Teacher candidates attending the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith are learning how to hit the ground running as very effective classroom educators, thanks to an innovative partnership between the UAFS College of Education and the Van Buren Public School System.

 

Dr. Merle Dickerson, superintendent of Van Buren Public Schools, said the partnership is important and effective.

 

“Van Buren schools always want teachers who come to the classroom prepared to teach in ways that succeed with students,” he said. “That’s why we’re so happy to form a partnership with UAFS. UAFS was ready to innovate as it established a professional development school at Central Elementary in Van Buren and ‘innovate’ is a word I like.”

 

Dickerson had already altered the concept of “professional development” among Van Buren faculty members. Instead of directing teachers to spend time in solitary sessions of classroom preparation and individual study, the Van Buren schools set up classrooms where teachers work together to improve their teaching methods. Additionally, “curriculum coaches” were placed in the classrooms, with the children, while the teachers were teaching.

 

When the UAFS College of Education approached Dickerson with the idea of placing a college classroom for teacher candidates at an elementary school, it fit right in. Teacher candidates can experience the classroom effectiveness of what they’re learning at the university level right in the elementary classroom.

 

These teacher candidates, according to the UAFS plan, cooperate with classroom teachers, curriculum coaches and UAFS faculty members to work in ways that improve public school student achievement.

 

Dr. Laura Witherington of Fort Smith, director of school partnerships at UAFS, said everyone -- faculty and staff, and also parents and students -- recognizes that the expectations for students, teachers and schools changes often and quickly.

 

“State agencies regulate what is taught and how it is taught, but more importantly, new research in the ways students learn influences the schools’ curriculum and teaching strategies,” she said.

 

Witherington said that, as schools evolve, colleges that train future teachers have to keep pace.

 

“This has been a challenge,” Witherington said. “But through our partnership with the Van Buren School District, the College of Education faculty remains in direct contact with innovations in the classroom. Central Elementary School in Van Buren has become an exceptional incubator for future teaching candidates.”

 

Witherington explained that a teaching candidate in a professional development school gains teaching skills through a method that mirrors the old medical school adage of “see one, do one, teach one.”

 

She said that, as teaching candidates attend classes on-site at Central Elementary, their faculty coordinates learning with what the Central Elementary teachers are doing in their classrooms. Then, college and school faculty collaborate to provide a real-life demonstration of best teaching strategies in action.

 

“Teaching candidates observe the teaching and learning methods in the actual classroom with living, breathing students,” she said. “Then they strive to replicate them in their clinical placement classrooms.”

 

The result, according to Witherington, is a cohort of candidates who feel better prepared for their own classrooms.

 

Teacher candidate Tonya Farley of Pocola, Okla., is in the initial group of UAFS students who participate in the professional development school partnership.

 

“This has been the best experience of my education,” Farley said. “I’ve learned a lot before this semester, but now I’ve been able to apply it. The teachers are fabulous, and they have been so generous in sharing all their resources and expertise with us.”

 

The pupils in the grade school take notice of what’s happening, according to Cindy Mizell, principal at Central Elementary.

 

“A child came up and told one of the teachers that the students had to be on their game because college students came to see them and that made them more accountable,” Mizell said. “What we’re doing really has an impact on these children.”

 

Dr. John Jones of Fort Smith, dean of the UAFS College of Education, said the UAFS version of a professional development school is “new and unlike any other.”

 

“We’re already looking at ways to expand its success,” he said. “Elementary candidates have honed their skills on site this semester. Soon, middle-level, and eventually secondary candidates, will do the same.”

 

Witherington said that she accepted the job of establishing school partnerships because she saw them as ways to bring the best out in the children who come to the classroom.