Grow Your Own Teachers Initiative

Vision, Principles and Best Practices

Preparing Grow Your  Own Teachers

Cohorts in Theory 

Many university and community college professors say that the data is clear on the benefits of a cohort approach to adult education.  An educational cohort is a group of students who work together toward their degree.  The solidarity developed by a group of students provides built-in support that makes it possible for adult learners to overcome obstacles, knowing that they are not alone. The sense of community, tangible supports, and solid new friendships provide an incentive to come to class and stay in the program. 

In many cases, a cohort of students begins and ends the program of study together.  The cohort model is especially effective for busy, working adults who have many demands on their time because the courses are planned based on their schedules and implemented to ensure maximum use of time.  Additionally, the students in a cohort are in similar life situations and support each other academically and emotionally. 

Inherent in the cohort model is an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration among the students as well as the program faculty with whom they work.  Initially a cohort is created by the design of a program. For example, 25 new students who are starting a program of study together and taking the same two courses form a cohort. However, in order for a group of students to evolve into a true cohort –a group of people who know each other and each other’s family circumstances, support each other, and go the extra mile for each other—the coordinator intentionally creates opportunities for cohort members to get to know each other and to become friends through courses, the curriculum and social interaction. Eventually, the cohort will create its own internal support network if a positive group dynamic has been fostered throughout planning and implementation.

Cohorts in Practice 

The program may originate as a cohort but evolves based on the needs of individual students.  As often as possible, all students are enrolled in the same course and progress through the program together.  This is particularly important during the first two years of the program.  Working as a cohort allows students to get to know one another and form smaller peer groups, which provide academic, social and emotional support.   

Although the cohort model is a significant factor for success, individual students are not “held back” in order to keep pace with the cohort.  In Grow Your Own programs, students often begin at different points in their education.  For instance, one consortium has a two-tiered approach: students who enter the program with a significant number of college credits, and students who are taking developmental courses before they are ready to begin their college credit courses.  Another consortium reports a three tiered approach. One consortium is paying upper tier candidates to tutor those from the lower tier.  If individual students are able, they take classes outside the cohort.  This flexibility is important for students who want to take more classes per semester as well as for those who enter the program with transfer credits. 

Meetings and social events bring all members of the cohort together. It is critical that these are built into and billed as part of the regular program for which attendance is required, rather than being viewed as an “add on.”  One important way to develop a cohort mentality, a sense of togetherness, across tiers and academic variances is to be intentional about making leadership development and community organizing for school change an essential part of the curriculum.  This enables the teacher candidates to see themselves and each other in a different light, to recognize the leadership potential that they and their colleagues share, and to work together on a common issue in the community.  Other important methods of building a cohort are to encourage them to work together on study skills or other courses, and to attend seminars or retreats as part of their required coursework.  Building relationships and solidarity for the entire cohort is critical to academic success.  

The Coordinator’s Role

Grow Your Own programs need at least one full-time coordinator to provide many kinds of support to the cohort as a group and to individual students who are members of the cohort. Some consortia will want two coordinators, one coordinator from the college or university who has the credentials and the inside knowledge to function effectively in the higher education institution and one from the community organization, who can help build the cohort and members’ strengths as community leaders.   

The Grow Your Own cohorts are non-traditional college students.  Most are from low-income families, have children and other family responsibilities, and have a full-time job in addition to now going to college to become teachers. They need support.  They can provide a great deal of support to each other, but they also need someone who is their advocate, supporter, and negotiator. Cohort members will need someone to give them advice and counsel on courses and coursework, to negotiate higher education bureaucracies on their behalf, to provide a tutor or other academic help when they need it, to be aware of their family situation and to offer support and help in an emergency, and to create the opportunities where friendships and relationships can be built and victories celebrated.

The coordinator(s) will do the dozens of different tasks that ensure each member of the cohort is successful in becoming a highly qualified teacher. They will arrange classes in the community, help organize transportation if needed, ensure child care is available, keep track of each member’s individual education plan and make sure that person is on track. And they will help to organize the celebrations and social events that are so important to creating friendships and including family members in celebrating many points of success along the way.

The university coordinator may:

• help students navigate the bureaucracy of the institution
• review transcripts and plan a course design/timeline for each student
• assist with admission and financial aid
• plan courses on site
• identify good professors to teach the courses
• prepare the instructors for the kind of teaching that is expected
• assemble an articulation contract between the community college and four year institution.   

The community organization coordinator may:

• help foster a cohesive and supportive cohort 
• hold meetings, leadership and organizing training sessions, social events and celebrations
• meet one on one with cohort members to make sure all is well
• attend classes often and communicate with the instructors to make sure progress is on schedule,
• make sure that the tutor is on duty, accessible and being used early in the term, not just after students are in trouble
• build a relationship with the professors to foster good communication  
• maintain a constant connection to the targeted schools, through site visits, suggested class projects, etc.
• identify candidates who need assistance with child care, transportation, additional coursework and help them access it.

Organizing classes

Each student should have a personal program for the entire project based on his or her own needs, as identified by transcript review and placement tests.  The student and the coordinator will both have a copy of this individual plan--copies of the courses required for the student, the proposed timeline for taking those courses, any tests that will be required and where they fit into the timeline.  Students should be alerted that, in a state-funded program, there is no guarantee that funding will be allocated every year until they complete their course of study.  They may have to organize with other students across the sites to participate in a campaign to keep the funding flowing.

The coordinator schedules the classes based on 1) the needs of the students and 2) the availability of quality instructors.   The results of the university placement tests determine which students need which developmental courses. The coordinator schedules courses so that the maximum number of students can participate.  Students’ preferences for course time and day are also taken into consideration.  Instructors who travel to the community-based site are selected based on their qualifications and also on their experience and skill in working with non-traditional college students.  Instructors do not alter course content or expectations from the course they teach on campus but they do need to have an understanding of the program and the student population with whom they will be working.  Higher education institutions may need to screen the instructors to insure that they want to teach adult learners and are prepared with strategies for teaching such a group

Each semester, new courses are scheduled for the community site.  The goal for scheduling the courses is to attempt to offer two courses each semester in the community for the students.  The actual number of courses each student takes depends upon their wishes as well as which specific courses individuals need.  Some students may travel to campus, where feasible, in addition to taking the courses offered in the community. 

Supporting Academic Success

Students who struggle academically are supported and counseled on an individual basis.  During the semester the coordinator communicates frequently with students and talks to them about courses and workload.  Students often contact the coordinator if they are having difficulties and university professors are also encouraged to contact the coordinator if problems arise during the semester.   In response to conversations with students, the coordinator may set up tutoring for the student, help set up study groups with other students, help with time management or help the student address the problem in a creative and helpful manner. In almost all cases, the coordinator encourages the students to stay in courses and to communicate directly with professors regarding questions and concerns about a specific class.   

When the coordinator and the program faculty deem that a student is making insufficient academic progress, the student meets with the coordinator to form a plan for assistance and to set standards that must be met in order to remain in the program.  If the student does not meet the standard, he or she is encouraged to continue in school but is dropped from the roster of program participants, and tuition and fees are no longer paid beyond what the student qualifies for outside of GYO.   In the Grow Your Own program, if a student has received a forgivable loan and then is counseled out of the program, a determination regarding loan repayment, if any, will be made on a case by case basis, according to the regulations for the program.

Tutors 

Tutors can be included in the cost of the courses being contracted for in the planning grant, or they can be hired separately by the college or the community organization, but GYO candidates will always need them, at least a half time tutor for each class with 20-25 students.  However, it is important that the coordinator monitor the tutor and insure that students are taking advantage of the resource and benefiting from it. 

Teacher Preparation, GYO style: Progressive Practices in Colleges of Education

The GYO initiative will allow an opportunity to invent, learn together, and to share lessons over the coming years about how best to create a highly effective and innovative GYO teacher preparation program that taps community assets and leadership development as part of the curriculum.  What kind of teachers are highly effective?  Most parents and educators call for teachers who are:

• Strong knowledge of academic content
• Problem solvers
• Lifelong learners
• Technologically savvy practitioners
• Collaborators
• Relationship-builders
• Powerful leaders
• Good listeners
• Caring and loving people
• Rigorous academics with high expectations for student performance
• Respectful of all: students, parents, other teachers, staff, administrators
• Respected by all

In order to educate GYO candidates and teach them to be teachers with the qualities listed above, the colleges of education should have professors and instructors who also have those qualities and skills.

Teaching strategies that incorporate active learning, team building, collaborative projects, community-based exercises, group study, role playing, technology, critical analysis of case study examples from the schools and communities—these are the approaches that will change the culture in schools, one thousand teachers at a time.  

Grow Your Own programs will be challenged to find effective ways to develop a cohort of candidates into a community, with a strong sense of solidarity among them, since many of the candidates start at different places and will progress at different rates. The cohort will need meetings and seminars that unite the disparate group into one. A community organizing group has great strengths in developing powerful leaders and building collaborative and trusting relationships.  As noted above, this is one strong reason for including leadership and community organizing training seminars as a community-building strategy.   

A second reason is that many of the qualities of great teachers are qualities of great organizers and leaders as well. Teachers should learn effective strategies for organizing and building a relational culture within the school and with families in the community.

Sustaining the respect for the community and its people that led to Grow Your Own in the first place is critical.  In the course of developing professional teachers, we must never create an “us” vs. “them” mentality in people naturally inclined to see themselves on the same side of the struggle as the students and their families. That is the strength of the Grow Your Own recruitment and it is very important that it becomes a strength of the GYO classes, all the way through.

Community Location of Classes 

All of the developmental classes, ideally to be completed during the first two years of the program, should be offered at a site in the community easily accessible to the students.  Generally, it is important to consistently offer as many courses as possible on site in the community, to foster a sense of community on the part of the candidates and to ease the difficulties of simultaneously working full time, raising a family and attending school.   

Child Care

Some communities may already have quality child care available in the community. In others, it may need to be an integral offering of the Grow Your Own program. It may be provided on a case by case basis.  Child care can be paid for directly by the consortium, budget permitting.  It is also allowable under the law to make it part of the forgivable loan for those students who need it.

Basic Skills Test

The Illinois Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is a critical milestone for the students.  In order to be admitted into the college of education, students must have passed this exam and have fewer than 12 credit hours of general education courses remaining.  Thus, the timing of the exam is important and the cohort coordinator needs to advise students when to register for the exam and how to do so.  For many non-traditional students, test-anxiety is great and they are hesitant to register for the exam.  Students who speak a native language other than English may qualify for a time extension on the day of the exam to allow them additional time to complete the exam. The coordinator helps students obtain a letter from the certification officer at the university requesting such an extension.  

In addition to assistance in the registration process, students also need to prepare for the exam.  The coordinator organizes Basic Skills workshops and study sessions.  A tutor, hired by the project specifically for assistance with the Basic Skills test, helps the students create individual study plans. Once students have passed the ITBS, they complete the application to the college of education.  Once admitted, they then may register for the required professional education courses. 

Learning from Mistakes  

When one organization started their planning process, they quickly set up developmental courses for prospective students, to see if they could handle the academics.  On the last day to drop the courses, almost every student dropped out.  What happened?

After the students got their transcripts in and their placement tests taken, they received very little support or contact; there was no coordinator, no tutor, and no support services of any kind.  Out of 24 students, all but three dropped out or did very poorly in the class.

The next time around, the same organization with some of the same students in the same community had learned its lesson.  A coordinator attended every class with the students, as did the tutor.  In between classes, the coordinator and the tutor made home visits, scheduling extra study sessions, identifying problems.  If a student needed help with transportation, child care or counseling, the coordinator was there.  Any student that missed even one class was called and visited.  For this group of thirty students, all but three stayed in and passed the course. And the coordinator agreed that those three did not belong in the program. 

Data consistently shows that community people with a history in the classroom are the most persistent and motivated teacher candidates and teachers.   By following best practice for adult learners and for Grow Your Own programs, by sharing lessons learned as we go forward, we can develop a model for transforming our schools and communities.   

When ACORN convened the coalition that created the Grow Your Own program, it was with the intention of transforming the quality of teaching and learning in low income school classrooms.  For all of the partners in this important program, we will be satisfied with nothing less.