Partnerships

Partnerships with schools, communities, and businesses facilitate experiential learning opportunities beyond the University classroom advancing learning in the schools, improving school performance, establishing quality early field experiences and internships, offering on-site courses for candidates and in-service teachers, and providing university faculty expertise for school performance improvement.

3E Partnerships include:

The 3E Institute: The 3E Institute (Educational Excellence and Entrepreneurship) offers teachers opportunities to become entrepreneurs - risk taking, innovative, educators. Please visit www.3einstitute.org for more information.

3E Institute Grants and Awards to Educators: grants & awards

Dr. George Drake, an Associate Professor at West Chester University, has recently started an Education blog for the 3E Institute web site.

Current School District of Philadelphia Partnerships Include:

WCU Professional Education programs provide leadership for and participation in school reform efforts and other initiatives in the School District of Philadelphia. Partnerships include:

Greater Philadelphia P-16 Council - The College of Education is the lead institution in the Greater Philadelphia P-16 Council, which is chaired by COE Dean, Joseph Malak. As part of this partnership, WCU faculty and students are working to transform selected schools through faculty development. WCU faculty and district staffs have team taught graduate-level literacy and mathematics courses for the teachers and WCU teacher candidates have are placed in these schools for their reading practicum and student teaching.

Project T.E.A.C.H. - Early Childhood Education offers a bachelor's degree completion program in Philadelphia to a cohort of 30 students. Students enrolled in this program receive scholarship money for tuition and books from the Pennsylvania Association of Child Care Agencies (PACCA), the Project T.E.A.C.H. grantee.  The students must have completed an associate's degree or at least 60 credit hours at a two-year college.

Pennsylvania GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) - where WCU teacher candidates tutor, mentor, and visit Philadelphia 6-12 grade students encouraging and preparing them to pursue higher education. Please visit http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/ccawareness/gearup.html

The Philadelphia Urban Seminar - The two-week Philadelphia Urban Seminar offers students in Special Education the opportunity for practical hands on experience in inner-city classrooms with communities whose culture and race may be different than their own. The Urban Seminar experience meets the requirements for EDA 302, Field Experience, and Seminar: High Incidence Disability. The students live in dormitories at La Salle University throughout their experience and attend school each day at an assigned placement with the district. Our students participate in community service projects where they interact with students, parents, and community leaders. They also attend professional development seminars conducted by Philadelphia teachers.

Current Local School District Partnerships Include:

Writing Zones 12.5 - where WCU students help bridge the gap between high school and college writing, as well as, more broadly, between West Chester Area School District high school students and university communities. Please visit http://www.wcupa.edu/writingzones/ to learn more about how Writing Zones is using writing mentorship as a college access vehicle for diverse students.

K-Center - In Fall 2007 a University/School Partnership was born between the Upper Darby Kindergarten Center and the Department of Elementary Education.  Through this partnership, WCU teacher candidates are provided with a rich field placement and an opportunity to experience the relationship between academic standards, curriculum, and assessment, all while working with an extremely diverse population of kindergarteners.  Under Dr. Donna Sanderson’s supervision, four sections of EDE 200: Theory & Field students had the unique opportunity to work in elementary classrooms with young students for approximately 54 hours during the semester.  The number of field hours in this course is usually 30-33 hours, so this was a significant change and a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow as a pre-service educator.  This partnership positively impacts the university students, the cooperating teachers who love the extra help, and the young kindergarten students who receive more intensive small group and one-on-one instruction, especially during Power Block.  Plans to strengthen and continue this University-School Partnership for the 2007-2008 school year are already underway!
Please visit http://www.udsd.k12.pa.us/schools/kindergarten/kind.php?school=kind  

Reading Courses On-Site - provides graduate courses in the Twin Valley School District taught by WCU Department of Literacy Faculty to allow educators to earn graduate credits by taking initial courses in the reading specialist program.

Peirce Middle School - West Chester University and Peirce Middle School of West Chester Area School District has had a partnership for several years. The partnership was formed after the university received a Heinz Planning Grant and it has lasted through changes in leadership, both within the university and the school district/school itself. Students in Dr. Cynthia Haggard's EDS 306 section of Teaching Principles and Field Experience observe at Peirce Middle School. The capstone experience is a team taught lesson to the middle school students, observed by the classroom teacher and Dr. Haggard. EDS 306 students also volunteer for an after school homework help club which is run by one of the guidance counselors. Every semester the building administrators present a workshop to the undergraduate students on what they look for when they hire new teachers. Several students have gone on to student teach at Peirce and many find that teaching at the middle level might be their calling!

Transitional Living Program - Secondary students with disabilities, ages 18-21, from schools throughout Chester County who are receiving special education services through CCIU (Chester County Intermediate Unit) participate on-campus with same-age peers. The goals of the program are (1) to provide students with disabilities opportunities to experience campus life with typical peers, while developing realistic post-school outcomes, knowledge, and skills, and (2) to provide campus peers opportunities to mentor students with disabilities. In addition to the four to six hours per week the CCIU students spend on campus, they simultaneously develop independent living skills off campus, receiving instruction and practice in an apartment in West Chester borough.

The Kennett Experience -  The Kennett Experience is a University/School partnership between West Chester University and the Kennett Consolidated School District.  The goal of the partnership is to better prepare WCU undergraduate elementary education students for their teaching careers. In the Kennett Experience, undergraduate elementary majors take EDR 312 (Reading Practicum and Instruction) during the fall semester. During the spring semester, they student-teach with the same cooperating teacher they had for the fall reading practicum course. Hallmarks of the Kennett Experience include: candidates working in a rich and diverse school setting; candidates spending approximately 45 additional hours beyond the usual requirements in the fall semester (three extra hours per week) in the field working directly with teachers and children; candidates working with cooperating master teachers during the summer to set up the classroom before the school year begins, attending back to school night, and attending parent teacher conferences; and candidates taking on a full teaching load earlier than usual and for longer than usual during student teaching. For the 2007-2008 school year, each Kennett Experience candidate was issued a MacBook laptop computer and trained in its use. Candidates used the laptops to research for teaching ideas, to videotape lessons and analyze and reflect on their teaching, to communicate, and for various other classroom related activities.  Overall the students who engage in this special partnership have a stronger and richer year-long field experience!  

 Upcoming Partnerships Include:

Embracing Diversity Through World Language: A Cooperative Endeavor in Teaching and Learning - During Fall 2008, teacher education students in the Department of Elementary Education, international students in various majors and teacher candidates studying in the MATESOL Program at WCU will work in pairs to design lessons about world cultures and global geography through examination of world languages. Students will teach their social studies lessons to children in the YWCA after-school program. Lessons will incorporate dual language books to introduce language diversity. University international students will serve as guest speakers, and experts on their native countries and languages. Teacher education students will serve as guest teachers to children in the after school program. All participants will be involved in learning about world languages, world cultures and global geography at the planning, teaching and learning levels. As a final component of the project, YWCA children will create their own dual language books which will be compiled as an anthology. University students' work will be shared electronically for teachers and multilingual families to use through a partnership with Language Lizard. Participants will be encouraged to share their work at university conferences.

Collaboration to Meet the Needs of the Community (CMNC) - Through collaboration with Southeastern Pennsylvania Autism Resource Center (SPARC), the project director (Corinne Murphy) and students from WCU will develop one of SPARC’s Tier II services, respite care.  Beginning in Fall of 2008, Dr. Murphy will train WCU student volunteers in respite care skills and subsequent volunteer opportunities to provide respite care to families of children with autism in the Chester County area. Students will attend a two-day workshop on autism and behavior management.  Following the training and continuing to the end of fall semester, students will provide free respite services to families from 6-9 p.m. on Thursday evenings. In total, student benefits may include up to 45 hours of community service and up to 25 hours of behavioral-based, autism-specific training. Students participating in this opportunity would, at the minimum, fulfill their 20 hours of community service requirement and receive an additional 18 hours of behavioral-based, autism-specific training.  Parents participating in this program would receive a minimum of 20 hours of free respite care for their child with autism, with a possible maximum of 45 hours of care.