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TNE Learning Forum - Critical Lessons, Critical Next Steps

In 2002, the Carnegie Corporation of New York invited the University of Washington and other institutions across the country to apply for a new initiative aimed at putting university-based teacher education on an evidence-based footing. Dr. Bill McDiarmid, Boeing Professor of Education, UW College of Education, introduced the Teachers for a New Era proposal with a bold statement, "The University of Washington is ready to reinvent the way it prepares teachers." He went on to make a case for systemic change:

"Despite decades of dramatic social, cultural, economic, and intellectual changes, teacher preparation looks remarkably like it did fifty years ago. Yet we have learned a great deal from research about the dynamics of schools, classrooms and communities, learning, and what teachers need to understand and be able to do. We know also that teachers benefit from opportunities to integrate theory and research with clinical practice. Further, they must continue to learn across their careers, drawing from new knowledge and adapting to their ever-changing socially and culturally diverse classrooms. Teachers need support to continue learning after they graduate.

The University of Washington proposes to undertake all of these: redesign curriculum, expand contexts for learning, extend support to teachers beyond graduation, and then to evaluate results."

The grant was awarded to the UW in 2003, and TNE was underway. Project resources focused on the three core design principles laid out in Carnegie’s TNE Prospectus – continuous renewal based on evidence from the classrooms of program graduates, engagement of Arts & Sciences faculty, and approaching teaching as an academically taught clinical practice profession. UW’s guiding principles include: the tripartite (colleges of Education and Arts & Sciences as well as P-12 schools) collaboration required to improve teaching and learning both at the University and in schools, and the establishment of a continuum of support for teachers from preservice education through at least the first decade of their careers.

As the project unfolded, educators undertook to examine the effects of their teaching practice; dynamic new partnerships were initiated with the College of Arts and Sciences, community colleges and P-12 partners; and the College of Education concentrated its resources on the seemingly intractable achievement gap in urban public schools. Perhaps most importantly, the project began to look at how evidence of pupil learning from graduates’ classrooms might be used to measure success in addressing inequitable access to learning.

At the halfway point, twenty individual and interwoven projects supported through TNE were underway. Efforts range from the renewal of the Teacher Education Programs, to creating an Integrated Science degree (focusing on the needs of future science teachers) in the College of Arts and Sciences, to collaborations between teachers, university faculty, and student teachers to improve the pupils’ mathematical knowledge. Research projects have examined the role that different contexts play in the development of students’ identities as teachers, a study of students of color experience in the TEP program, and the ability of student teachers to lead pupils in scientific inquiry. An online support system for novice teachers has begun to take shape, and we have started to craft a database that could house evidence of program effectiveness, including data on both learning during the program and pupil learning in graduates’ classrooms.

With all of this work going on, TNE leadership felt the need to bring these efforts together and begin to describe "the whole" of TNE at the university. In Winter Quarter, 2006, faculty and graduate students from the Colleges of Education and Arts & Sciences met with their P-12 school colleagues and community partners to consider what had been accomplished and what lay ahead for the second half of the grant.

The productivity of this gathering underlined the value of bringing all of the partners together to describe progress and identify persistent challenges. Such gatherings also support the growth of connective tissue between individual projects. This mid-point event was the first, not the last, such gathering.

On January 19, 2007, sixty UW, P-12 and community partners representing most of the individual and interconnected projects, research studies, and renewal efforts participated in a second convening - Teachers for a New Era Collective Learning Forum – Critical Lessons, Critical Next Steps.

As with the first gathering, the Learning Forum had three purposes - foster understanding of the TNE project as a whole; provide opportunities for participants to interact and recognize connections among the projects; and identify activities worthy of sustaining beyond the grant and ways to achieve this.

The products of the Learning Forum can be accessed below. Click on the links to download a pdf describing each project.

Research and Evidence of Learning Identity and Interest Development in Learning to Teach: The Role of Multiple Social Contexts The Experiences of Students of Color in TEP—Implications for Pedagogy Urban Teacher Scholars Program: Bridging Theory and Practice for Novice Teachers Teachers’ Learning Trajectories: Tracking Beginning Science Teachers’ Development of Pedagogical Reasoning Skills & Impact on Student Learning Analyzing Teacher Retention, Mobility, and Career Pathways of UW TEP Graduates Evidence of Learning Study Groups Urban Education Study Group – Social Justice English Language Learners/English Language Development Study Group

Program Development and Renewal Seattle Community College/UW Partnership Pathway Education, Learning, and Society Minor P-12 Teacher Induction P-12 Partnership Network (Ackerley) Elementary Teacher Education Program Renewal Secondary Teacher Education Program Renewal Arts and Sciences Engagement Integrated Science Major Arts and Sciences TNE Luncheons College of Arts and Sciences Engagement in Teacher Preparation Teacher Learning Continuum Graphics TNE Project Interconnection TNE Project by Continuum Phase

For more information:

Visit the TNE website»

Watch a video about the project»