Walking the Walk: School/University Collaboration in Teacher Education (original) (raw)

This paper analyzes the failure of a professional development school (PDS) initiative undertaken by a university department of education by using eight points from John P. Kotter's book "Leading Change," which describes conditions in business that prevent change and points to some necessary conditions for change to occur. The eight points and their lessons are: (1) complacency (the need for a sense of urgency to reform); (2) knowing who is in charge (change in the college must have the support of the dean and the department chair); (3) articulating the mission and vision (both must be shared by the college and the PDS); (4) communicating the vision and mission to supporters and doubters (in this case, the vision was under-communicated to colleagues and administration); (5) permitting obstacles to block the new vision (active discussion of disagreements will build a shared vision); (6) failing to cite short-term victories (the PDS needs to be showcased often during the initial years of operation); (7) declaring victory too soon (significant changes take from 3 to 10 years to sink down deeply into the culture); and (8) neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture (this PDS did not survive long enough to be anchored in the college culture). (SM)