Education Week - October 9, 2013 - 17

Bank Street Aims to Retain ‘Essence’ in Virtual Program
It’s one of the ongoing challenges of preparing teachers and
administrators online: Can on-the-job practice that is supervised
remotely be effective—especially when it’s the heart and
soul of a program?
This fall, the Bank Street College of Education, a small, private
New York City-based institution best known for hands-on
approaches to preparing teachers and leaders, will begin to
seek its own answers. It’s beginning a study to examine how
to translate the supervised fieldwork component of its math
leadership program, now offered in person over three summers,
into an online setting.
Bank Street’s hallmark is its small, tightly knit cohorts of aspiring
educators who meet periodically, plus the deep involvement of
a faculty adviser. Advisers frequently visit each candidate at his
or her school, interacting with him or her in a specific way.
“How do you create that relational learning online?” said
Robin Hummel, the interim director of the math-leadership
program. “We want to attract people from all over and make the
program accessible to those who can’t come to New York, but
we don’t want to lose the essence of what defines Bank Street.”
From next January to May, a Bank Street faculty instructor
will work with six New York City public school teacher vol-
unteers, who will participate in five real-time, online sessions
together. Participating teachers will also receive two individual
coaching sessions in which they’ll receive planning conferences
and debriefs on their teaching from the faculty member.
Enhancing Fieldwork
Meanwhile, a work group, staffed by experts in both math
pedagogy and learning technology will advise the college and
examine technologies that could enhance the fieldwork experience.
Those might include earpieces that allow a mentor
to communicate remotely with each candidate, Ms. Hummel
said. But the first priority is making sure that the institution’s
“learner centered” approach is preserved, she said.
The study is being carried out with support from a $50,000
grant from 100K in 10, a privately funded network of partner
organizations that are seeking to train 100,000 effective math,
technology, engineering, and science teachers over a decade.
The knowledge gleaned from the study will inform the online
iteration of the math-leadership program and a second
degree path, both of which are scheduled to debut in the fall
of 2014.
—STEPHEN SAWCHUK
USC Brings Its Brand
To Online Offering
For Teacher Prep.
Los Angeles
cussion prompts in a chat window for all
to see.
That variety is one of the main advances
offered by online teacher preparation, said
Sharon Robinson, the president of AACTE.
“What these students experience in their
online courses is perhaps a stronger sense
of community than if they show up in a
large lecture hall and leave as anonymous
numbers on the seating chart,” she said.
For this story, an Education Week reporter
attended several online sessions in
two USC courses, one concerned with the
social context of urban schools, a second on
learning theories.
New Pedagogical Opportunities
Although the M.A.T. students don’t take
their specific teaching-methods courses
until later in the program, professors attempted
to link theoretical discussions to
the real world. The professors often used
video excerpts to have candidates apply
knowledge from their readings.
In Ms. Hyde’s class, for instance, teachercandidates
began to practice how to write
specific learning objectives and select assessments
to match. During small groups,
lively discussions arose about the appropriate
place of standardized testing in shaping
teacher behavior.
Uniquely in teacher education, learning in
a digital format opens up new pedagogical
opportunities that professors can help candidates
try out in K-12 classrooms, faculty
members said. For instance, Mr. Bernstein,
the USC professor, sometimes uses the silentdiscussion
tool rather than conversations
during the discussion portion of his online
course. The goal is to draw out shy candidates,
while also challenging those who
aren’t as confident in their writing.
And that basic technique, he reminds
candidates, can also be used even in classrooms
without technology: Put up some
questions on the blackboard and have students
answer them on sticky notes.
“We’re going to mix it up,” Mr. Bernstein
told the aspiring teachers. “And what you
want to do in your classroom is mix it up
and provide different types of opportunities
for students to engage.”
The student-teaching or “clinical” part of
preparation is one element of teacher education
that presents a quandary for online
teacher preparation.
At USC, the responsibility for ensuring
high-quality student-teaching rests with
2U. It has built a massive network of partners
covering some 1,800 school districts,
where candidates are placed for studentteaching.

Here again, technology provides the
link: The aspiring teachers use cameras to
document their experiences in the classroom
and send them back for critiques by
professors in the program. (Ironing out
privacy issues with the schools in which
candidates practice is 2U’s responsibility.)
“We covered all the traditional [theorists],
but the part I thought was most practical was
that the majority of assignments had to be
delivered on site,” said Connor E. Nesseler, a
recent graduate of the program who is now
teaching 7th grade social studies and humanities
in San Diego.
“I had to first develop a lesson, introduce
it [at school], and deliver it, and come back
and reflect on it,” he said. “Professors would
tell us to create it, experience it, and then
we’d move from there [to] how to improve.”
His one concern? Sometimes it was hard
to come up with times for classmates to
meet online during nonclass hours.
Staffing Models
In the field at large, the rapid expansion
of online programs has led to even more
differentiation in staffing models. In some
cases, as with the University of Phoenix
and Teach-Now, the programs rely more
heavily on instructors with practical experience
than top academic credentials.
USC has hired some 165 adjuncts to
help meet demand, although full-time
online professors, such as Mr. Bernstein
and Ms. Hyde, don’t sense a fracturing in
the faculty. Instead, they say, the platform
has improved efforts to work in concert to
revise and improve the classes, both for
those teaching on campus and online.
That’s a good thing, said Karen Symms
Gallagher, the dean of the Rossier School
of Education.
“If you say you have a common course,
you have to make sure every professor
is following it,” Ms. Gallagher said. “It is
easier to know that online. And students
will tell you.”
About 1,700 individuals have graduated
from the program since its inception.
Those figures help put USC among the 30
top producers of education degrees, but
still far below the largest for-profit programs.

Data on the performance of students taught
by teachers trained online are somewhat
harder to come by. California, for instance,
does not link teacher and student records
directly; students and graduates from USC’s
Master of Arts in Teaching program now represent
47 states and 38 foreign countries.
Dean Gallagher summed up the chal-
lenge: “We can’t just say, ‘80 percent of the
teachers who gave us data look good.’ ”
Broadly speaking, the expansion of online
teacher preparation has prompted some
soul-searching among teacher-educators.
The pedagogical benefits among the various
online formats aren’t clear and have yet to
be extensively canvassed in research.
“I’m amazed that we don’t see anybody
doing data-based research. They’re doing
qualitative stuff, and that doesn’t tell us
much,” said Paul Beare, the dean of the
education school at California State University,
Fresno. “If I hadn’t seen what CalStateTEACH
had done, I’d have had a bias
against [online preparation].”
CalStateTEACH is an online preparation
program offered through four of the public
university system’s campuses. Mr. Beare’s
research indicates that students surveyed
gave higher marks to the online program
than they did to CSU’s campus-based
programs.
It also remains an open question how
much online teacher preparation differs
in content from what’s offered in face-toface
settings. The USC courses, for instance,
focused on how to be a reflective practitioner.
Later this semester, participants
will encounter articles critiquing standardized
testing and the federal No Child Left
Behind Act. Coursework covers behavioral
theory and cognitive development, all by now
established themes in teacher preparation.
For his part, Mr. Bernstein takes pride
in the fact that he’s able to engage his students
online as much, if not more, than if
they were in a physical classroom. He flies
from Connecticut to California to attend
annual graduation ceremonies in person
for the teacher-candidates he’s taught.
“The biggest shock is our heights,” Mr.
Bernstein said about meeting the teachercandidates
he’s taught in the flesh for the
first time. “You can’t judge that on the
computer screen.”
Coverage of policy efforts to improve the teaching
profession is supported by a grant from the Joyce
Foundation, at www.joycefdn.org/Programs/
Education. Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.
Of new entrants to the online teacherpreparation
market, among the most visible
is the University of Southern California’s
Rossier School of Education. Since 2009,
more than 3,600 prospective teachers have
enrolled.
To an extent, its success is the product of a
series of fortuitous events. One was the arrival,
in 2000, of Rossier Dean Karen Symms
Gallagher, who wanted to move USC’s small,
somewhat marginalized undergraduate
teacher education program to the graduate
level and expand it. USC’s stated mission
for teacher preparation is to improve urban
education nationally and globally, and at just
50 teachers a year, “we were clearly not even
meeting local needs,” Ms. Gallagher said.
Then, she was introduced to John Katzman,
the founder of a technology company that
came to be known as 2U. He pressed her to
consider an online iteration of the newly
formed Masters of Arts in Teaching degree.
Ultimately, a partnership emerged: Mr.
Katzman agreed to invest in the building of
a customized, online platform for Rossier and
to endow a faculty position, while Rossier
would continue to select high-quality candidates.
Faculty advising the project insisted on
a platform that would be fully interactive and
that could record online interactions for future
research.
Enrollments Rising Steadily
The ambitious endeavor was nevertheless
a gamble for a research institution.
“What we really brought to the partnership
was our brand, and USC’s behind it,”
Ms. Gallagher said. “We are investing our
reputation.”
Enrollments have risen steadily. In fact,
they have helped to shield Rossier from the
steep decline in enrollments in teaching programs
in California. The online MAT has also
affected other traditional structures: Fulltime
faculty who teach in the MAT program
and aren’t located in Southern California
work under contracts based almost entirely
on their teaching duties.
It also has injected transparency into
whether what’s taught lines up with the
program’s goals. “Everyone can share with
each other how they’re helping students
learn,” said Melora Sundt, the vice dean of
academic programs at Rossier. “MAT faculty
are much more comfortable with the review
of their own instruction and feedback.”
The changes here have not always been
comfortable for all. Some view the program’s
rapid expansion as overly corporate.
“People will say, ‘It’s about the money.’ I al-
ways say, well, it better be—we’re a private
institution,’” Ms. Sundt said. “It is about our
mission, but it feels yucky to some faculty
members that you also have to consider the
financial model for the program.”
On the other hand, participating faculty say
teaching online has led them to experiment.
“Oftentimes as professors it’s hard to relinquish
control, and this format forces you
to,” said Corinne E. Hyde, an assistant professor
of clinical education. “If you get up in
front of these students and lecture them,
they’re going to be on Facebook in 15 minutes.
You’re forced to really be on your toes,
grab their attention, and hold it.”
—STEPHEN SAWCHUK
EDUCATION WEEK | October 9, 2013 | www.edweek.org | 17
http://www.joycefdn.org/Programs/Education http://www.joycefdn.org/Programs/Education http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - October 9, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - October 9, 2013
