TLC Guiding Principles & Objectives
Guiding Principle #1
Student Achievement and Success
We believe:
Our Objectives:
Develop strong teacher recruitment, preparation, hiring and mentoring to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce ultimately affecting the success of millions of PK-12 students by:
Student Achievement and Success
We believe:
- Each learner has an unlimited ability to learn.
- Each student, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, gender, ability, or any other characteristic, will meet or exceed academic standards and be fully prepared to make productive life decisions.
- Student learning is at the center of everything every educator does.
- Effective teaching is the single-most important factor impacting student learning, retention and ultimate academic success.
- Having a diverse teacher workforce positively impacts academic achievement and success for all students.
- Closing the achievement gap requires culturally responsive educators taking individual and collective responsibility for each learners success.
Our Objectives:
Develop strong teacher recruitment, preparation, hiring and mentoring to strengthen and diversify the teacher workforce ultimately affecting the success of millions of PK-12 students by:
- Reduce the achievement gap in partner districts.
- Increase the high school graduation rate in partner districts.
- Provide all students with high quality education through well prepared culturally responsive teachers.
Guiding Principle #2
Attract and Develop a Diverse and Highly Effective New Generation of Teachers
We believe:
- Students deserve to be taught by highly effective, competent, and caring teachers who represent the diversity of our community.
- We need to begin our recruitment practices early to attract, cultivate, and create access for the best teaching candidates, especially those from historically underrepresented groups.
- Teachers who have had to overcome adversity can serve as role models for many students.
- To be highly effective, teachers need quality, rigorous, and ongoing professional development throughout all phases of their career.
- Students can be taught most effectively by teachers who understand racial disparities, use culturally responsive teaching practices, and believe all children can learn.
- We need to intentionally develop a teacher pathway and support system within our own communities to recruit and prepare diverse educators.
- Effective teachers demonstrate dispositions that directly impact student success.
Our Objectives:
- Increase teacher diversity to match or exceed student diversity.
- Implement a comprehensive plan of recruitment that starts early to attract highly effective teacher candidates and supports teachers throughout their career to continue to develop their skills.
- Support early identified teaching candidates in accessing services and navigating through the systems of education and licensure.
- Develop and strengthen cultural responsiveness of all teachers through pre-service programs and in-service professional development.
Guiding Principle #3
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
We believe:
Our Objectives:
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
We believe:
- Teaching is in service of students, therefore teachers must understand how students learn and what all students need if they are to learn effectively.
- Learning experiences must engage all students with meaningful and rigorous content, incorporate student interests, strengths, and life experiences, and connect with the real world.
- Teachers must understand curriculum content and goals, including the subject matter and skills to be taught in light of disciplinary demands, student needs and the social purposes of education.
- Teachers must have understanding of and skills for teaching, including content knowledge and knowledge for differentiating instruction.
- Teachers must regularly assess student learning and make adjustments to instruction that will lead to learning for all students.
- Curriculum, instruction and assessment must be equitable and reflect racial and cultural diversity.
- Ongoing professional development increases the quality of teaching and learning.
Our Objectives:
- Use InTASC-aligned professional teaching standards as the basis for teacher preparation, induction, and continued professional development.
- Implement co-teaching in the pre-service clinical practice to link theory to practice, provide professional development for mentor teachers and promote best practices in schools.
Guiding Principle #4
Support and Development for School District and University Faculty
We believe:
Objectives
Support and Development for School District and University Faculty
We believe:
- School-university collaborative partnerships are mutually beneficial and improve professional practice leading to student success.
- Intentional, long-term collaboration can create a seamless system of preparation and professional development for teachers.
- Long-term, sustained partnerships will increase the on-going opportunities for collaboration and professional development.
- Strong school-university partnerships can better link theory and research taught in university courses with actual practice.
- Systematic and strategic clustering of teacher candidates in schools can facilitate an optimum clinical experience and contribute to the success of the PK-12 students in school.
- The partnership creates a seamless transition from clinical practice through the first years of classroom teaching via collaboratively developed and delivered induction and mentoring programs.
- Newly hired teachers deserve strong mentoring and induction programs to promote teacher retention and accelerate classroom effectiveness.
Objectives
- Develop processes that cluster teacher candidates creating school-based learning teams of teachers, teacher candidates, university faculty and other education professionals.
- Create a master teacher program that provides motivation and career pathway opportunities for veteran teachers to strengthen their skills and serve as cooperating teachers.
- Co-create and co-implement induction and mentoring programs for new teachers so that they continue to receive support in the first years of teaching and at times of transition.
- Alter/improve organizational structures to support ongoing collaboration for the ultimate goal of PK-12 student achievement and teacher preparation and professional development.
- Share equity-focused professional development among and between all partners and create common expectations and language.
Guiding Principle #5
Teacher Candidate Performance and Motivation
We believe:
Our Objectives
Teacher Candidate Performance and Motivation
We believe:
- Field experiences that include diverse populations (linguistic, cultural, ability, etc.) will prepare teacher candidates to succeed with the variety of students they will work with in any school.
- Field experiences should be rigorously evaluated using tools aligned with district teacher evaluations.
- Teacher candidates deserve great cooperating teachers that foster performance and motivation.
- Clustering teacher candidates and creating school-based learning teams meets needs for both professional preparation and district professional development.
- Providing teacher candidates with experiences in a wide variety of settings increases their understanding and competence.
- Strong collaboration between the cooperating teacher and the teacher candidate (i.e. co-teaching model) positively impacts PK-12 student success, the overall school, and teacher candidate competency.
- Cooperating teachers should be involved as active participants and partners in teacher preparation programs.
- All teachers, including teacher candidates, are responsible for student achievement and success and therefore teacher candidates learn to assess student learning and make necessary adjustments to instruction and assessment to facilitate student learning.
- Shared understanding and strong, regular communication between university faculty and school personnel increases the success of the teacher candidate.
Our Objectives
- Align teacher preparation objectives and evaluation with InTASC/TSPC standards; use formative evaluation of teacher candidates’ field experiences.
- Engage cooperating teachers and supervisors in professional development to mentor teacher candidates.
- Develop a systematic and intentional teacher candidate placement model that supports clustering teacher candidates in partner schools.
- Implement co-teaching model for teacher candidate clinical practice.
- Align pre-service evaluations with district teacher evaluations.
- Create opportunities to moderate evaluation tools between the university and school districts.
- Develop a rigorous selection process for cooperating teachers.
Guiding Principle #6
Innovation
We believe:
Objectives
Innovation
We believe:
- We must change institutional models and practices that historically have not worked for students and/or teachers.
- Working as separate institutions inhibits our ability to best prepare and support teachers.
- Student success relies on cultural responsiveness and equity permeating our work at all levels.
- Our current systems have the capacity to make a greater impact if we reassess how we do the work and identify new, creative solutions that address our shared concerns.
- We can elevate the profession by working together on a shared vision that enhances teaching and learning.
- We must take steps forward in new directions in order to address systemic and entrenched issues that limit our ability to work together effectively.
- Using current research and exemplars and conducting action research are essential to support successful innovation.
- A common vision of exemplar teaching should be embedded in all coursework and clinical experiences to create a coherent set of learning experiences for teacher candidates.
- Innovation happens with attitudes of openness and inquiry; innovation is not a one-time event.
- All practices, old and new, should be continually evaluated for efficacy and improvement.
Objectives
- Strengthen coherence and integration between teacher preparation coursework and clinical practice through the clustered placements of teacher candidates who are co-teaching in partner schools.
- Develop school environments for teaching and teacher preparation coursework that are such strong models of practice and collaboration that the environment itself is a place for learning for teachers.
- Create a teacher recruitment pipeline that begins in middle school and high school and develop a support program through higher education to diversify the workforce.
- Collaborate on and align teacher evaluations and admissions into teacher preparation programs.
- Districts combine resources and co-develop equity-focused hiring practices and mentoring and induction programs.
- Create master teacher program to provide support and incentives to cooperating teachers.
Guiding Principle #7
Collaborative Relationships
We believe:
Our Objectives
Collaborative Relationships
We believe:
- Authentic, sustained, purposeful and productive collaboration between PK-12 schools and university schools of education will lead to higher student achievement.
- A more seamless vision of continuous teacher development over the career span, including teacher preparation, induction and professional development will support, sustain, and grow a more highly effective teaching force.
- Intentional, successful collaboration requires time, resources, trust, and commitment.
Our Objectives
- Develop more effective ways of placing, preparing, and supporting teacher candidates.
- Create sustainable professional development for cooperating teachers and supervisors.
- Work together to recruit motivated potential teachers from diverse backgrounds and support them through the academic pipeline to work in partner districts.
- Implement a co-teaching model that allows cooperating teachers and teacher candidates to design, instruct, and assess PK-12 student outcomes and teacher effectiveness collaboratively.
- Continue to find opportunities to align our collective work and creatively leverage resources and expertise to elevate the profession.
- Design partnership-level collaboration support by creating an oversight committee (including grant implementation) and a community advisory committee to implement, advance, and monitor the work.
Guiding Principle #8
Quality Assurance, Outcomes and Sustainability
We believe:
Our Objectives
Quality Assurance, Outcomes and Sustainability
We believe:
- Outcomes depend on quality assurance and sustainable practices.
- All work should be evaluated for quality and impact and the evidence collected and used to inform future work of the partnership.
- Taking the long-term view facilitates the development of sustainable practices.
- A successful partnership can develop in ways that meet all partners’ ultimate organizational aims.
Our Objectives
- The partnership implementation plan will include a comprehensive program evaluation plan as well as systematic review of goals, timelines, responsible persons, and budget.
- The partnership implementation plan will include measures of success, evaluation plans, and sustainability measures.