Professional Development School

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Professional Development Schools and ESU

ESU Professional Development School Vision

Nationally recognized collaborative for excellence in teacher education that:

  • Models a climate of ongoing professional growth that educates, sustains, and renews all participants.
  • Encourages partners to share roles of learner and educator
  • Uses action research, inquiry and reflection about our practice to promote and affect authentic learning experiences.
  • Creates learning communities within the various layers of the partnership.
  • Uses reflective and deliberate decision making to benefit student and adult learning.

The PDS relationship between ESU and our partners in basic education demands a more collaborative, accountable, and comprehensive way of working and thinking about teaching and learning and valuing student success in the K-12 classroom and at the university.

These relationships foster

  • Collegiality and renewed vitality through dialogue and professional development
  • Critical and creative thinking about curriculum, teaching and student learning
  • Universal design and an inclusive approach to teaching and learning
  • In-depth clinical field experiences and service learning that contextualizes the complexity of classrooms, schools and community
  • Standards-based best practices and continuous inquiry into teaching practice
  • Co-teaching, differentiated, and integrated learning models to ensure student success