K-State PDS Collaboration Guidelines and Strategies

Collaboration Guidelines | Collaboration Strategies

Collaboration Guidelines

1. Establish meaningful collaborative goals:
   1. Improve teacher preparation at Kansas State University and beyond
   2. Improve elementary and secondary education within the professional development schools and beyond
   3. Help create a true profession of teaching at all levels kindergarten-college
2. Enhance ownership and personal sense of meaning:
   1. Encourage participation and involvement from all stake holders
   2. Build collaborative relations between all members of the PDS Partnership
   3. Create a sense of responsibility for personal, organizational, and professional growth – we are responsible for ourselves but also for one another as a community of learners and for teaching as a profession
3. Establish a learning community:
   1. Create genuine partnerships – we all need to learn,
      improve, and grow together
   2. Integrate college, district, school, and individual needs
      and goals
   3. Encourage personal and organizational self-analysis
      and problem-solving
4. Empower teachers and students:
   1. Enocurage diversification in teaching roles and responsibilities
   2. Create active problem-solving mentality
   3. Provide access to resources, information, and support
5. Utilize and expand the profesional knowledge base:
   1. Encourage experimentation and risk taking
   2. Provide opportunities for action research, field testing,
      and pilot projects
   3. Provide opportunities to study, share, and plan together
6. Address adult learning needs:
   1. Treat teachers and faculty with dignity and respect as professionals
   2. Create long-term and continuous professional
      development plans
   3. Use multifacated and variable formats for enhancing professional development
   4. Provide time and support for participants to practice
      new ideas
   5. Encourage strong administrative support at all levels
   6. Build a sense of efficacy – together we can succeed

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Collaboration Strategies

Enhance Ownership, Participation and Communication

District Level:

• Identify clinical instructor for each PDS to disseminate PDS news and events throughout the school, district, and community
• Develop items for Board Meetings each year

School Level:

• Establish PDS Advisory Councils to meet once a year. Schools may elect to use existing Site Council for this purpose. Expand involvement to include representatives from: Elementary Education, Secondary Education, Educational Administration, Special Education, Arts and Sciences, KSU students, parents, K-12 students, building level Staff Development Council, and Site Council
• Align PDS agenda with building level staff development plans and School Improvement Plans
• Add a description of PDS to Parent Handbooks
• Develop School brochures for each PDS and/or add a section on PDS to each brochure
• Develop Student Handbooks for all field experience students assigned to a PDS
• Develop a PDS partnership newsletter for each school to document PDS news and events
• Periodically mention PDS events in parent newsletter
• Encourage student interns and cooperating teachers to write a joint letter of introduction to parents
• Develop yearly presentation on PDS for PTA meetings
• Encourage teacher presentations to parents during open house and back-to-school night explaining KSU partnership and KSU student involvement in the classroom
• Develop a photo display to introduce KSU students and faculty partners associated with each PDS
• Align the KSU and PDS calendars whenever possible
• Invite KSU PDS team members to PDS faculty meetings, staff development activities, site council meetings, etc. It should not be assumed that faculty would become regular contributing members of these teams, but that they should be informed of activities occurring in the life of each school and be encouraged to participate in additional ways within a PDS.

K-State:

• Establish PDS as a regular agenda item for monthly Elementary Education and Secondary Education meetings and yearly College of Education meetings
• Conduct bi-monthly meetings with clinical instructors
• Invite principals, faculty liaisons, central administration, and KSU administration to a meeting with clinical instructors once a year
• Develop PDS brochure to distribute to parents, KSU students, community members and other interested educators
• Invite PDS representatives to participate in COE meetings, committees, retreats, searches, program planning and evaluation, and accreditation activities

Clarify Expectations for Partnership

• Maintain mutually beneficial goals for the partnership
• Maintain written descriptions of roles, responsibilities and expectations for KSU faculty, and PDS faculty involved in the partnership (clinical instructors, coordinator of PDS, faculty liaisons, mentor teachers, administration)
• Align KSU field experiences with PDS school curriculum, K-12 school improvement goals, and national standards
• Disseminate expectations for methods courses and field experiences to PDS faculty (Place syllabi from methods courses and field experiences and textbooks, if possible, in each PDS library)
• Maintain written descriptions of field placement procedures

Document Program Effectiveness

• Continuously monitor and adjust all field experiences based on feedback from: KSU students, KSU faculty, PDS faculty, and K-12 students and their parents
• Continuously assess partnership programs to examine its effects on KSU students, KSU faculty, KSU programs, PDS faculty, PDS programs, and K-12 and their parents (test scores, surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, etc.)
• Conduct action research projects each year within the PDS sites

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