Teachers College Record on line review of: Clinical Teacher Education: Reflections From an Urban Professional Development School Network reviewed by Cole Reilly — October 04, 2013 coverTitle: Clinical Teacher Education: Reflections From an Urban Professional Development School Network Author(s): Chara Haeussler Bohan & Joyce E. Many (eds.) Publisher: Information Age Publishing, Charlotte ISBN: 1617354236, Pages: 182, Year: 2011 Search for book at Amazon For decades now, the growing emphasis in clinical teacher preparation and development has encouraged k-12 and post-secondary educators to collaborate with one another in new and exciting ways. No longer enough to simply provide traditional student-teaching models or continue in-service programs thought to be dated or obsolete, seemingly once-separate worlds of education have sought to find middle ground(s) and to work together for win-win solutions. This, of course, is easier said than done. To establish and sustain even one, truly innovative Professional Development School (PDS) partnership is a complex, demanding task, inherently ripe with complications for the partnering k-12 school(s) and college system. After all, building mutual trust and reciprocal relationships demands considerable care, commitment, communication, time, patience, flexibility, and shared vision. No wonder many of the more successful PDSs have begun on a rather small scale – so numerous variables may be more manageable. And who could blame them? However, sometimes the greatest advances come when determined individuals find creative solutions to do more than others may even imagine is possible. In contrast to the pattern of published scholarship celebrating isolated successes in individual collaboratives, Bohan and Many’s Clinical Teacher Education: Reflections from an Urban Professional Development Network effectively expands the growing PDS literature by championing a more ambitious project altogether. This edited collection aims the spotlight toward the ongoing journey of Georgia State University’s efforts to partner with many of Atlanta’s struggling city schools in a sophisticated network of thriving and mature PDS partnerships. Due to the sheer number and varied make-up of those involved, coordinating such a multifaceted endeavor proves exponentially complex: spanning upwards of eight departments and two colleges throughout the Research I university, with an estimated 200,000 k-12 students spread throughout a half-dozen school districts in a major metropolitan area. Surely, the five-year, 6.5 million dollar grant the U.S. Department of Education provided this PDS network helped make some of this more feasible somehow. Unfortunately, at no point does the text provide any explicit account of how such a sizable grant was ascertained, much less how the monies were strategically allocated. Speaking of noteworthy numbers, Chapter Five highlights some of this PDS network’s more number-driven data collection and analysis efforts at mixed methods research. This notably stands in juxtaposition to a relative dearth of quantitative research in much of the extant literature regarding professional development schools. By designing an instrument to measure participating teachers’ perceptions of the partnership’s adherence to the NCATE PDS Standards (2001), GSU scholars successfully administered a survey each year for four years to collect longitudinal data from the many individual PDS collaboratives. While the findings are promising and incredibly favorable, these scholars are comparatively resistant to attributing shifts or plateaus in standardized test scores to the PDS work alone, when so many other factors in the k-12 students’ lives may be at play too. This seems a fair point and the authors make it well. The book’s chapters have many authors, yet the PDS network’s mission remains definitively clear as being fourfold: a commitment to the preparation of new teachers, faculty development, inquiry driven praxis, and enhanced student learning. Throughout the text, contributing authors and participants impart their observations about organizational structures, roles, and communicative processes that have made this network the success it is. Where the text is perhaps most successful is in its commitment to valuing people and the power of story. The reader is treated to a myriad of roles and perspectives from actual individuals throughout the partnerships who have made (and continue to make) this impressive network a reality – many clearly from GSU or the city schools, but still others regarded as “boundary spanners” (p. 33) who help bridge potential gaps in time, trust, or translation. Quite a few of the chapters boast a range of insightful stories, revealing sage yet accessible advice to those who have as well as those who have yet to work in PDS contexts. Readers are sure to appreciate the range of approaches explored via field-based coursework as well as the authentic inquiry initiatives taken up at the classroom, building, and district level. These are the kinds of PDS tales likely to inspire creative problem-solving, grounded reasoning, and innovation. One area warranting greater elaboration in the text is how this PDS network’s diverse, urban context stands to inform its programmatic approach to teacher preparation and professional development. Arguably, although PDSs are primarily regarded as partnerships between k-12 and college or university systems, the surrounding community can play a major role as well. Certainly it does in Atlanta. Although the book’s introduction implies that multiculturalism will play a rather substantive focus in its pages, the chapters that follow neglect to fulfill this promise. Although the reader is provided a general sense of the demographic make up of the k-12 students and their surrounding communities, such data is not offered with regard to who the participating educators are or what, if any, specific training in urban education and multiculturalism these folks have committed to in their preparation or work. One might assume (perhaps accurately so) that much thought and effort has indeed gone into all this – after all, this is a mature and thriving PDS network. However, none of those insights find their way to the page. Had this idea been taken up more fully, the book would stand to make an even greater contribution to the field. In sum, the book is a testament to some amazing and exciting PDS work happening in the state of Georgia. Those looking for ideas and advice with regard to establishing or maintaining successful professional development school partnerships have much to garner from the pages of this text. Even those working in established PDSs stand to gain a good deal from insights offered in these chapters. However, this is not a book that reads as meaningful cover-to-cover (e.g., as a required text to purchase for a college course or collegial book club). Given that no index is provided, the book’s introduction and table of contents are sure to prove helpful in selecting individual chapters for consideration. Taken up as a series of stand-alone chapters, each is likely to read as less repetitive. Similarly, any stylistic inconsistencies of voice (throughout and across chapters) may pose less of a distraction for the reader when taken one at a time. Fortunately, so many of the individual chapters are chock-full of rich insights to consider, one may find him-/herself returning to the book again and again over time—newly ready for its different chapters, only once s/he has had some time to consider, process, and apply its many offerings.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 15:10:16 +0000
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