Standard 3: Moving to Target - Activities

In January, 2010, the Bush Foundation entered into a ten year initiative to transform the way teachers are recruited, prepared, placed and supported. Fourteen teacher preparation institutions in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota were invited to participate in the initiative and form the Network for Excellence in Teaching (NExT). The Bush Foundation committed to investing $40 million over ten years to ensure that the NExT institutions had the resources needed to be the catalyst for change.  

St. Cloud’s Teacher Preparation Initiative (TPI) is a P-16 collaborative between education faculty, Arts and Science faculty, P-12 school districts, and candidate support services across campus (e.g., Office of Clinical Experiences, Admissions, Career Services). Our work is centered on four pillars of teacher preparation: recruiting candidates who will be excellent teachers, preparing candidates for the schools and classrooms of the future, placing novice teachers in schools that will support their growth and success and supporting teacher induction. Including P-12 stakeholders as partners in this work and grounding all recommendations in evidence and best practice have been hallmarks of our local initiative. Five working groups were created to study current practice, research best-practice and make recommendations for comprehensive programmatic change.

• RECRUIT. This working group is charged with examining current recruiting strategies, recommending new and improved strategies, examining admission criteria, recommending new admission criteria and developing recruiting and admissions materials. This group is also tasked with developing recommendations specifically around growing high need areas of teacher preparation e.g., special education, STEM education, teaching English as a second language and men in early grades.
• PREPARE. This working group is charged with exploring new models for teacher preparation and integration of all required standards. They are tasked with exploring ways to enhance collaboration and reduce isolation, enhance clinical experiences and develop a common foundation of knowledge that meets the needs of future educators and still fits within the credit limit.
• SUPPORT. This group is charged with investigating feasible and sustainable models for comprehensive induction in P-12 districts and at SCSU. They explore common professional development as a model of shared resources, using technology to observe teaching and provide mentoring and professional development in remote locations, and making recommendations regarding other best practices to support SCSU graduates.
• TECHNOLOGY. This working group is charged with determining the professional development needs of our teacher candidates and P-16 faculty related to effective utilization of technology in teaching and learning. Recommendations from this group have centered on the development of a comprehensive plan to incorporate International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards for teachers and assisting other working groups in meeting their goals through technology.
• ASSESSMENT. This working group is charged with identifying current teacher preparation and P-12 assessment practices, studying best practices in teacher evaluation and learner outcomes, recommending methods to coordinate assessment and data collection P-16, and making recommendations about ways to improve assessment practices across the partnership.

The funding St. Cloud State has received from the Bush Foundation has enabled faculty and staff to engage in a meaningful review and study of practices related to teacher preparation with our P-12 partners. Our focus has been on developing meaningful partnerships that benefit both higher education and P-12. In addition to this level of partnership, the Bush funding has afforded us opportunities to collaborate with other teacher preparation programs in our region. A sense of community has developed, with institutions sharing information, assessments, strategies, successes and challenges. Our focus on partnerships has been instrumental in energizing faculty and staff to continue the difficult but rewarding work of transformation.