Importance Of Collaboration In Teacher Education

1540 Words4 Pages

Introduction

Defining collaboration in teaching is one of the struggles many educators face today because there are several ways to define the concept and it can mean something different to every individual. Collaboration in teacher education is the process of two or more individuals working together to integrate information in order to enhance heterogeneous student learning. One way of collaborating in teacher education is through partnerships with other schools and communities. Joining forces with other partner schools and communities is one way to further teacher education and students’ lives. Belmont University’s Department of Education works with neighboring schools in the metropolitan Nashville area to enrich their students’ experiences …show more content…

These examples can be seen through the article “Teachers’ Stories of Experience Guide Collaboration in Teacher Education,” written by Judith McPhie in 1995. In this article McPhie (1995) discusses how critical collaboration is in teacher education and how it allow preservice teachers too see how being in the classroom allows them to understand their parts as educators in a particular journey of a child. For McPhie to understand the partnership for teacher education, she designed a Professional Development Program (PDP) at her teacher education program at Simon Fraser University. In McPhie’s class, she designed a model for her education class to see the collaboration with inexperienced student teachers and more experienced teachers; both levels of teachers then went on to do a practicum in public schools. Her goal for this model was to further prepare the unseasoned student teachers for their future place in teaching. McPhie (1995) states the following: “Such a collaborative effort required participants to suspend the norms and assumptions that had, traditionally, sustained both the isolation and the hierarchical relationship between universities and public school.” (p.2) McPhie’s quote describes that not only as inexperienced teachers, but all …show more content…

In the second article “The Call for Collaboration in Teacher Education,” written by Judith Winn and Linda Blanton written in 2005, it is evident that there is an urgent call for collaboration in teacher education. Winn and Blanton (2005) specifically discuss the connection between collaboration with general education and special education. Winn and Blanton (2005) argue that as the number of students struggling in school increase it is even more crucial for general education and special needs teacher come together and collaborate to enhance each individual students

Open Document