Winter 2012 Partnership Magazine - College of Education Home ...

Note From the Editor
Ben Pendarvis
Graduate Assistant,
Center for School-
University Partnerships
Winter 2012 Partnership
A Culture of Partnership
For the 2011-12 school year, the
Center for School-University Partnerships
hit the ground running to fulfill its mission
to interconnect, enrich, and sustain
various learning communities. Learning
communities expanded and absorbed
new opportunities that have been built
and consolidated in the last two years
since the Bush Foundation supported a
broad initiative in transforming teacher
education, labeled NExT (Network for
Excellence in Teaching). Now, more than
ever, a culture of partnership pervades
the recruitment, support, preparation, and
development of new and existing teachers
across the PDS network.
This issue highlights the breadth and
depth of partnerships in this network.
However, it also describes the force
of professional growth that accrues in
institutions that celebrate partnership.
As more K-12 teachers, administrators,
and students, College of Education
and University faculty, Minnesota
State Mankato education students and
graduates, mingle with the services
provided by new and existing partners,
this culture of partnership becomes more
innovative and effective at various points
along the way.
Many students in our junior and
senior high schools are starting to look
at teaching as a viable and noble
profession, and they seek to learn more
through the collaborative efforts of our
Maverick Recruitment Coordinator and
the Teachers of Tomorrow program.
Minnesota State Mankato education
students learn effective and innovative
ways to transform the potential for students’
learning through invaluable opportunities
to co-teach and/or teach and learn from
other cultures around the world.
The same students see a level of
support as new teachers that can only
be found in pockets of collaboration
across the country.
Faculty and K-12 teachers have
come together in new and relevant
ways to collaboratively identify best
practices in their own teaching and
support the use of best practices for their
developing teachers.
Educational researchers seek ways
to bridge the efforts of all educators,
so that the evidence for best practices
flows easily between teachers in the
classroom and researchers in the field.
Meanwhile, CSUP continues
supporting the broad base of learning
communities with relevant professional
development and consistent forums for
collaboration. For this reason, institutions
all over the world seek partnerships with
Minnesota State Mankato Professional
Development School initiatives. As a
result, our teachers, professors, students,
and faculty steadily contribute to student
success in a context grander than their
own, one which contributes to a global
learning community.
Ben Pendarvis
CSUP Graduate Assistant
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