Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education

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Winter 2015

In This Issue:

I. Introduction—Partnership in Teacher Education, in which Alison Cook-Sather, Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education and Coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, frames the essays included in this issue as illustrations of particular forms of collaboration in teacher preparation. The first four essays were composed by participants in the Teaching and Learning Together (TLT) project based in the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program. Three more essays focus on various kinds of student-faculty partnerships within teacher education at Smith College, Vassar College, and California State University, Long Beach. All seven essays illustrate ways in which students and teachers can work in partnership in teacher education.

II. Developing ‘Middle’ Pedagogy, in which Mary Encabo, Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2013, describes how she developed a pedagogy based on her experiences coming from the Philippines and occupying “in between” roles. In her life and in her partnerships—as a student-teacher partnered with a high school student in the Teaching and Learning Together (TLT) program and as an undergraduate partnered with a faculty member in the Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) program—Encabo developed insights and capacities through dialogue and reciprocity within this middle place.

III. Finding Common Ground and Building Relationship in Two Partnership Programs, in which Hannah Bahn, Haverford College, Class of 2014, describes her experience of participating simultaneously in a partnership with a high school student in the Teaching and Learning Together (TLT) project and a faculty member through the Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) program. She focuses on the process of developing these partnerships, and, as the title of her essay suggests, she explores the importance of establishing a context and common ground for dialogue and of building relationships.

IV. Multiple Iterations of Partnership: My Co-Creation Journey as a Student and a Teacher, in which Maeve O’Hara, Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2008, and current high school mathematics teacher, describes the various ways in which she has worked in partnership through programs at Bryn Mawr College: as a student co-founder of and participant in Bryn Mawr’s Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLI) and Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) program; as a student-teacher partnered with a high school student in the Teaching and Learning Together (TLT) program; and as a practicing high school mathematics teacher serving in the role of school-based educator of the TLT project.

V. Reflections on a Collaborative and Relational Framework for Teacher Development, in which Heather Curl, Haverford College, Class of 2003, and Lecturer at Bryn Mawr College, describes the collaborative approach to teacher preparation taken through the Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program. She discusses her experience of facilitating exchanges between pre-service teachers who participate in two sets of partnerships through Teaching and Learning Together (TLT) during the semester prior to their practice teaching: one with secondary students currently enrolled in schools, and one with veteran secondary teachers. Curl describes as well what she learns from the students and teachers with whom she collaborates through this program.

VI. Reflections on a Successful Student-Professor Collaboration, in which Kyle DeAngelis, Vassar College, Class of 2015, describes a partnership through which he worked with an education professor to co-create a syllabus for a course required of educational studies minors at Vassar College. He discusses the evolution of his role in the partnership and the insights he gained about what makes for a successful collaboration between students and faculty.

VII. Co-teaching, Co-leading, Co-learning: Reflection on the Co-Teaching Model in Practicum, in which Betina Hsieh and HuongTran Nguyen, California State University, Long Beach, describe the potential and the challenges of the co-teaching approach they took within their teacher preparation program. They emphasize the importance of student teachers having an active role in the student teaching experience or practicum and a voice in analyzing that experience. Hsieh and Nguyen also discuss their experience of co-teaching, which gave them insight and empathy regarding their students’ experiences of the co-teaching approach.

VIII. Applied Learning as a Shared Experience: Two Models of Partnership at Smith College has two parts. The first part is “Beginning with Complexity: The Initial Collaboration Between a Student Teacher and a Cooperating Teacher,” by Lara Ramsey, Supervising Teacher, Smith College Campus School, and Dena Greenstreet, Student Teacher, Smith College, Class of 2015. Ramsey and Greenstreet present a dialogue through which they trace the unfolding of their collaborative work to transform the traditional student-teaching experience. The second part of the essay is “Working Side-by-Side with Students in an After-School Program,” co-authored by Sam M. Intrator, Professor and Chair of the Education and Child Study Program at Smith College, and Don Siegel, Professor, Smith College. In this essay Intrator and Siegel share a version of the letter they send to all each new cohort of graduate and undergraduate Smith students who participate in Project Coach, their sports-based youth development program.