Remaking teacher education: Train teachers like doctors
A national panel of education leaders, teachers and researchers in Washington today called for turning teacher education “upside down” by shifting focus to clinical practice and creating deeper partnerships with school districts to track teacher performance in the real world.
Holding out the medical school model, a series of experts called for an infusion of clinical practices for prospective teachers from the minute they begin their training. (I listened via conference call to the two-hour panel.)
“That clinical practice has to be infused in every facet of teacher education through dynamic ways, none of this waiting to the end to student teach,” said Nancy Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York and panel co-chair.
Zimpher cited pedagogical labs, such as the ped lab at Boston College that simulates the classroom experiences teachers will face in the classroom. No one would consider sending a new pilot into a real cockpit without simulation training at the controls, she said. Teachers need those same simulations, with mentors serving as co-pilots.
Zimpher also cited the grand rounds in medical school residency training in which a team of experienced doctors works with new doctors on challenging clinical problems. Teachers need that intense level of review, guidance and support, she said.
The panel issued a sweeping report that recognizes all school reforms hinge on highly skilled teachers. And the responsibility for those skilled teachers starts with colleges of education, some of which have been collecting students’ tuition for decades but sending them forth without adequate skills to manage classrooms, especially in high-need schools.
The panel called for new accountability measures for schools of education that include how graduates perform in the classroom based on whether students learn.
Too many teacher training programs emphasize theoretical coursework only loosely supported by clinical experience, much of it reflecting uneven quality, said U.S Education Secretary Arne Duncan who addressed the gathering. He applauded the intention to emulate a medical school model fully grounded in clinical practice.
Duncan called for an end to university-based programs that don’t consider the impact of their graduates on student learning in actual classrooms. “There is little or no accountability for turning out effective teachers,” Duncan said. “It is time to start holding teacher preparation programs far more accountable for the impact of their graduates on student learning and achievement.. It is time to make accountability much more rigorous, outcome based.”
He cited Georgia’s plan to broaden its evaluation of teacher preparation programs to include retention rates and demonstration of content knowledge. “In Georgia, they will be tracking where graduates land teaching positions and whether they stay with them,” he said.
Duncan said the United States needs a revolution in how we train teachers, not an evolution or tinkering. He recounted how teachers told him that their preparation failed them in two main ways: They did not get the hands-on training to manage tough classrooms and they were not trained on how to use data to differentiate their teaching.
In his opening comments to the panel, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education president James Cibulka said there was no superman waiting to fix teacher education. “The only cape available for us to meet this challenge is the one that the field itself will create,” he said.
He announced the formation of an alliance of eight states willing to adopt the new ambitious agenda for teacher training. (Louisiana, Tennessee and Florida were the only Southern states among the eight. It is interesting that those three states have overtaken Georgia in reputation as incubators for reform in the last few years.)
The experts called for residencies for teachers, such as the Boston Teacher Residency sponsored by the system. That program puts teacher residents with a primary mentor for a full year in a Boston classroom. The residents are assessed every month during the program; they are supported for three years beyond their residency with ongoing help and mentoring. Almost all the graduates are hired by Boston Public Schools.
The panelists considered ongoing mentoring of young teachers by talented peers in schools a critical element of improving education outcomes. They stressed that those mentors must be compensated for their effort.
Teachers on the panel said they and their colleagues wanted to improve; they wanted to learn how to change their approaches; they wanted to see highly effective peers so they could learn how to help struggling students; they wanted to learn how to make better use of data to help their kids.
–By Maureen Downey, AJC Get Schooled blog
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91 comments Add your comment
catlady
November 16th, 2010
10:45 am
It is kind of funny to read this. When I began my undergraduate degree at UT in 1970, prospective teachers were put in the classroom starting their second quarter, and every quarter thereafter.
Everything old is new again!
I have noted, however, very few programs over the years that seem to follow this idea. Most of my colleagues had nothing except maybe an observation until they were student teachers!
B. Killebrew
November 16th, 2010
10:47 am
I actually know of several programs that follow this model. This is nothing new, Maureen.
Dr. John Trotter
November 16th, 2010
10:54 am
Same Premise: The problem in public education is the lack of training for teachers. Wrong. The problem is the lack of effort on behalf of many students. Pure and simple. Too obvious for most to see. Lester Maddox hit the nail on the when he told those who were criticizing the quality of prisons in Georgia: “What we need is a better class of prisoners.”
Below the City
November 16th, 2010
10:58 am
But, alas, they will still be JUST (sarc) teachers! Not professionals like doctors or lawyers. Getting picked on by every political hack that comes along. No, the horse is out of the barn, folks. Teachers will forevermore be no more than service workers.
Belinda
November 16th, 2010
11:01 am
My daughter is in the education progam at Georgia State. She started in the classroom her first semester in the progam.
Dr. John Trotter
November 16th, 2010
11:09 am
Physicians and Lawyers are not told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it with snoopervisors breathing down their backs and writing them up for each stub of their toes or for any petty whim at the time. No, professionals are not treated like this. Professionals are trusted for their wisdom, judgment, and discretion, and they are allowed to apply their knowledge to situations without being threatened with job termination if they don’t walk in lock-step with the Super Physician or Super Lawyer. No, Maureen, good try, but Teachers are no longer treated as professionals.
AlreadySheared
November 16th, 2010
11:12 am
Nonsense! Beginning teachers should be placed in the most difficult possible environments with minimal support. Out of control schools where no one wants to work, with kids whose parents couldn’t care less if their children get a good education. If possible, they should even have to, like street people, push carts laden with their materials from classroom to classroom in between class periods.
Only after they have persevered through a trial by fire should they get to work in well-managed schools with a positive disciplinary environment. And, absolutely, the best behaved, highest achieving students must continue to be taught ONLY by teachers with a lot of seniority. Those teachers have earned the right to teach kids like that.
Maureen Downey
November 16th, 2010
11:14 am
@Dr. Trotter, A wide range of people across professions have the same complaints of micromanaging. Go to a gathering of young lawyers or residents and you will hear the same laments.
Also, I know many high paid professionals whose every move and every penny are now under scrutiny by their companies, especially people in sales, because of the downturn.
Many companies have sliced their workforces in half. So, not sure you can single out teachers under the current conditions of the American workplace. There are now top executives who go in now at 5 in the morning and work until 8. It’s a new world.
Maureen
Attentive Parent
November 16th, 2010
11:16 am
There’s actually a famous paper by Douglas Carnine on this- “Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine”
http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=46
It is truly tragic how much of the scientific research into effective instruction and how it relates to the known physiology of the brain is not taught in most ed schools and is unknown to decision makers.
It actually seems to be getting worse in fact as MRI and PET images allow us to glimpse whether and to what extent what is going on at school and home is impacting children’s brains over time.
“No thanks. We are not interested in what chemistry and physiology now tell us about disease and the human body. We prefer leeches and bloodletting. It allows more certainty in outcome and provides greater equality”.
Mac
November 16th, 2010
11:21 am
No problem! Sounds great! Have to pay them and treat them like we do Lawyers and doctors too though.
Oh wait…
Dr. Proud Black Man
November 16th, 2010
11:28 am
I’m already a doctor.
Argosy 08′
Tonya T.
November 16th, 2010
11:32 am
This will never work at the current pay scale, and the public will never pay what teachers of that nature are worth. Period. Bringing this up is asinine considering the current conditions the education “profession” is under. A great idea, but initiating it and making it successful will require a complete revamp of what the general public considers public education to be.
Enough!
November 16th, 2010
11:39 am
I’m in! From now on when I have to call,conference with,or e-mail my students’ parents, I will charge by the hour(or portion thereof) like a lawyer does. I know my lawyer charges $200 per hour. I spent over an hour on the phone with a parent yesterday evening,on my own time. I usually answer at least 5 e-mails per day as well as various phone calls. I could use the extra money.
Tonya T.
November 16th, 2010
11:40 am
Enough:
And for parent-teacher conferences, you could charge a “consultation fee” like my doctor and dentist do. They could keep the salaries where they are if they allow stuff like that!
Mardy
November 16th, 2010
11:43 am
Does this mean that a teacher will be paid and respected as much as a medical doctor? Or will the medical doctors not be paid or respected very much for what they do?
Dr. John Trotter
November 16th, 2010
11:44 am
Maureen: I am not talking about hard work. I am not opposed to hard work. Otherwise, would I have started a teachers union from scratch without a single member? I am certainly not immune to hard work or even jail time for standing up for teachers! But, I am talking about the insulting snoopervision which, in and of itself, undermines professionalism. Professionals work until the job is done. Professionals do not work by the hour. Nor do professionals stand on an assembly line boxing up widgets under the scrupulous supervision of a foreman.
I agree with you that snoopervision has creeped into other professions. The large law firms do indeed treat their young associates like hired hands. They are dogged out and snoopervised and questioned if for some reason they are seen at a UGA game or a Tech game on Saturday. In other words, why aren’t they still at the office marking up billable hours on Saturday? In fact, as a older guy at Mercer Law School, I remember trying to give a gentle warning to the young Guppies who were so eager to be hired by Alston + Bird, King & Spalding, Kilpatrick Stockton, et al., that they would probably be miserable working for one of these huge firms. But, with the prestige of being “anointed” just so great and the lure of the big bucks coming immediately, not a one whom I recall could resist. But, within a year or so of “practicing” law at one the large firms, they begin dropping off like flies. They eventually started their own firms or associated with much smaller firms where they could act like a professional and not a hired hand.
Perhaps we are entering into an era which might be called “The End of Professionalism.” This is sad. It is based on bad theory and is counterproductive.
Elizabeth
November 16th, 2010
11:48 am
Dr. Trotter, Tonya T., and Enough said it all and very well!
teacher&mom
November 16th, 2010
11:50 am
More time in the classroom and a strong mentor program would be very helpful. I’m not sure we are willing to make the investment this would require to attract more future teachers into the field. Especially if requiring more clinical practice means extending the number of semesters needed to complete the degree.
Here’s another thought:
This post – http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/teachers/teacher-maybe-it-is-time-for-m.html – illustrates the practices of an effective teacher. Unfortunately, her teaching abilities and desire to grow as a professional are no longer appreciated. If we are going to force teachers to “follow a script” why should we bother spending more time and effort training them?
Michael
November 16th, 2010
11:51 am
At Georgia Southern preservice teachers in elementary, special ed, and middle grades are in public schools working and observing their Sophomore year. In their junior year and first semester senior year students are in public schools for nine weeks at a time all day long under supervision. They teach teamed units and later teach their own units. Student teaching is intensive in addition to finishing capstone coursework. By the time students graduate they’ve been in public schools more times than they’ve been in college classrooms. Also, this has been the model for years. However, it is no longer the model for secondary teachers who must be in an MAT program and finish their undergraduate degrees in their majors. Their fifth year is spent is schools.
If we are going to follow the medical model then we must limit who goes into teaching to really drive up demand and not really be concerned when we don’t reach all Georgians.
Enlightened
November 16th, 2010
12:07 pm
Maureen – where’s your late breaking new blog entry for Gwinnett County school board member Daniel Seckinger posted a $7,000 bond Tuesday and was released from jail, having spent the night there on a charge of failure to pay child support?
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/gwinnett-school-board-member-743298.html
What's best for kids?
November 16th, 2010
12:09 pm
@teacher&mom,
I agree. If teachers are to simply follow a script, why not simply put the kids in a room with streaming video…and a cop?
RJ
November 16th, 2010
12:14 pm
Hmmm…my cousin is a surgeon that makes well over $150K a year. Can I EVER earn that much money? Can I have a 10 minute visit with a student and charge them $25 and an insurance company the rest? Can I bill them hourly just like my friends that are attorneys?
Teaching is not nearly as respected in this country as careers in law and medicine. Everyone thinks they know how to do our jobs. Until the attitudes change, salaries increase and working conditions are improved, education won’t improve. Our brightest and most talented are not always inclined to enter into the education field. I agree that there must be more rigor in the education departments. However, let’s begin by making the profession more appealing and respected.
Beg To Differ
November 16th, 2010
12:34 pm
Medical schools are notoriously expensive to set up and run, more than $1 million per student for the four years, not counting the residency and advanced training programs. What the medical student pays doesn’t begin to cover the full cost of the training. How much are we willing to invest per teacher, and how do we insure they don’t leave the profession after all that public money is spent on them?
Dr. Tim
November 16th, 2010
12:50 pm
Most teachers are not treated as “professionals” primarily because they don’t act like “professionals.” For instance: many teachers over the years have unionized in many systems and their contracts spell out their duties to a “T”. Is that something “real” professionals do (e.g., doctors, lawyers.); many teachers complain bitterly about having to pay for and take continuing erducation courses. Most doctors and lawysrs I know look forward to such courses as an opportunity to broaden their knowledge and improve their effectiveness; most teachers want to work a strict eight hour day and demand to be paid for after hours work. Professional? Hardly.
Tonya T.
November 16th, 2010
12:56 pm
Dr. Tim exemplifies that attitudes that the general public has for teachers. So how do you overcome the MULTIPLE misconceptions in order to move forward with programs like these?
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Mac
November 16th, 2010
1:09 pm
Dr. Tim – I call BS.
I have been in and around education for close to 40 years and I know very very few teachers like the ones you paint with your big old brush there.
Please stop parroting myths.
There are no unions in this state and unions normally only crop up when people are treated badly.
HS Public Teacher
November 16th, 2010
1:14 pm
Public teachers get it from all directions….
We are supposed to be “professions” in Georgia, above any real unions. We are supposed to be proud servants to the public and align ourselves with lawyers and doctors. We should attend education conferences to learn the ‘latest and greatest’ teaching techniques.
We are supposed to be “government employees” that are looked down upon. We suck away tax dollars and are a symbol of government waste.
We are supposed to be salaried employees. We don’t punch the clock and are expected to work 10 or more hours a day in order to coach, supervise a club, perform bus duty, or whatever.
We are supposed to be hourly employees that need hand-holding. Administrators must tell us every little thing to do and not to do. They slap our wrists at the slightest infraction. We toil at regular labor such as sweeping our floors and washing our desks.
We are supposed to be substitue parents. We often provide clothes and food to our students in need. We often provide pencils and paper when the real parents will not. We often provide emotional support to children when no one else will.
Any wonder teaching has become what it is?
Tonya T.
November 16th, 2010
1:19 pm
HS Public Teacher:
Bravo!!! That pretty much sums it up. And that is why I will threaten to disown a child of mine if they even consider becoming a teacher. A remarkable profession that has been reduced to the status of no more important than a bank teller (with no offense to bank tellers).
nonsense
November 16th, 2010
1:26 pm
I get tired of reading envious teachers complaining them not making as much as doctors. Well, if they want to get paid like doctors, then become one. But I digress.
I think this report is nonsense – for many reasons.
1. There is NO evidence that more practicum will produce better beginning teachers.
2. There is NO evidence that what preservice teachers learn are “theoretical” – I suppose more field experiences might open preservice teachers’ eyes and let them see that what they thought “theoretical” are indeed practical.
3. Numbers — how many medical students are there all together in all medical programs in the state of Georgia. How many teacher candidates are there in all teacher education programs in the state of Georgia? Are we producing too many teachers? In some instances, yes, but in others, we are producing far less than what we need. So, how are we going to produce that many teachers with much more practicum?
4. Where are we going to find those excellent mentors for that many teacher candidates? What are those mentors supposed to do in addition to teaching their own classrooms?
5. Why would practicing teachers want novice (or pre-novice) to teach in their classrooms in the era of “accountability”?
What we need more than anything else is the recognition that a teacher education program is producing first-year teachers. First-year professionals in any field can only do limited things well. Acknowledge that and assign responsibilities accordingly. We also need a systematic way for teachers to keep growing as professionals. We need to give them time and resources ($$$ included) to continue growing. You can keep reforming teacher education programs, but if there is no on-going professional learning opportunities for teachers, then there will be no difference.
Tonya T.
November 16th, 2010
1:28 pm
Nonsense:
I agree with everything you said, except the envy. Teachers AREN”T envious, they are just tired of being compared to professions that have little in common with. Apples to apples, ya know?
the prof
November 16th, 2010
1:34 pm
Argosy……………hahahahahahahahaha
HS Public Teacher
November 16th, 2010
1:45 pm
As an addendum to my previous post….
Therefore, in order to truely improve education, we as a society define exactly what a teacher should be. A teacher cannot be everything to everyone and expect to be successful.
In my opinion, a teacher should be GREAT at teaching the content, period. This means using differentiated methods to teach various learning styles. This means challenging every student to be their best regardless of level, disability, or whatever.
If a teacher can accomplish this, then isn’t this enough?
Why do we, as a society, also expect them to be sports coaches, club sponsors, hall monitors, custodians, and so on? No one can do all of this well!
Dr NO
November 16th, 2010
1:46 pm
Instead of this or that or perhaps this way or that way or more of the same or a little extra hand-holding, molly-coddling, butt-kissing. Perhaps the answer lies in brutal and swift terminations.
AH YES…I notice whenever the private sector ee’s are dissatisfied, objectives not being met then a GOOD OLE FASHIONED FIRING will normally get the other worker-bees in line and thing chug along smoothly for awhile.
Yes…Terminate some of these overpriced babysitters…there are plenty more where that came from.
cracker
November 16th, 2010
1:56 pm
argosy? who took the tests? your pet monkey?
HechingerEd Blog | Turning teacher education “upside down”?
November 16th, 2010
2:19 pm
[...] Secretary Arne Duncan, who spoke at a gathering for the report’s release, was also upbeat, as quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “It is time to start holding teacher preparation programs far more accountable for the impact of [...]
bootney farnsworth
November 16th, 2010
2:19 pm
more time in front of a real class, less time sitting in one
is a good idea.
Jay
November 16th, 2010
2:23 pm
Dr. Proud Black Man, the state of Georgia does not recognize your degree from your college. I’m not sure if you knew that.
Dr. Proud Black Man
November 16th, 2010
2:27 pm
@ cracker
“argosy? who took the tests? your pet monkey?”
Why did it have to be a “monkey?”
Dr. Proud Black Man
November 16th, 2010
2:32 pm
@ Jay
Sure it does, I’m getting paid at the T-7 rate with 11 years experience.
Argosy 08′
MAT Student
November 16th, 2010
2:35 pm
I am currently getting my masters degree to teach. The MAT (Master of Art in Teaching) is a dual masters and certification program. We are required to spend 48 hours of instructional time in three different schools over the course of the program. That is a total of 144 hours, and that does not count student teaching which is another 11 weeks. It has been highly beneficial for me to learn and practice teaching at the same time. When I am in the classroom, I spend a majority of my time working one on one or with a small group of students, which helps the full time teacher focus on others. With 35-36 students in each class, I do not know how they do it when I am not there! Putting prospective teachers in the classroom benefits everyone in the classroom; the students, the teacher, and prospective teacher.
just won't fly
November 16th, 2010
2:42 pm
eh, a lot of blah, blah, blah
just like a student matures so do teachers; give them a good mentor for 2 years; and away they go.
td
November 16th, 2010
2:57 pm
Well the current program almost does now and this idea will certainly end the prospect of having other professionals ever enter the classroom. There are a great deal of people that have 10 plus years experience in the real world that would like to give back to the community and teach. It looks like these types of programs are going to effectively cut them totally out of that chance because who, besides a young person with no responsibility, can take that kind of time with no pay?
You can either manage a classroom or not. I am sure there are a lot of non college degreed military sergeants that could handle a classroom better than most of the “properly” trained teachers we have now.
atlmom
November 16th, 2010
3:03 pm
Don’t fool yourselves anyone. The teaching profession won’t get closer to doctors and lawyers…soon the doctors will be thought of as more like teachers. We’re already starting to do it…that everyone is interchangeable (they are not, in either profession). The one thing that the teachers *do* is to promote the idea that they are all the same (that is what a union does, whether you like it or not).
Anyway – there would be plenty of money for more training if you didn’t have something like 5 administrators for every teacher.
go figure
November 16th, 2010
3:08 pm
College graduates who’s study field is education are ill-prepared for today’s classroom. That is not their fault but the fault of the universities they graduate from. Collegiate educational/teaching programs need to be re-vamped for current real work teaching and classroom management.
MAT Student
November 16th, 2010
3:10 pm
Dr. Proud Black Man-
You might be getting paid on that level, but Georgia does not recognize Argosy as an approved program for teacher education.
http://www.gapsc.com/EducatorPreparation/ApprovedPrograms/EducationProgram.asp
The school also does not have national accreditation with NCATE (the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education).
http://www.ncate.org/tabid/177/Default.aspx?ch=106&state=ga
I do not know how you are getting paid that level of salary by the district, but I would say that is a weakness in the Georgia teacher education program.
atlmom
November 16th, 2010
3:15 pm
@td: why is teaching ‘giving back’? that’s so absurd. it is a profession that requires some hard work. so why are you indicating that it is charity work? I think that’s kind of disrespectful (and what is giving back anyway? did someone take something that wasn’t theirs and they are required to ‘give it back’?).
teach me!
November 16th, 2010
3:20 pm
Your Argosy degree is only considered because you were grandfathered in…it is no longer an acceptable program for future leadership students. Go to a real college and get your L5/L6/ L7 and if you are in leadership and acting that way on this blog, you obviously haven’t been given too much responsiblity at your school (maybe due to your online degree??)
NGCSU 06 – Bachelors
UGA 08 – MEd
NGCSU 08 – Gifted and ESOL Endorsement
GSU 10 – ED.S.
7th Grade Gifted Teacher
Sensei
November 16th, 2010
3:39 pm
In Japan, the title for teacher and doctor are the same – “Sensei.”
And some of you wonder how asians instill good study habits in their children…
teacher
November 16th, 2010
3:39 pm
teachers.teachers.teachers…what about idiot administrators that shouldn’t direct digging a ditch?