CLU's partnership with T.O. school to be featured at conference

A teaching partnership between California Lutheran University and a local middle school will be featured at a national conference this spring.

The three-year partnership involves a professional development school at Los Cerritos Middle School in Thousand Oaks. Professional development schools are modeled after teaching hospitals, where residents learn by working directly with patients under the guidance of veteran doctors.

"We're bridging theory and practice right away, so everybody benefits," said CLU education professor Michael Cosenza, who will be speaking at the national conference.

Through the partnership, students in the teaching credential program at the Thousand Oaks university get hands-on experience in the classroom, working directly with middle-schoolers and veteran teachers. CLU faculty can see the schools they teach about, learning what actually happens in the classroom. And veteran middle school teachers get exposed to the latest practices.

"First, we have extra help in the classroom," said Jacquie Meir, a Los Cerritos teacher who also will speak at the conference. "Then, the student teachers are on the cutting edge of all that's new in education, and they share that with you."

California has only 10 professional development schools, although there are more than 1,000 nationwide, Cosenza said. The professional development school at Los Cerritos is unusual because it's a middle school, while most partnerships are with elementary schools, he said.

This year's National Conference of Professional Development Schools wanted to focus more on middle and high schools, Cosenza said.

"That's where it has not developed nationwide," he said. "Elementary teachers tend to be collaborative to begin with. In middle and high schools, you have departments that work in isolation, so it's more difficult."

In addition to Cosenza and Meir, other local faculty speaking at the conference are Thomas McCambridge, associate professor of education at CLU; Jeanne Ricci, coordinator of teacher candidate placement at CLU; and Nicole Piuze, a teacher at Los Cerritos. The conference will be held in March in New Orleans.

--- Published in the Ventura County Star on Dec. 28, 2010