Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of Michigan’s School of Education, recently unveiled TeachingWorks, a wing of the School of Education that will focus on “raising the standards for practice as a classroom teacher by transforming how teachers are prepared and supported.”
The details of the eventual character of TeachingWorks is still unclear (the full site is not set for launch until December), but the text currently available on the site exudes a vehement condemnation of current teacher preparation practices. “Thousands of beginning teachers are responsible every day for pupils whose futures are at the mercy of their fumbling and lack of know-how. In no other skill-based profession, from hairdressing to plumbing to medicine, is such a random approach to training tolerated.”
TeachingWorks is in the process of developing a comprehensive professional training curriculum that will support people from the beginning of their teacher training through their first three years on the job. The program is also developing performance assessments “grounded in high-level practices and content knowledge” that will help determine if beginning teachers are ready for the classroom.
The signature piece of the Teaching Works website is a series of free, web-based seminars. The first seminar is scheduled for October 31 and will focus on defining what a teaching practice curriculum should look like. An overview of the series schedule shows that several education programs, such as Teach for America, the Relay School, the New Teacher Project, the MATCH school, and some traditional universities will be hosting seminars, though whether the discussion will be focused on building a practice curriculum or on recruitment is unclear.
**UPDATE**
TeachingWorks is now fully launched, and stocked with excellent resources for educators. In addition to information on live training programs, the seminar series from last fall/winter has been archived. The seminar recordings and materials are *free* and focus on teacher preparation and best practices.
For more information, please visit http://teachingworks.org/
