performance according to Maryland’s standards, the Essential Dimensions of Teaching (EDoTs), or the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) standards. In these portfolios, interns document their achievement related to each standard, using student work and other artifacts and providing reflections on their learnings. Interns often begin these developmental portfolios in the early courses in their education program. In many PDSs, pre-service mentors and representatives from the local school system or the Maryland State Department of Education serve on portfolio review teams. In addition to developing a portfolio, interns make an oral presentation to the review team.

Use of Technology

The ability to use technology in instruction must be a component of all teacher preparation programs, and documentation of an intern’s ability to use technology in instruction is required in portfolios. Having an extensive internship in a PDS provides more time for interns to delve more deeply into uses of technology for instruction and to master the Maryland Teacher Technology Standards. In many cases, the use of technology for instruction becomes a focus for professional development for other PDS partners as well.

Professional Development (PreK-12 teachers, administrators and IHE faculty)

Inquiry/Action Research

The learning community that evolves through a PDS offers an ideal medium for inquiry and action research surrounding teaching and learning. Inquiry groups and/or action research groups and the training necessary to participate in these groups are an integral part of a PDS partnership.

Inquiry begins with the formation of a group of PDS stakeholders who collaboratively examine and assess their practices and the outcomes achieved. Inquiry groups raise specific questions related to teaching and learning, seek to systematically answer these questions (often in a study group format), use their findings to inform practice, and relate their findings to others. Inquiry groups might include teachers, IHE faculty and interns, and may be designed to affect practice in the classroom, in school-wide or system-wide programs, and in teacher preparation programs.

Action research groups engage in a more formal, systematic form of inquiry that allows stakeholders to participate in spiraling cycles of problem identification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data-driven action taken, and, finally, problem redefinition (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982). Action research can provide results that may affect education on a more global level. For this reason, dissemination of research findings through publication or presentations at local, regional, and/or national conferences is encouraged.

Pre-Service Mentor Training

The training of pre-service mentors is a critically important component of the PDS. Providing a common language, shared understandings, and a model for coaching and reflection enables school and IHE personnel to achieve shared understandings and a common vision regarding their roles in the community of learners. Intern expectations, mastery of standards such as INTASC or EDOT, and methods of assessment are all topics that may be included in pre-service mentor training. One of the benefits of pre-service mentor training is that this training enables school staff to participate in the partnership in various capacities. Some who complete the training choose to become pre-service mentors. Others may choose to have interns in their classrooms on occasion, volunteer to do demonstration lessons, or even become IHE adjunct faculty.

Coursework

Coursework, either graduate level or undergraduate level, based on faculty needs assessments, can be offered on site to address school improvement needs. Courses focusing on reading, technology, and multicultural education reflect intern and inservice teacher learning needs in many sites. Some IHEs have crafted appealing financial partnerships which have offered courses at reduced rates, at times directly billing the local school system for tuition reimbursement and charging participating teachers a significantly reduced out of pocket expense. Some IHEs have also assigned faculty members to certain PDS sites to collaboratively meet the professional development needs of the inservice teachers at that site.

Discussion Groups

Teacher Chats are forums that encourage networking in an informal manner. These informal conversational opportunities are frequently held at the end of a school day. Over light refreshments, teachers and interns from one site or several PDS sites may share outstanding lessons or topic-specific instructional materials. Topics that have been addressed during these discussion groups range from "Involving Parents in Instruction during American Education Week" to “Performance Assessment Instruction." Some PDSs are experimenting with electronic discussion groups and electronic bulletin board postings, as well.

Restructuring Issues

Both local school systems and IHEs must undergo internal examination and prepare for restructuring when embarking on a PDS partnership. This restructuring is a developmental process that takes much time and energy. Institutional partners must examine their common values and beliefs and then work to align institutional resources to support the goals of the partnership.

At the IHE, the way time and resources are used must be reevaluated. Methods courses that are taught on the school site require IHE faculty to spend more time in the field, using the classroom as the place where reflection on theory meets practice. In addition, collaboration requires the training and support of pre-service mentors and involves whole school staff development. Load assignments and procedures for promotion and tenure must be reevaluated in light of the new PDS commitments required of IHE faculty. A concerted effort must be made to help IHE administrators, including presidents and provosts, understand the fiscal and human resources needed to support PDSs.

Restructuring must occur at the school system as well. Resources in the form of space assigned to the IHE or innovative scheduling that facilitates time for collaboration and planning are needed. Again, efforts must be made to help school system administrators understand the value of PDS partnerships so that adequate fiscal and human resources will be allocated.

It is also important to remember that the PDS is a part of the inclusive learning community and that parents and business partners must share in the experience. Parents sometimes fear that the presence of “student teachers” will weaken the instruction their children receive. Every effort must be made to restructure communication procedures so that parents and community members are included in the development of a common mission and the planning of the partnership, as well as to reinforce at every instance the success of PreK-12 students as the first priority of the PDS.

Sustaining a PDS

Even the most carefully planned and implemented partnership will eventually encounter issues of sustainability. The following proactive measures may help the maturing PDS avoid the most common pitfalls of collaborative partnerships:

· Plan to prevent burnout. Care must be taken at all times to present the PDS in alignment with the other reform initiatives that exist within the institutions. All stakeholders need to understand that their work with PDS supports their daily responsibilities. PDS is not an add-on, but an integrated vehicle for reform. Burnout can also be prevented by insuring that adequate rewards and release time are available to practitioners. Finally, some multiple-site PDSs have found it helpful to have a year of reflection built into the PDS structure so that each school can take a year off from hosting interns every few years.

· Plan to provide continuity during personnel changes. Recordkeeping is essential to preserve the history of the PDS partnership, especially as administrators and coordinators are replaced. New appointments will not erode the progress of the PDS if governance is institutionalized and written records have been kept. In addition, a PDS should plan to induct new teachers each year so that the entire school faculty is aware of and involved in the partnership.

· Plan for institutionalization of resources. Grant money is always helpful in establishing a PDS, but partners should plan for the day that grant funds are expended. Efforts should be made to institutionalize the PDS budget so that the program is not threatened as funding sources dry up.

· Plan regular time for dialogue. In schools, the best conversations are often interrupted by the comment, “Well, I’d love to keep talking, but I have bus/lunch/hall duty now.” Time must be made within the PDS structure to promote thoughtful, uninterrupted dialogue among all partners. Finding this time may require alignment of school/IHE calendars, innovative school schedules, or unorthodox job descriptions.

Regardless of the number of years that a PDS has been in existence, the partnership will always need nurturing. PDSs continue to change and develop through the years, and there will always be a new challenge or a new opportunity for collaboration.

Support Networks

Perhaps the most valuable advice for anyone attempting to establish a new PDS is to use the support structures that are in place and to learn from the experience of PDS colleagues. At the state level, this can be accomplished through the Maryland PDS Network. The Maryland PDS Network provides a forum for all issues surrounding PDS. As a result of the Summer Leadership Academies sponsored by the MSDE on behalf of the Network, practitioner Fellows are available to provide technical assistance to emerging PDSs throughout the state. In addition, the Network provides a venue to explore issues of research as well as common problems associated with partnerships through its Electronic Learning Community and other activities. All PDSs in Maryland are welcomed as a part of the Network. To access technical assistance through the Maryland PDS Network, contact the Program Approval Branch of the Certification and Accreditation Division of the Maryland State Department of Education at (410) 767-0390. Further information about Maryland PDSs is available on the MSDE website at http://cte.jhu.edu/pds.

At a local school system level, PDS Networks provide support by facilitating discussions of common goals, problems and solutions that benefit all stakeholders across school and IHE lines. These are strong and powerful collaborations. They may also include a representative from the local teacher’s union or association.

IHEs have their own networks of PDSs as well, allowing interschool sharing, inquiry, support and coordination among the schools and the IHE.

School district and/or IHE PDS Networks often host institutes or conferences which bring several PDSs together to focus on a joint issue such as minority student achievement or literacy. Schools typically obtain permission to use a staff development day to engage all teachers in PDS-sponsored professional development. A keynote presenter, breakout sessions, and opportunities for teacher sharing are typically part of the conference. Access to out-of-area, IHE, school system, and school expertise results in learning and sharing of best practices. This network-wide collaboration can be a prudent use of financial resources that allows national and state trainers to be available to work with several PDSs where one school would have been unable to afford the experience independently.

CHAPTER 4

PDS EVALUATION

The Importance of Evaluation

Evaluating the outlay of human and fiscal resources committed to the planning, implementation, and expansion of PDSs is critically important to the sustainability of the PDS movement in Maryland and elsewhere. What are the impacts of the change efforts that have been taking place, site by site, as manifestations of the Redesign? Are the expenditures of this costly and complex change process worth the efforts? If they are, they should continue. Their documented effectiveness should merit policy maker and practitioner support through targeted budgetary appropriations and reallocations, as well as new staffing, use-of-time, and reward structures. To make the necessary transition from early to full implementation, carefully designed and clearly reported research and evaluation studies are important.

In Maryland, where PDSs are a major element of state policy and PDS standards are integrated with the program approval process for IHEs, evaluation is necessary at two levels, institutional and state. At the institutional level, IHE and school system partners must assess cost, effort, and outcomes to answer questions related to the need for improvement and expansion, or the possible need for termination. At this level, institutional partners need to work within the broad parameters of the PDS to determine how well their PDS is working for all stakeholder groups. They need to determine what evidence they have, how they can best report findings, and how they can best use data for decision making. Institutional evaluation needs to be sensitive to the unique characteristics of elementary, middle, and high school PDSs, as well as to the unique characteristics of the specific partners. At the state level, evaluation of PDS outcomes is important for the continuation and expansion of state support and funding.

Underscoring the importance of PDS evaluation, Teitel and Abdal-Haqq (2000) address the critical nature of impact assessment, advising that credible, systematic documentation is essential for the growth and sustenance of partnerships individually and for the PDS movement as a whole. Using a pragmatic approach that nevertheless encompasses PDS complexity, their book Assessment: Assessing the Impacts of Professional Development Schools provides a blueprint for assessment with sample assessment tools. They draw upon their previous work, which includes Abdal-Haqq’s Professional Development Schools: Weighing the Evidence (1998) and Teitel’s Professional Development Schools: A Literature Review (1998), as well as the work of many others, including Clark’s Ensuring That There Really Are Clothes: Evaluating a PDS (1999). The Teitel and Abdal-Haqq Assessment: Assessing the Impacts of Professional Development Schools is a particularly useful resource for Maryland practitioners and evaluators because of its emphasis on multiple impacts.

An Evaluation Framework for Maryland

Maryland is fortunate to have state-developed PDS standards. In Maryland these standards serve as the most vital element of an evaluation framework.

Alone or taken together with the Teitel and Abdal-Haqq (2000) conceptual model for assessing impacts, the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools allow individual sites to conduct standards-based assessments. Desired PDS outcomes are those which are consistent with the Standards and ultimately result in improved learning for PreK-12 students, for practicing teachers and other school personnel, and for interns and IHE personnel (Teitel & Abdal-Haqq, 2000).

Sites need to conduct self-assessment for numerous purposes. Importantly, they need evidence of their effectiveness to present to their various publics, such as local boards of education, superintendents, principals, and parents, and IHE administrators, faculty, and students. Data for external audiences are essential for maintaining and broadening support. Sites also need data to help them clearly see the impact of their efforts in their priority areas. Their own priorities might focus on interns, PreK-12 students, or practicing teachers. Within these areas they might have specific areas of interest, such as the relationships between certain inquiry practices and intern effectiveness. Using self-assessment to improve their own understanding of various impacts allows sites to refine and improve their practices formatively in a continuous improvement model. Another major reason for self-assessment is that results may become the basis for grant proposals to request new funds for continuation or replication activities.

Tailoring Evaluation Studies to Document Impact

Clearly, no single best method or design for evaluating PDSs exists. Evaluation designs must be developed to meet the single or multiple purposes for which they are to be conducted, as well as the single or multiple audiences to whom outcomes will be presented. A broad-based evaluation that is planned to shed light on PDS effectiveness would be designed to measure multiple impacts on multiple stakeholder groups. On the other hand, a more narrowly focused study would concentrate on the specific impacts on just one or two stakeholder groups. In either case, the evaluation design should include the following steps:

· Identify the evaluation purpose. What is the context of the evaluation? Who is the intended audience? What kinds of decisions need to be made? While an innovation is in its early stages but already preparing for expansion, a costs-benefits analysis is a typical evaluation purpose.

· Identify the scope of the study in terms of the Maryland standards. Will the study encompass the full extent of the Maryland standards, components, and guidelines? Will the study be limited to one or two standards? Will the study concentrate on elementary, middle, or high schools?

· Identify the impact areas that are of highest priority in the study.

Will the study focus on PreK-12 students? If so, will the study focus on their achievement; their participation in certain functions; their attitudes, for example, toward the intense relationship that their school has with an IHE; their performances on certain tasks?

Will the study focus on interns? If so, will the study focus on their achievement; their participation in certain functions; their attitudes, for example, toward the intense relationship that their IHE has with the PreK-12 school; their performance on certain tasks; their teaching positions following program completion; their retention in their teaching jobs after one, two, three, four, and five years following program completion?

Will the study focus on practicing PreK-12 teachers? If so, will the study focus on changes in their teaching practices; their participation in professional development activities; evidence of professional growth; their rewards and incentives in the partnership?

Will the study focus on IHE faculty? If so, will the study focus on changes in their teaching practices; their participation in professional development activities; evidence of professional growth; their rewards and incentives in the partnership?

Will the study focus on relationships between or among stakeholder groups? If so, will the study focus on communication patterns; stakeholder involvement in collaborative activities; stakeholder attitudes, for example, toward the intense relationship between the school and the IHE?

Will the study focus on organizational change in PreK-12 schools and/or in IHEs? If so, will the study focus on the composition of the staff; the attendance or retention of faculty; time and resource allocation; recognition and reward structures?

Will the study focus on parents and communities? If so, will the study focus on their roles and responsibilities; benefits to the site from their participation; their attitudes; their forms of support?

· For each impact area, identify the specific questions that need to be answered. Collaborative brainstorming to address this planning component will help to develop and clarify the priorities. Use the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools as a guide. The components and indicators point to the need for certain questions; they may also stimulate the framing of novel questions, or questions that are relevant in a specific context. For example, an IHE and local school system partnership might just be beginning a cohort model with interns and pre-service mentors, so a question might ask if the new cohort model is more effective for several stakeholder groups than the previously used student teacher placement model.

· For each major question and for each impact area, identify multiple data sources and methodologies. Again, collaborative brainstorming will help clarify the priorities, while identifying the types of evidence and resources that are available. For example, a site might recognize that meeting minutes, revised course syllabi, PreK-12 student work, intern work, and faculty reflections might all become useful data sources, and that these are indeed multiple sources which are readily available for data analysis. Contextual issues, such as IHE mission, institutional support, or public school performance on state measures, should be considered. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be important.

· Develop an overall design and work plan that reflects the single or multiple impact areas of major interest. Does the design involve multiple impact areas? Do the parts of the design relate to the whole? In complex designs, who will have lead and support responsibilities for design components? Who will have overall coordination responsibilities? Who will provide technical support? Who will provide office support? What additional resources will be needed? How and when will resources become available? When will major activities occur? What is the deadline for the complete study?

· Plan for effective communication with internal and external audiences. How will feedback flow back to and within the site? How will the evaluation continuously engage the multiple stakeholders, both internal and external? How will refinements occur and data-driven change be reported? How will the evaluation study be used to leverage internal change and external recognition and support? How well does the evaluation study communicate to various audiences? Does one version of the final report speak to a lay audience in language that is free of technical terminology? Does one version of the final report specifically address critical audiences, such as school superintendents and school boards, in terms that are important to their priorities, such as “home growing” their own teachers?

Finalizing the plan will involve deleting evaluation questions and methodologies that are not of the highest priority and not consistent with the overall purpose.

Essential Questions

For Maryland to continue its widespread support of PDSs and its ongoing search for additional funding, evaluation studies collectively need to produce answers to several essential questions. These questions are as follows:

· Are PDSs beneficial to Maryland public schools and the students and communities they serve?

· Are local school systems finding that PDS-prepared teachers arrive for their first teaching assignments prepared to teach?

· Do local school systems set a priority on hiring PDS-prepared teachers?

· With reasonable school level supports and working conditions, are PDS-prepared teachers likely to continue in the teaching profession beyond the state and national norms for other new teachers?

· Do the teaching staffs of PDSs benefit through appropriate and challenging professional development opportunities that are related to school improvement and the performance of their students?

· Organizationally, do public schools and IHEs realize benefits of partnering through PDSs?

· Do changes in professional development and other activities in PDSs lead to school system level changes that reach beyond the PDSs?

· Do changes in teaching, research, and faculty development in PDSs lead to institutional changes in the IHE that reach beyond the PDSs?

· Are the benefits of PDSs worth the costs?

Answers to these questions and others will be learned directly and over time through site-specific and state-level evaluation studies. That PDS partnerships create new school organizational cultures, where PreK-16 student achievement is viewed as the primary goal, and professional development is viewed as the primary strategy is already evident in data provided by Maryland’s early PDS partnerships. With additional insights from impact evaluation studies, Maryland pursues answers to the PDS essential questions. PDS sustainability is clearly linked to the documentation of successful efforts, especially where Maryland’s PreK-12 students are concerned.

Evaluation and Statewide Capacity Building

In conclusion, a critical component of the state’s Redesign is its emphasis on statewide capacity building for successful implementation of PDSs. Since the mid-1990's, Maryland IHEs have one by one begun their Redesign-based transformation from relatively traditional forms of student teacher placements in many, many public schools across the state to extensive internships in specially designed PDSs where the benefits are intended to accrue for PreK-12 students and their practicing teachers, just as they are for the interns being trained. For this transformation to be successful for all PreK-16 partners, research and evaluation studies on impact must become a significant part of Maryland’s support and accountability system.

CHAPTER 5

SUMMARY

The educational landscape is constantly changing, but the impetus for the work of educators remains constant: to impact and improve people’s lives. PDSs may provide a formal vehicle for educators to transform the lives of PreK-12 students, teachers, school administrators, interns, and IHE faculty. By providing an opportunity for these partners to communicate with, understand, and learn from one another, PDSs form the basis of an evolving learning community.

Through PDS work, educators at all levels are given the opportunity to realize their true interdependence. Schools need qualified teachers to teach the PreK-12 students who tomorrow, become teacher candidates in IHEs. Those teacher candidates rely on IHE faculty and elementary, middle, and high school teachers to provide the experiences necessary for entry into the profession. They then become the teachers who educate the next generation of IHE students.

Clearly the goals and objectives of PreK-12 and higher education are interconnected. PDS allows discovery of the ways in which schools and IHEs can merge to become one institution in support of common outcomes. This is a revolutionary concept. PDS does not simply ask educators to understand one another’s institutions; it asks their institutions to become something new. PDS not only requires instructors to be aware of one another’s cultural contexts; it requires them to become bicultural. One of the key roles in a PDS is that of a boundary spanner, an individual who may be hired by both partners. This individual is at first truly a boundary spanner, finding a home in two separate institutions, but as the PDS develops, the person becomes more of a boundary blur-er, working to merge the two institutions to create one dynamic learning community.

At a time when the teacher shortage is becoming ever more critical, it is imperative that educators work together to “home grow” teachers by recruiting students for teacher preparation programs, providing relevant professional experiences for these interns, and supporting these new teachers as they make their transitions from college to classroom. The immersion model of PDS allows all stakeholders to work together to ensure that new teachers will not experience a culture shock that drives them from the classroom at the start of their careers. Indeed, PDS impact research shows that “those trained in PDS programs leave the profession at significantly lower rates than those trained in traditional programs” (Fleener, 1999).

In addition, PDS provides a reason for teachers to remain in the profession. As the IHE and school work together to improve student learning, teachers feel less isolation and less powerless related to their work (Abdal-Haqq, 1998). These same teachers are given new opportunities for leadership within the PDS: as co-instructors of IHE courses, as site coordinators, as pre-service mentors, as workshop presenters, and as researchers. These opportunities are designed with an objective of keeping teachers enthusiastic and growing and preventing stagnation and burnout.

Most importantly, PDS provides for the improvement of instruction for PreK-12 students through a lower student/teacher ratio, infusion of best practices, and a commitment to continuous refinement of teaching methods.

The rationale for PDS work is clear. The reality of PDS work, however, is complicated. It is not for the faint of heart or for those who thrive on routine and certainty. While this manual has provided many suggestions for the implementation of PDS, each PDS will necessarily evolve with significant differences from all others. The state of Maryland can provide standards for PDS, but no one expects standardization of partnerships. PDSs must respond to the needs of the stakeholders involved, and a “cookie-cutter” approach is counterproductive. Certainly PDSs in a rural area will differ from those in the city. Partnerships that include multiple schools or IHEs will differ from one-to-one partnerships. Graduate programs will evolve differently than undergraduate PDSs.

While all PDSs will be unique, all will have some commonalities. These include an extensive internship for interns with a goal of immersing these interns in the school culture, performance assessment of interns, inquiry into and refinement of best teaching practices, data-driven professional development, and a focus on PreK-12 priorities such as multicultural education, technology, and inclusion.

Suggested procedures for the establishment and governance of a PDS have emerged from recent research and from the experiences of Maryland PDS personnel involved in the PDS Leadership Academies. The steps to establishing a strong partnership are as follows:

· Prospective partners communicate openly about their goals, objectives, and resources available.

· School principals, teachers, IHE faculty, supervisors, and others seriously consider the implications of the partnership and reach consensus regarding participation.

· PDS stakeholders explore a common mission, goals, and objectives.

· Partners draft a Memorandum of Understanding between institutions.

· Authorities at the local school system and IHE endorse the Memorandum of Understanding.

· PDS partners create a strategic plan so that the partnership has a roadmap for meeting agreed-upon outcomes.

· PDS partners collect data and routinely evaluate it to assess the progress and effectiveness of the partnership.

· Stakeholders celebrate the group’s accomplishments.

· PDS partners guide stakeholders through a self-assessment and reflection process, to be followed by a new round of data analysis and goal setting.

To complicate the process, these steps rarely occur in a neat, linear fashion. Instead, PDS work is much more recursive as it evolves according to the needs of the partners.

As the PDS develops, participants are challenged to make their assumptions explicit, eventually coming to understand, and then trust, others in the process. Equity and collegiality are necessary components of a successful PDS. These can only come when a partner is able to view a situation from another’s point of view and see how individual actions can be mutually beneficial and transformative.

In fact, support is a crucial element of a successful PDS. The local school system must understand and support PDS activities, making administrative staffing decisions to ensure the continuation of the partnership, and allowing PDSs to experiment with new schedules that allow for additional professional development time or to pilot new curricular programs and instructional strategies which have been suggested by action research findings.

The IHE must support the PDS by committing human and fiscal resources to the partnership, by aligning the IHE’s mission to include school reform as a primary focus, by encouraging action research and other research studies regarding student achievement or the impact of the PDS, and by rewarding PDS work in promotion and tenure processes.

The Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland Higher Education Commission must support PDSs by providing the mechanism for PDS partners in IHEs and local school systems to explore best practices and learn from one another. In addition, these state agencies can serve as a clearinghouse for PDS impact research, making certain that legislators are hearing the good news about PDSs and are subsequently funding these endeavors.

For many years, educators at the local school system level, the IHE level, and the state level have been laboring to reform schools. Many interventions have been made in an attempt to improve teaching and learning: new assessments have been introduced, new curricular materials have been piloted, and alternative school organizational structures have been implemented. But none of these interventions has attempted to view PreK-16 education as a holistic system whose parts must work together to produce lasting change. In Peter M. Senge’s book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, the author speaks of the principle of leverage – “seeing where actions and changes in structures can lead to significant, enduring improvements” (Senge 1990). For school reform, this lever rests squarely on the shoulders of the teacher, and PDSs provide the structure for current and future teachers and those who strive to provide training to them to grow and develop together into educators who can make the changes necessary to effect school reform.

PDSs provide the opportunity for simultaneous renewal and improvement of Maryland’s
PreK-12 schools and the state’s IHEs. In addition, they promote the growth and development of PreK-12 students, teachers, school administrators, interns, and IHE faculty. If improving people’s lives is the business of educators, then PDS is most definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

REFERENCES

Abdal-Haqq, I. (1998). Professional development schools: Weighing the evidence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Clark, R.W. (1999). Ensuring that there really are clothes: Evaluating a PDS. In R.W. Clark, Effective professional development schools (pp. 203-238). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond, L. (Ed.) (1999). Studies of excellence in teacher education: Preparation in the undergraduate years; Preparation in a five-year program; Preparation at the graduate level. Washington, DC: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Fleener, C. (1999). Do PDSs make a difference in teacher attrition? Dissertation. Old Dominion University, Virginia.

Goodlad, J. (1990). Teachers for our nation’s schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. (1982). The action research planner. Victoria, Australia: Deakin University Press.

Levine, M., and Trachtman, R. (1997). Making professional development schools work: Politics, practices, and policy. New York: Teachers College Press.

Maryland Higher Education Commission. (1992). Investing in teachers: Professional preparation for the 21^st century. Annapolis, MD: Author.

Maryland Higher Education Commission. (1995). Teacher education task force report. Annapolis, MD: Author.

Maryland Higher Education Commission. (2000). 2000 Maryland plan for postsecondary education. Annapolis, MD: Author.

Maryland State Department of Education, Professional Development School Consortium. (1995). Common understandings about professional development schools. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Maryland State Department of Education, State Teacher Education Council. (1998). A review of professional development schools in Maryland, 1995-1997 report. Baltimore, MD: Author.

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. (1997). Draft standards for identifying and supporting quality professional development schools. Washington, DC: Author.

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. (March 2001). Standards for professional development schools. Washington, DC: Author.

National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. (1996). What matters most: Teaching for America’s future. New York: Author.

Reinhartz, J. and Stetson, R. (1999). Teachers as leaders. In D. Byrd and D. McIntyre (Eds.), Research on professional development schools: Teacher education yearbook VII (pp. 157-172). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Currency Doubleday.

Teitel, L. (1998). Professional development schools: A literature review. In M. Levine (Ed.), Designing standards that work for professional development schools. Commissioned papers of the NCATE PDS Standards Project (pp. 33-80). Washington, D.C.: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

Teitel, L. (2003). The professional development schools handbook: Starting, sustaining and assessing partnerships that improve student learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Teitel, L., & Abdal-Haqq, I. (2000). Assessment: Assessing the impacts of professional development schools. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Publications.

Yeriun, S.Y., and Grossman, P.L. (1993). Emerging themes on the effectiveness of teacher preparation through professional development schools. Paper presented for the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta.

APPENDIX A

GLOSSARY

Action Research. Action research is a deliberate, solution-oriented investigation that is group or personally owned and conducted. It is characterized by spiraling cycles of problem identification, systematic data collection, reflection, analysis, data-driven action taken, and, finally, problem redefinition (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982).

Cohort. A cohort typically consists of five or more interns in a single school engaged in the extensive internship as part of a single or multiple-site PDS.

Components. The components of the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools include Teacher Preparation, Continuing Professional Development, Research and Inquiry, and Student Achievement. These reflect elements of the Redesign of Teacher Education that are directly related to PDS.

Coordinating Council. The Coordinating Council is the collaborative governance vehicle that serves as the organizing body for the development and implementation of all aspects of the PDS. The Coordinating Council is co-chaired by school/school system and IHE personnel. Membership includes representatives of PDS stakeholder groups. The Coordinating Council meets at least four times per year.

Day. In referring to the 100-day extensive internship, a day is defined as a full school day or two half-days, not including travel time to and from a site.

Developmental Guidelines. The Developmental Guidelines for Maryland Professional Development Schools are intended to further elucidate the indicators found within the cells of the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools. The Guidelines provide a developmental continuum to aid PDS implementation and self-assessment.

Diversity. Diversity refers to differences among groups of people and individuals in the areas of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, language, exceptionalities, religion, region, age, and/or sexual orientation.

EDoT. The Essential Dimensions of Teaching are Maryland’s standards used to measure intern effectiveness and to guide program development for teacher education programs.

Education that is Multicultural. Education that is multicultural is a continuous, integrated, multiethnic, multidisciplinary process for educating all students about diversity and commonality. Education that is multicultural promotes academic achievement and student success through addressing diverse learning styles and presenting curriculum and instruction that incorporate multiple perspectives.

Equity. Unlike equality, which implies sameness, equity "places more emphasis on notions of fairness and justice, even if that requires an unequal distribution of goods and services" (Valli, et. al., 1997). In the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools, equity refers to equitable access, processes and outcomes for PreK-12 students, interns, school faculty, and IHE faculty.

Extensive Internship. An extensive internship is a minimum of 100 days over two consecutive semesters in which interns are engaged in learning to teach in the PDS school community.

IHE. The Institution of Higher Education is the two-, four-, or five- year college or university involved in the PDS partnership.

IHE Faculty. IHE faculty include adjunct, assistant, associate, and full professors and other faculty members in IHEs who are involved in the teacher education program. Arts and sciences faculty as well as teacher education faculty are included.

IHE Liaison. The IHE liaison is the point person for the IHE in the PDS partnership. Working collaboratively with the site coordinator, the IHE liaison provides leadership to the PDS.

IHE Supervisor. The IHE supervisor is the IHE representative who is responsible for collaborating with the pre-service mentor to provide individualized support and guidance to the PDS intern. The IHE supervisor and pre-service mentor work together to provide formative and summative assessment to the intern.

Indicators. In the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools, the indicators are the statements that appear in the cells of the table. These indicators are examples of how the standard might be met for each component. The indicators are in no way meant to be an exhaustive list of ways the standards may be met. There may be other indicators that equally convey the achievement of or progress toward the standards.

INTASC. The Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium is a project of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) that has developed model performance-based standards and assessments for the licensure of teachers. Maryland IHEs may use either the INTASC standards or EDoTs in their teacher education programs.

Inquiry. Inquiry is the process whereby PDS partners collaboratively examine and assess their practices and the outcomes achieved. Inquiry groups raise specific questions related to teaching and learning, seek to systematically answer these questions, use their findings to inform practice, and relate their findings to others. PDS inquiry supports change at the individual, the classroom, and the institutional level.

Intern. An intern is a student in a teacher education program who participates as part of a cohort in an extensive internship in a PDS.

PDS. A Professional Development School is a collaboratively planned and implemented partnership for the academic and clinical preparation of interns and the continuous professional development of both school system and IHE faculty. The focus of the PDS partnership is improved student performance through research-based teaching and learning. A PDS may involve a single or multiple schools, school systems and IHEs and may take many forms to reflect specific partnership activities and approaches to improving both teacher education and PreK-12 schools.

PDS Partners. PDS Partners include the IHE and school faculty and staff and the interns participating in the extensive internship.

PDS Stakeholders. PDS Stakeholders include the IHE and school faculty, staff, and support staff; the interns participating in the extensive internship; central office staff from the local school system; parents; community members; business partners; and PreK-12 students. PDS Stakeholders may also include representatives from the local teacher’s association. The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools allow PDS partners to use collaborative decision-making regarding the appropriate selection of stakeholders as participants in PDS activities. For example, in an elementary PDS, an elementary student may not be an appropriate stakeholder for school improvement planning.

Performance Assessment. Performance assessment is a method of evaluation in which the learner is placed in an authentic situation and asked to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills.

Portfolio. A portfolio is a collection of artifacts designed to demonstrate mastery of a set of professionally accepted standards for teaching. Intern portfolios are most often organized around EDoT or INTASC standards and are assessed by a team of IHE and school faculty using a standards-based rubric or scoring tool. An ePortolfio is a computer-based electronic version of the portfolio.

Pre-Service Mentor. A pre-service mentor, also known as a cooperating or supervising teacher, is a tenured, professionally certified teacher in the PDS who is responsible for collaborating with the IHE supervisor to provide individualized support to a PDS intern. Pre-service mentors receive specific training in guiding, supporting and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of interns.

Provisionally Certified Teachers. Provisionally certified teachers are those hired within the state of Maryland who have been issued a provisional certificate because they have not yet satisfied all requirements for a Maryland professional certificate.

Redesign of Teacher Education. Authored by the Teacher Education Task Force and formally endorsed by the Maryland State Board of Education and by the Maryland Higher Education Commission in 1995, this report is the guiding document for reform efforts in teacher education throughout the state of Maryland.

Resources. Resources include time, people, space, money, and materials.

School Improvement Plan. The School Improvement Plan is the data-driven document that provides the plan for staff development and other interventions to increase student achievement at the school site.

School Improvement Team. The School Improvement Team is the group of PDS stakeholders who collaborate to analyze student achievement data and craft the School Improvement Plan.

Site Coordinator. The site coordinator serves as the empowered representative of the school in the PDS partnership. Working collaboratively with the IHE liaison, the site coordinator provides leadership to the PDS.

Standards. The Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools are statements of expected performance in the areas of Learning Community; Collaboration; Accountability; Organization, Roles and Resources; and Diversity and Equity.

Student Achievement. In the Standards for Maryland Professional Development Schools, student achievement refers to the holistic success of the student. This may be measured using a variety of means, including but not limited to standardized test scores, grades, work samples, and student performances.

Students with Special Needs. Students with special needs include those who have been identified in compliance with regulations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Teacher Education Program. A teacher education program is any program during which interns receive the coursework and experiences necessary for initial teacher certification.

TPIP. The Teacher Preparation Improvement Plan is the plan developed annually by all Maryland IHEs that have teacher preparation programs to document implementation of the Redesign of Teacher Education and to provide an action plan for the future.

APPENDIX B

Maryland State Department of Education

Program Approval and Assessment Branch

Maryland Professional Development School Network

Guidelines for a Multiple-Site Professional Development School (PDS)

As institutions of higher education (IHEs) and local school systems work together toward full implementation of the Redesign of Teacher Education in Maryland, the number of PDS sites will continue to increase. Many existing PDSs consist of a partnership composed of a single IHE, a local school system, and an individual school. There are, however, multiple-site PDSs which involve more than one school. A multiple-site PDS might also be referred to as a cluster or a network.

A multiple-site PDS reflects all of the attributes of a single site PDS, with the expectation that the characteristics of a PDS are present as undergirding for the partnership of the IHE, the local school system(s), and the participating schools. School and higher education faculty and administrators are committed to the PDS partnership.

The Maryland Professional Development School Network has developed suggested guidelines for establishment of a multiple-site PDS. These guidelines are meant to be viewed as a work in progress and are intended to assist IHEs, schools, and school systems with their planning. Some elements of the guidelines are not exclusive to multiple-site PDSs, but are included because of their crucial nature in implementation of any multiple-site PDS.

Guidelines for a Multiple-Site Professional Development School (PDS)

• A representative from the central office of one or more local school systems takes part in the identification of schools which comprise the multiple-site PDS.

• A PDS coordinator at the Institution of Higher Education (IHE) and a PDS coordinator from the school/school system are identified by the PDS partnership.

• Interns comprise one cohort. In a semester previous to the full time internship, interns complete a practicum experience in the same school where they will have their full-time internship. There is critical mass of interns in each school (typically 5 or more). Within a multiple-site PDS, the number of interns at participating schools might vary, depending upon the capacity of the school or its stage in PDS development. In some cases, a school may choose to participate fully in professional development for inservice teachers while not having interns in the school for a period of time. Ideally, some classes for interns are held on-site at one of the schools.

• A co-chaired committee/council is formed to give all stakeholders input into the policy and operations decisions affecting the PDS. Suggested membership includes: the IHE PDS coordinator, another IHE representative, an identified central office representative(s) of the school system, an administrator from each participating school, a teacher from each participating school, intern(s) from the cohort, a parent/community representative, a teachers’/administrators’ professional association representative, and a participating school student (secondary school).

• Close geographical proximity of the participating schools is ideal, but not essential.

• Professional development opportunities occur within and across sites: e.g., common staff development days, workshops, etc. These professional development activities are open to all interns, faculty and administrators in the schools and the IHE.

Jack Dale, Co-Chair	Frederick County Public Schools
Edna Mora Szymanski, Co-Chair	University of Maryland

Jon M. Andes	Worcester County Public Schools
Beth Barnett	Salisbury State University
Julius Chapman Roy Dawson, Jr.	Coppin State College Laboratory for Student Success, Temple University
Paula Fitzwater	Maryland Higher Education Commission
Kimberly Fleming	Maryland State Department of Education
R. Lorraine Fulton	St. Mary's County Public Schools
Barbara Graves	Charles County Public Schools
Jacqueline C. Haas	Harford County Public Schools
Michael Hickey	Towson University
Martha Johnson	Howard County Public Schools
Ellyn McLaughlin	Anne Arundel Community College
Dennis Pataniczek	Salisbury University
Virginia Pilato	Maryland State Department of Education
Kenneth Pool	McDaniel College
Tom Proffitt	Towson University
Carl Roberts	Cecil County Public Schools
Geraldine Rossi	Salisbury University
Bernard Sadusky	Queen Anne’s County Public Schools
Earl Slacum	Howard County Public Schools
Francis Sweeney	Hood College
Louise Wine	Hagerstown Community College
Donna Wiseman	University of Maryland

Beginning	Developing	At Standard
A. Teacher education program reflects PreK-12 instructional content priorities.	A. Teacher education program and field-based experiences reflect PreK-12 instructional content priorities.	A. PDS partners collaboratively integrate PreK-12 instructional content priorities in the teacher education program and field-based experiences.
B1. IHE and school faculty/staff discuss ways to involve interns in school/community activities within the PDS.	B1. IHE and school faculty/staff provide on-going opportunities for interns to participate in school/community activities.	B1. IHE and school faculty/staff ensure interns’ active participation in school and community-related projects.
B2. Interns observe, implement and analyze standards-based teaching practices during the extensive internship.	B2. Interns observe, implement, analyze and assess standards-based teaching practices during the extensive internship.	B2. Interns observe, implement, analyze and refine standards-based teaching practices during the extensive internship.
C1. IHE and school faculty communicate regarding the facilitation of reflection concerning the integration of theoretical models with classroom practice.	C1. IHE and school faculty facilitate reflection by collaborating to provide learning experiences that integrate theoretical models with classroom practice.	C1. PDS partners facilitate reflection by collaborating to provide learning experiences that integrate theoretical models with classroom practice.
C2. Interns engage in reflection with their cohort members.	C2. Interns, pre-service mentors and IHE faculty engage in reflection with one another.	C2. PDS partners engage in reflection with one another.

Beginning	Developing	At Standard
A. PDS partners support shared learning to improve instruction and positively impact student achievement.	A. PDS partners participate in professional development to improve instruction and positively impact student achievement.	A. PDS partners collaboratively create, conduct, and participate in needs-based professional development to improve instruction and positively impact student achievement.
B. PDS partners plan a variety of opportunities for all school staff to support and interact with interns.	B. PDS partners provide a variety of opportunities for all school staff to support and interact with interns.	B. PDS partners plan and participate in activities where all school staff is encouraged to support and interact with interns.
C1. PDS partners envision the PDS as an instrument for school and IHE improvement.	C1. PDS partners guide school and IHE improvement through strategic planning.	C1. PDS partners collaboratively implement changes at the school and IHE as an outgrowth of strategic planning.
C2. IHE and school faculty support the use of research-based practices to improve instruction.	C2. IHE and school faculty model research-based practice for interns.	C2. PDS partners apply research-based best practices to improve instruction.

Beginning	Developing	At Standard
A. PDS partners support action research and other forms of inquiry as valuable tools in improving instruction.	A. Interns engage in reflective inquiry and/or action research.	A. PDS partners collaboratively engage in inquiry and/or action research.
B. IHE faculty, pre-service mentors and interns discuss results of research/inquiry activities.	B. PDS partners discuss results of research/inquiry activities.	B. PDS partners disseminate results of research/inquiry activities.

Beginning	Developing	At Standard
A. Pre-service mentors model the use of specified learning outcomes and assessments in field experiences.	A. IHE faculty and pre-service mentors model the use of specified learning outcomes and assessments in coursework and field experiences.	A. IHE and school faculty model the use of state/local learning outcomes and assessments in coursework and field experiences.
B. Interns demonstrate competency in using specified learning outcomes and assessments to plan instruction.	B. Interns demonstrate competency in using specified learning outcomes and assessments to plan and deliver instruction.	B. Interns demonstrate competency in using specified learning outcomes and assessments to plan, deliver and assess instruction.

Maryland Partnership for Teaching and Learning K-16

State Superintendent of Schools

Co-Chair

Secretary of Higher Education

Co-Chair

Chancellor

Co-Chair

Acknowledgement i

Preface: A Message to Superintendents and Deans ii

Chapter 1: Maryland’s Professional Development Schools (PDSs) 1

Definitions

Chapter 2: Standards for Maryland PDSs 6

Chapter 3: Best Practices in PDSs 9

Chapter 4: PDS Evaluation 24

Chapter 5: Summary 29

The Roles of Superintendents and Deans

PDSs as Partnerships

PDSs as Clinical Sites

PDSs as PreK-16 Initiatives

Teacher Education Reform in Maryland

Superintendents and Deans Committee

Definitions

Standards Development

Standards

Learning Community

Collaboration

Accountability

Organization, Roles and Resources

Diversity and Equity

Developmental Guidelines

Standards Review and Adoption

BEST PRACTICES IN PDSs

Building the Infrastructure

Site Selection

Memorandum of Understanding

Strategic Planning

Equity

Site Coordinator

Teacher Preparation Programs

Restructuring Issues

Sustaining a PDS

Support Networks

APPENDIX A

GLOSSARY

Cohort. A cohort typically consists of five or more interns in a single school engaged in the extensive internship as part of a single or multiple-site PDS.

Day. In referring to the 100-day extensive internship, a day is defined as a full school day or two half-days, not including travel time to and from a site.

Extensive Internship. An extensive internship is a minimum of 100 days over two consecutive semesters in which interns are engaged in learning to teach in the PDS school community.

IHE. The Institution of Higher Education is the two-, four-, or five- year college or university involved in the PDS partnership.

IHE Faculty. IHE faculty include adjunct, assistant, associate, and full professors and other faculty members in IHEs who are involved in the teacher education program. Arts and sciences faculty as well as teacher education faculty are included.

Intern. An intern is a student in a teacher education program who participates as part of a cohort in an extensive internship in a PDS.

Standards

Components