Partnerships with K-12 Education in Preparing the 21st Century Teacher

Colleges of education are now preparing teachers for a context that is fundamentally different from the past. The preschool through 12th grade population is so significantly more diverse than it was even a decade ago, and the curriculum changes and integration of technology required in our schools to prepare students for the 21st century entail such major redesign, that bold changes are required.

The CSU Deans of Education envision the 21st century teacher as a new kind of teaching professional. These teachers will routinely engage in reflection about the teaching practices that are effective for diverse students and will participate in professional communities and networks in which they are important contributors to the generation of new knowledge and to instructional improvement and school reform.

Basic questions must be asked about the California teacher of the 21st century. These questions pertain to the teacher preparation that is relevant, the ongoing professional development they will need, the career and professional pathways they will follow, and the systems of professional recognition that will motivate them.

Both the preparation of teachers and the educational research enterprise are strengthened significantly when teachers and other school leaders are partners with university faculty in education and the arts and sciences. In the CSU system, these partnerships are based on shared decision making and governance. They engender clinical field experiences in schools with students of widely varying cultural, linguistic, and economic backgrounds. These K-12 settings become part of the comprehensive pipeline for recruiting talented students from varied backgrounds into teaching.

CSU partnerships with local schools may include a co-teaching model in which faculty and K-12 master teachers have interchangeable and co-equal roles in training and supporting future teachers. The primary intent is to combine partners’ different areas of expertise to significantly improve new teachers’ subject-area knowledge, pedagogical skills, multi-cultural competence, and technology proficiency. An equal focus is on creating standards-based, differentiated assessments for beginning teachers.

The basic purpose of CSU partnerships is to increase recruitment, preparation, and retention of highly qualified teachers for California’s schools. The CSU Deans of Education are committed to sustaining and expanding these partnerships and to their goals of fostering learning, inquiry, and critical thinking among K-12 students and teachers of the 21st

CSU Deans of Education