Campus Connections: Teacher Quality

Will You Be Prepared to Teach?

Tina Nicpan, a senior at Illinois State University, confesses: "I don’t learn well by listening to professors lecture. My education classes have taught me the basics, but it’s the real-world learning that has truly prepared me to teach."

Nicpan’s revelation reflects a concern on the minds of many education students today: How is what I’m learning in school directly relevant to the reality of teaching?

In the report A Sense of Calling: Who Teaches and Why, 56 percent of more than 900 recent education graduates polled by the nonprofit organization Public Agenda said colleges spend too much time on education theory and do not focus enough on practical experience. More than 60 percent said their education schools did only a "fair" or "poor" job readying them for the stresses of teaching.

Jennifer Petrini, who’s working toward her credential at California State University, Dominguez Hills, isn’t surprised by the research results.

"A lot of my coursework focuses on the philosophies of teaching," she says. "I keep asking myself if this will be enough to prepare me for the real-life issues I’ll face once I get into my own classroom."

Petrini’s concern is echoed by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), a coalition of 33 professional associations -- including NEA -- working to establish high-quality teacher preparation programs through professional accreditation. In recent years, NCATE has required university and P-12 school faculty to develop "professional development schools." These schools are similar in concept to teaching hospitals, where students take graduate-level courses in the art and science of teaching while working daily with a mentor teacher, much as an intern works with a veteran doctor. The mentor teachers also lead some of the graduate-level courses.

Programs at San Jose State University in California, Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City, and Baylor University in Texas are examples of the growing movement. But until professional development schools become more widespread, many future teachers still wonder what they can do now to bridge the gap between academia and reality. Tina Nicpan was one of them.

"I wanted -- needed, really -- to supplement what my professors were teaching in the lecture hall," says the past chair of the Illinois Student Education Association. "Then it came to me: Who better to both bridge that gap and offer students lessons in reality than recently retired teachers?"

Nicpan took her vision of a student/retired mentor program to the state retired Association and received immediate support. After both groups secured grants, the students and retirees paired up in teams. Today, more than 1,300 student members work with retired mentors on a weekly basis through phone calls, E-mail, and in person. The mentor/mentee pairs remain together until the student graduates.

"It’s the perfect situation," says Nicpan. "Retirees have the time to work with us, to listen to us vent, to answer our questions, to give us advice."

At Virginia’s Christopher Newport University, senior Shannon Bertrand brings local K-12 teachers onto campus twice a semester to lead professional development workshops for current and future teachers.

"It’s definitely paid off," says Bertrand. "After each workshop we spend time asking the classroom teachers how what we are learning in school really applies to the classroom. Their advice has been invaluable."

"Learning textbook theories in college is important," says Nicpan. "But the key to real success is finding ways to put those theories into practice before graduation."