This session describes two partnerships between the University of Colorado at Denver and the P-12 schools in the urban and metropolitan area, one supporting initial education of teachers at the graduate level and the second supporting ongoing professional development for educators. Since 1994, the University of Colorado at Denver?s initial teacher education program has been organized and operated in partnership with five metropolitan area school districts and fourteen partner schools. A graduate program, we admit students after they have completed an undergraduate degree and require that they spend much of a full academic year in a partner school as they participate in required university courses. Each partner school is supported by a university faculty member who spends one full day per week in the school and a site coordinator, who is an experienced teacher released full time to support the partner school functions. Teacher candidates co-teach with experienced teachers throughout the year and construct portfolios that demonstrate mastery of five "teaching responsibilities" that structure the program: teacher as scholar, teacher as leader, teacher as professional, teacher as student advocate, and teacher as instructor.

Our structure provides for shared governance across the partner schools and university about admissions, curriculum, clinical experiences, and evaluation of teacher candidates. Workload and faculty incentive policies support the program in ways that allow regular university faculty from several parts of the School of Education (and, increasingly, elsewhere on campus) to be engaged in partner schoolwork. At the institutional level our partnership is supported by the Colorado Partnership for Education al Renewal and the National Network for Educational Renewal.

Most graduates of the initial teacher education program have chosen to teach in high-need districts where our data suggest they are viewed as skilled teachers in diverse, standards-based classrooms.

The second partnership, focusing on ongoing professional development, is a more recent venture. Several pilot projects and conversations over the past two years among the twenty P-12 districts in the Denver metropolitan area and the University of Colorado at Denver led to creation of the Front Range BOCES for Teacher Leadership. The goal of this BOCES is to combine resources across the districts and universities in ways that allow us to offer innovative and sustainable professional development programs that influence classroom practice and affect student learning. The BOCES is structured so that a Board of Directors, consisting of executive leaders from each member institution, establishes priorities for professional development programs and charters "joint faculties" to develop programs in these priority areas. These joint faculties are structured around content areas and include university, district, and community experts. Each joint faculty is responsible for developing programs that engage teachers in learning that affects classroom practice and sustaining ongoing networks of teacher leaders in the content area. We are currently engaged in the restructuring that such a partnership requires in the School of Education and expect that the joint faculties and teacher networks will become an integral part of our organization and governance.

Institutional Mission and Context

The University of Colorado at Denver is the urban, non-residential institution in the University of Colorado system and is committed to high quality undergraduate, professional, and graduate programs that serve the needs of the metropolitan area as well as achieving more general advances in knowledge and practice. The University shares a campus in the center of Denver with a community college and an open enrollment undergraduate college, and supports partnerships with these institutions, area school districts, and business and community organizations.

The School of Education provides graduate level programs for initial teacher and counselor education and educator advancement, offering both Masters and doctoral degree programs. In addition to traditional emphasis on the quality of individual course instruction and research, the School has emphasized the development of capabilities for offering coherent, typically cohort-based programs and design and management of core academic programs in partnership with schools and community agencies. The twenty school districts involved in our partnership employ over half the teachers in the state, serve over half the state?s children, and include the majority of the schools most affected by poverty and diversity in the state.

Key Partnerships

Margaret Cozzens, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver

G. Thomas Bellamy Dean, School of Education, University of Colorado at Denver

Lynn K. Rhodes, Associate Dean for Teacher Education, University of Colorado at Denver

Dean Damon, Director, Front Range BOCES for Teacher Leadership

Carol Wilson, Executive Director,
Colorado Partnership for Educational Renewal Superintendents and
Professional staff of twenty districts in the Denver metropolitan area.

For more information, please contact:

G. Thomas Bellamy
Dean, School of Education
University of Colorado, Denver
P.O. Box 173364
Denver, CO 80217
Phone: 303-556-2844
E-mail: tom_bellamy@ceo.cudenver.edu

[Return to Exemplary Practices]