1.Student Achievement: How can instructional and assessment practices be enhanced to better meet the needs of all learners, especially English Language Learners and those living in poverty—with the result being significant gains in student achievement?

2.Family Engagement: How can teacher education programs, in collaboration with school partners, better prepare teachers to engage families in support of their children’s academic success?

3.Teacher Preparation: How can teacher education programs, in collaboration with school partners, better prepare teachers to address the opportunity gap?

4.Teacher Recruitment: How can teacher education programs recruit and prepare more teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in the local community?

Please see the article below for a thorough description of the Collaborative Schools for Innovation and Success (CSIS) project:

Locally, recent partnership efforts have included:
 - Work to co-design a "work roles" on-boarding academy in the district
- Collaboration on a "new teacher pathways" program to recruit and retain teachers from the community, particularly those who are representative of the children and families in the district
- The development of new work roles pathways with accompanying professional development to ready and provide ongoing support for interns. Professional development includes a paraprofessional and classroom substitute academy, social/emotional learning workshops, and 
- periodic visits to on-site WWU courses to provide the district perspective on areas like Understanding by Design, unit planning, social justice, and other aspects of praxis.

 

Tim’s latest grant combines Western Washington University’s Woodring College of Education and Huxley College of the Environment, in collaboration with the Swinomish Tribe, and the La Conner and Concrete School Districts to immerse K-12 teachers and principals in learning about the Since Time Immemorial (STI) curriculum and the Digital Library database by developing hands-on science lessons based on traditional cultural practices of the Swinomish Tribe. 

Its mission is to facilitate life-long learning through exemplary teaching to prepare quality education, health, and human services professionals for meaningful careers.  As a College that serves the state, nation and world, we 

The priorities, goals and objectives highlighted in the strategic plan are not organized by the level of importance. Rather, each priority is seen as valuable, meaningful and worth consideration in the decision-making process. They are all connected, and the document was written in such a manner that all individuals, programs, departments and units should see the main expectations of the College being reflected.

This was not a call for new scholarship, but a request to receive what colleagues have already presented/published in this area. This compendium will be added to each year, indexed and searchable, and available for college faculty, staff, and students to read and learn. We knew we had this expertise in our college, but had not made a concerted to recognize the college knowledge "in our midst." The compendium is an effort to honor and better understand our colleagues who contribute to this body of research. To date, we have collected 47 publications. 

B. Exploring Staff Structures to support needs-responsive work opportunities

C. Mentors, which focused on areas such as co-teaching and mentor development, and

D. Curriculum and Whole School Design, which focused on curricular alignment and exploring district and program needs.

These opportunities for cross-institutional learning are leading to reforms such as:
a)  A shared understanding across our institutions that diversification of our workforce and further developing community-based (local) pathways are a primary goal of our partnership work.
b) The generation of one and five-year goals for our partnership: https://wwu2-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/mille258_wwu_edu/EZ0sIVfoYXxOrKqJhi6sddgBYLCUTstvbNQmillV0OVArw?e=MlP99X
c) A pilot of a four-day district-based OSPI/BEST mentor academy in Mt. Vernon with a focus on learning-focused mentoring, working with
preservice teachers, equity-focused mentoring, mentoring strategies, and practice
opportunities.  
c) A 1-day Ferndale Teacher Academy summit in April, 2021, which will be followed by
ongoing development and progress in 2021-22
d) The further development of work opportunities and systems of support for residents during student teaching in 2021-22
e) Shared systems development for  student teaching
placements, cross-district and cross-institutional sharing and leveraging of resources, and our
growing understanding of our contexts and priorities. 

families as well as the Latino immigrants. All of these factors indicate significant educational

challenges and opportunities for the schools. 

They created 8 groups of 5 with a mix of different departments and classifications. In total there were 3 classified staff, 4 exempt staff, 8 adjunct faculty, and 13 tenure-line faculty.

Books were specifically chosen to address Strategic Priority 1. They asked that each group meeting took time to connect back to the work we do in the college. How do the readings relate to the work you/we do in Woodring? What connections can we make?

 

This is an on-going project. Teir main goal is that all participants learn more about building justice-oriented practices and consider how our roles impact this. They are planning to create an opportunity to share our overall learning and implications for Woodring after the book groups end. 

The framing language and included artifacts are meant to be an introduction to our work and strategic priorities as a College. The artifacts are not meant to be a comprehensive overview of the work of our faculty, staff, and students, but rather provide a frame to view our work. The goal in this padlet is to demonstrate, not encapsulate.

We look forward to engaging in productive conversation to explore how we can support the work of EdPrepLab and its member affiliates and how our engagement in this work can support our mission as a College.

Across the padlet, We will also share specific ideas about how engaging with the EdPrepLab consortium can both benefit the member institutions and help us progress our mission to foster community relationships and a culture of learning that advance knowledge, honor diversities, and promote social justice.  We look forward to engaging with you in the weeks ahead.

This Preservice Mentor Academy will supported participants’ understanding of mentoring skills and strategies that can support their work in professional learning communities, induction mentoring, teacher leadership, and provide a springboard to additional professional opportunities in mentoring.

Through a dynamic pedagogy that allowed for large group, small group, individual/solo reading, and practice opportunities, the the Preservice Mentor Academy topics such as: 

We clearly identify a nexus between our four priorities and the principles of deeper learning. For example, our Priority One is closely linked to the principle that learning is “equitable and oriented toward social justice.” The other deeper learning principles are more integrated in our other three priorities, and we are thrilled by the potential of unpacking these connections as we continually refine our strategic plan.

Funded by a 21^st Century Consortium Grant, Western Washington University’s Woodring College of Education and Huxley College of the Environment, in collaboration with the Swinomish Tribe, formed a partnership with the La Conner and Concrete School Districts to immerse K-12 teachers and principals in the Since Time Immemorial (STI) curriculum (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2012). In keeping with the aims of the partnership, participating principals guided teachers in collaborative professional development to create science lessons focusing on topics such as salmon recovery, tideland impacts, and water use in the “Science and the Swinomish” project.

The value gained from sharing of ideas, not only about the project, but through the collaboration of educational practices in general, became an unexpected, pleasant

 outcome, and a major benefit to both school districts.  As one participating principal stated, “We cultivated friendships and working relationships that will continue long after the project is over.”

 

The work was based on the following theory of action:  If principals support and understand what is needed to produce good instruction (which research informs us is critical to student achievement), and if they have the skills to collaborate with teachers to put into practice rigorous, culturally relevant learning in science, including formative and summative assessment strategies, then they will better facilitate students’ higher levels of learning, sharing culturally-relevant, engaging content that meets the needs of all students, including those in the achievement and opportunity gap (Jensen, 2013; Rentfro, 2007; Silverman, 2016; University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership, 2014).

PESB is committed to upholding Washington’s standards for educator preparation programs and cultural responsiveness to ensure all educators are prepared to recognize diversity as an asset and build upon students’ diverse strengths. This includes students of Color, those living in poverty, students with disabilities, English learners (ELs), and LGBTQ students and families. PESB strives for all teacher candidates to engage in a preparation experience that advances racial equity for both the candidate and their future students. Doing so requires productive collaboration between community partners and the P-12 education system.

 

You will be engaging in your own critical familial history from an educational perspective. This critical personal narrative will be a reflexive self-narrative immersed in your multiple identities and cultures, highlighted by performance, storytelling, the power to disrupt, reproduce, reimagine, debate, and dialogue for social change. The FEHP reflects your various ways of knowing – your written and/or oral languages, with explicit charges for charting new spaces for democracy, liberation, decolonization, and/or consciousness cultivation as a cultural worker (Mutua & Swadener, 2005; Reed-Danahay, 1997).

 
Deeper Learning:

This FEHP assignment is contextualized in that it asks teacher candidates to critically examine their own family educational histories and how those histories affect their development as learners in schools and their own practice as future teachers.  It helps our candidates better understand the wide variety of family educational histories so that they can work toward more authentic relationships with families in their schools and with members of their local communities. The assignment is also developmentally grounded and personalized in that it centers the experiences of our candidates and builds upon their own needs, interests, experiences, and prior knowledge as a method of engagement and active learning.  The essential learnings via the assignment are also applied and transferable as candidates are asked to examine their own real-world experiences as former students in schools.  Candidates interrogate the school settings and classroom structures in place that either work towards critical thinking and social justice in schools or reify existing inequities in schools and local communities.