Site Liaisons
College faculty are selected who demonstrate commitment to renewal and to partnership functions and attributes. They are quality teachers who have skills in working collaboratively. In most professional development schools, one college faculty works eight hours per week, in addition to class teaching time, during the school year in the P-12 school. Each professorÕs overall responsibility is to support and provide leadership in partner school efforts in quality teacher preparation, shared professional development, exemplary practices, and in addressing difficult problems of practice through inquiry and research. They have specific responsibility to ensure the learning and well being of teacher candidates in field experiences and student teaching. The duties include any or all of the following as specified in the contractual agreements.

Teacher Preparation

• Provide effective models of supervision/coaching for student teachers and field experience students and articulate the models and underlying philosophy of coaching.
• Assist clinical teachers in developing supervision/coaching skills as needed and in establishing a system to document coaching.
• Coach teacher candidates in or about three settings:
  1. classroom teaching,
  2. broader school responsibilities, and
  3. community relations.

Professional Development

• Serve as a mentor along with other clinical teachers.
• Work with the building leadership team to determine directions and processes for professional development in areas of mutual goals.
• Lend expertise in providing or structuring formal professional development opportunities.
• Become familiar with the talents and expertise of the school staff and help them share their talents and expertise with others.

Exemplary Practices

• Assist individual teachers, teams of teachers, or the faculty as a whole in determining what they want to do to improve or advance curriculum and / or instruction (including assessment) in the classroom / school in order to positively impact student learning.
• Work with teacher candidates and classroom teachers to assist them in implementing curriculum and / or instructional reforms or initiatives (such as standards).
• Lend or obtain expertise in curriculum and instruction.

Inquiry and Research

• Work with others in the school to plan and implement research that advances progress toward shared goals.
• Provide or obtain support and direction for student teachers and / or field experience students and school personnel engaged in action research.
• Seek appropriate approval and assistance and encourage collaboration in conducting personal research of interest.

Clinical Teacher
Clinical teachers are selected on the basis of criteria that include their commitment to change and renewal, the quality of their teaching, their potential or performance in working with student teachers and field experience students, and their commitment to being involved in profession development school functions and supporting critical attributes. The Partnership or partner school may develop additional criteria and specific processes. Although the term "clinical teacher" is a label aligned with teacher preparation, the first responsibility of teachers is to the learning and well being of children and youth. Each clinical teacher:

• Provides effective instruction for students and articulates the instructional methods and techniques and the underlying philosophy for the teacher candidates.
• Coaches student teachers both formally and informally, orally and in writing. Participates in supervision/coaching workshops or other opportunities to increase coaching skill.
• Schedules regular and frequent conferences with student teachers in order to plan.
• Provides school time and resources for teacher candidates to complete school-based requirements for student teaching and field experience courses.
• Co-teaches with the student teachers as a means to encourage and facilitate student learning, new teacher learning, and the renewal of curriculum and instruction within the classroom.

Other School Personnel
While not all school personnel will serve as clinical teachers or mentors, all will be involved to some degree in partner school functions. This is a critical feature of the partnership concept. As appropriate, other school personnel:

• Actively participate in professional development, exemplary practices, and inquiry/research with school and college colleagues.
• Maintain classrooms or other school settings for observation and / or participation purposes for teacher candidates and PDS faculty.
• Participate positively in shaping the quality of the professional development school.

College Faculty from Academic Departments
(Schools of Professional Studies, Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Business)

• Provide programmatic enhancement including curricular development or revision/evaluation and review, developmental workshops, in-service training, mini sabbaticals in content areas, shadowing or mentoring.
• Participate in or coordinate instructional exchanges including classroom/campus visitations, collaborative presentations, mentoring, pedagogical workshops, lab equipment, teaching methods examination and discussions.
• Facilitate inquiry including research exchange, collaborative grant writing, data collection, report writing.
• Integrate/mentor students through campus tours, field trips, cultural participation, simulation experiences.

The Impact of Faculty Involvement on Promotion, Tenure, and Post-tenure
At The Met, Departmental Evaluation Guidelines should specify how involvement in partner schools impacts annual evaluation, retention, tenure, post-tenure and promotion. Guidelines should reflect the merits of successful participation in partner schools. Value for new partner school roles should be reflected in annual evaluations. School and college institutions should recognize the value of partner school work in tenure and promotion decisions.

Chairs will evaluate faculty with reassigned time in reports issued each semester which assesses partner school performance as excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, or needs improvement.

Professional development should be provided to partner school faculty from the college to support & facilitate their development of presentations and publications related to partner school work.

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