Today, Nina Pak Lui (TWU Assistant Professor of Education and Post-Degree Program Advisor), Adam Woelders (LCS Head of Schools), and Kevin Mirchandani (K-12 Director of Instruction & Christian Foundations) met with the TWU School of Education post-degree student cohort for an orientation to launch our community-based practicum partnership. LCS Principals, Lori Carpenter (ES), Berkley Glazer (MS), and Joel Ditson (HS) shared campus tours and host teachers met their practicum students. We are excited to see how our relationship with TWU continues to emerge throughout the year as we host the post-degree students:
Community-based teacher education partnerships are deeply informed by Indigenous approaches and Christian wisdom grounded in relationships and ideas in interconnected ways. There are several advantages when schools and universities commit to formative partnerships:
- Active Collaboration – breaks down barriers between theory and practice and the grounded realities of the classroom.
- Co-Constructed Learning Experiences – clarifies purpose and dynamics of partnership that are co-created, re-constructed and shared.
- Relevant Context – provides support to school personnel and feedback to student teachers in situated, timely, and practical ways.
- Professional Learning – encourages mutually beneficial learning that bridges theory and practice together.
- Co-Teaching – invites teacher educators to share research-based ideas, co-plan learning, and learn from and with one another.
