Chapter 11: Faculty Instructional Teams: An Innovative Approach to Better Preparing Elementary Teacher Candidates

A longstanding challenge for colleges of education with teacher certification programs has been the separation of on-campus coursework from clinical experiences in schools largely due to faculty isolation from a lack of collaboration. Preparing high-quality teachers to meet the demands of teaching requires a coherent curriculum of teacher learning (Feiman-Nemser, 2001), which is something that is possible if traditional norms in higher education and in Pre-K–12 schools can be disrupted through the collaboration of education faculty across disciplines, ranks, and even school and university boundaries (American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education [AACTE], 2018; Hollins & Warner, 2021; Jacobs & Burns, 2021; National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 2010; Zeichner, 2010). This chapter illustrates how an award-winning, elementary education teacher preparation program, in a college of education at an urban regional institution, is attempting to disrupt historical and traditional norms of disconnection and isolation by creating faculty instructional teams (FITs). The FIT structure has resulted in a dynamic professional learning community by emphasizing collaborative and purposeful pedagogy, from co-planning through implementation. In this chapter, we provide a rationale for using FITs in teacher preparation, describe the FIT approach, and share our story of restructuring to implement FITs in clinically based teacher preparation. Our story draws upon rhizomatic thinking and, thus, is written through multivocal perspectives from members of the inaugural FIT about their participation in this faculty learning community. This multivocal perspective illustrates our unique and interconnected stories—ranging from administrators, seasoned faculty, and new faculty across several disciplines and roles—moving from isolation to collaborative innovation.