Professional Development Schools

CalU Professional Development School Collaborative:

Working Together to Create High Quality P-16  Learning Environments

CalU proudly participates in a Professional Development Schools(PDS) collaborative with four area school districts: California, Belle Vernon, Charleroi, and Uniontown. Professional Development Schools are collaborative partnerships formed between university teacher education programs and P-12 schools to create powerful learning environments for the benefit of teacher candidates and public school faculty—all grounded in the context of meeting children’s needs.

The mission of our Professional Development School Collaborative is inquiry to improve practice of all partners, to prepare new teachers, and to enhance student learning. The PDS efforts are focused in six, research-based program initiatives.

See the photographs of the Professional Development School Collaborative here.

In Shared/Reciprocal Expertise, classroom teachers learn from CalU and our students learn from school-based experts and teaching and learning is exchanged.

Using Co-Teaching, classroom teachers and student teachers share the teaching load to meet the needs of all students in the classrooms. 

Teacher candidates will become Reflective Teacher Researchers as they learn to examine their own work through observations, journaling, and action research.

Teacher in Residence is a “teacher exchange” that allows experienced public school teachers to work with CalU students as members of the CalU faculty. In this initiative, a public school teacher gains experience in teaching at a university and can share those experiences when they return to teach at their public school.

National Board Teacher Certification is an advanced certification process for teachers in the field.

Through Student Services Integration CalU students who are studying to be school-based counselors, speech/ language therapists, and school psychologists are introduced to the workplace.