Chapter 19: The Facilitators of and Barriers to the Collaboration Process in Professional Development Schools: Results of a Meta-ethnography

Across the nation, universities and school systems are responding to the calls to reform teacher education by adopting the Professional Development School (PDS) model. PDSs, partnerships between institutions of higher education and schools, are the most recent response to training effective teachers and transforming teacher education throughout the country (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Goodlad, 1994, 1990; Holmes Group, 1995, 1990; Slick, 1995). The PDS idea was strongly influenced by the teaching hospital movement in that it was designed to prepare doctors to be “thinking practitioners” just as PDSs are designed to help prepare thinking teaching practitioners (Levine, 1997). The aims of PDSs are to provide exemplary education for pre-service teachers, support continuing professional development of experienced teachers, and involve schools and universities in collaborative research (Bullough, Hobbs, Kauchak, Crow, & Stokes, 1997).