Teitel PDS Literature Review Notes

Teitel, L. (1998). Professional development schools: A literature review. In M. Levine (Ed.), Designing standards that work for professional development schools (pp. 33-80).

Overview of the Literature

Context

• School-University Collaboration
• School Reform
• Foundation Support for School Reform
• Teacher Education
• Professionalization of Teaching

Principles, Beliefs, Goals

Program Characteristics

• Improvement of Student Learning
• Teacher Education
• Professional Development
  • Includes teaching and planning courses: "In addition to expanded roles as a mentors (sic), school-based faculty are taking on roles formerly held by university supervisors, which shakes up the triad (p. 45)."
  • "Most of what is reported in the literature about PDS professional development focuses on K-23 teachers, with less attention paid to the professional development of university faculty and even less to that of administrators at either institution (p. 46)."
  • IDEA - Do a self-study of my professional development as faculty and member of the PDS community
  • "In this sense, PDS research is seen as a way to resolve some of the tension between schools and universities and is modeled on a collaborative action-research framework (pp. 46-47)."
  • As it should be. Otherwise are we placing too many demands on teachers? What about co-authoring: "It appears, however, that overall the research on PDSs is dominated by university faculty (p. 48)."
  • What is "real" collaborative inquiry as opposed to fake collaborative inquiry? "Despite considerable discussion in the literature about the definition and purposes of inquiry in the PDS, it seems clear that for many PDSs, real collaborative inquiry is not yet taking place (p. 48)."

Development and Implementation

• Governance
  • How is a university liaison different from school-based faculty? "University liaisons are typically faculty members with a quarter- or half-time commitment, who spend a day a week, or two half-days, at a site; school liaisons are often teachers doing this in addition to teaching (p. 49)."
• Financing
• Policy
• Institutionalization
• Core Commitments
• PDS Developmental Stage Theories
  • Call for understanding the developmental stages of mature PDSs
• Standards for PDSs

PDS Effectiveness

Conclusion

• Results of Teitel's literature review: "The review is based on published reports that are often written by the participants themselves, not on empirical research or direct observation; it is possible that the reports may overstate the progress a PDS has made. Nomenclature is still inconsistent, and words like intern, student teacher, clinical professor, and supervisor have different meanings in different reports (p. 61)."
• "The review points out that based on what is reported in the literature, the four goals of professional development schools are not being pursued with equal vigor; there appears to be more emphasis on preservice and in-service teacher education than on supporting student learning and on inquiry (p. 610)."
• Teitel calls for research on the impact of PDS specifically with regard to student learning, culture in both partners, and the developmental stages of mature PDSs. He also identified a need for standards to indicate what is and what is not a PDS (Hence the creation of the Nine Essentials).

Addendum

• Better common understanding of the definition of PDS