Immersive, collaborative and active: a conversation on developing reflective practitioners, teacher educators and a third space

Teachers and Teaching is one of four prerequisite courses needed to enter the fifth-year Masters in Teaching program for secondary education at USC. The course has been embedded at local PDS schools since 2010 (Lotter et al., 2019). Of the prerequisite courses, Teachers and Teaching is the only one embedded at this time and serves as an introduction to teaching. Preservice candidates enrolled in the course represent math, science, and social studies content areas, while preservice candidates in English Language Arts take a different prerequisite course. The students learn about professional dispositions, student-centered instruction, curriculum design, classroom management, and current trends in education. Major assignments include an interdisciplinary unit plan, a project focused on diverse learner engagement strategies, and the teaching of a lesson plan (see Table 2). However, the Teachers and Teaching curriculum is contextualized within the school through guest teachers, course readings, and incorporating school and district initiatives.

Additionally, students in the course engage in a practicum at DFHS for 10 class meetings. The practicum teachers coach the preservice teachers during the practicum and evaluate the preservice teachers on their professional dispositions and on the teaching of their lesson plan. The preservice teachers are expected to teach a lesson that is integrated into the practicum teacher’s existing unit plan, engage with the students during the 10 classes, and exhibit professional dispositions and curiosity.

A public school located in Irmo, South Carolina, DFHS serves a rural–suburban area and has approximately 1700 students. The school's diverse student population is shown by current demographics: 45% White, 35% African American, 15% Indian and Asian, and 5% other. Nearly 40% of students attending DFHS qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. DFHS also has a nationally ranked STEM program and football team, gives over 30 different AP course exams each year, and has been voted one of the top schools in the state.

The PDS partnership began in 2016 to support the school’s Advanced Placement Research course and STEM program. An administrative change in 2017 prompted the PDS partnership to consider how PDS could impact the entire faculty by supporting teacher leadership and preservice education. In 2018, the PDS focus group was established to create a learning community to guide professional development at DFHS. This group engages in reflective conversations centered on book studies with the purpose of improving practice (Holden & Eargle, 2025). Additionally, as captured in this article, the PDS partnership is characterized by the third space because of the Teachers and Teaching course occurring at the school.

What follows is a collaborative dialogue, which we refer to as a conversation. Hagiwara et al. (2011) used this approach because it encourages introspection around past actions. Additionally, Jowsey et al. (2020) used the approach because they understood conversation as the “nexus between trial and reflection” (p. 151). We selected this approach because, while we wanted to document our work, we wanted to capture both an analysis of and a reflection on our collective experience. To adopt this approach, we identified three themes – immersive, collaborative, and active – that we wanted to discuss based on prior conversations around our experiences with the course. During the drafting process described in this section, the following themes emerged: ownership, relationships, and time. To focus our thoughts, we developed four questions to address aspects of the course that overlapped the themes of immersive, collaborative, and active and to offer a chronology of sorts for the reader. During the planning conversation, we discussed which aspects of the course and the partnership (e.g., course assignments, guest teachers, etc.) would be appropriate in addressing each question to avoid repetition. Finally, we agreed on the order in which we would reply to each question, with the first respondent also responding last to summarize and synthesize the responses.

Each author wrote a response, in turn, with subsequent members analyzing statements before responding. During this drafting process, we reviewed the progress of the manuscript through comments within the draft, via email and text messages, and during in-person discussions. As the conversation unfolded, we engaged the data – our responses – with existing literature (Chang, Ngunjiri, & Hernandez, 2013). When a rough draft of the conversation was complete, the first and second authors edited the conversation to bring focus to the themes and remove irrelevant content. They then shared the new draft with the third and fourth authors who provided additional revision suggestions, to ensure faithful representation of their voices. This system created a form of member checking (Court, 2017) among the authors. The final draft, therefore, is an intentionally organized article with the format and tone of a conversation.

In this article, we first introduce ourselves by stating our respective roles in the PDS partnership and with the Teachers and Teaching course. Next, we discuss how the course fostered relationship development and a sense of ownership within the school. We then examine how the course was integrated into the school, becoming a collaborative experience for teachers and preservice teachers. Next, we focus the conversation on the practicum as an immersive experience for preservice teachers and teachers. Finally, we reflect on our overall experience working in the third space as both a hybrid space (Zeichner, 2010) and relational space (Ikpeze, Broikou, Hildenbrand, & Gladstone-Brown, 2012).

Documenting their perspectives as our PDS partnership began, Lotter et al. (2019) accurately referred to DFHS as the “new school” (p. 474) where “teachers and administrators were unfamiliar with the course expectations” (p. 488). Thus, with this description of Teachers and Teaching at DFHS, we begin the documentation of the third space development at our school.

I am a faculty member in the secondary education program at USC. I became the PDS liaison to DFHS in January 2018 and currently work closely with Brittany and DFHS administration on the PDS goals at the school. At present, I have taught Teachers and Teaching onsite at DFHS for the past 7 years.

I am an instructional coach at DFHS. I began my career there in 2015 as a science teacher and, in that role, served as a practicum teacher for Teachers and Teaching. Currently, I serve as the clinical adjunct for the PDS partnership and collaborate with Jeff on all PDS work at DFHS. I also chair the PDS focus group and am a PDS fellow.

From 2020 to 2023, I worked at DFHS as the Assistant Principal for Instruction, serving as the PDS Administrator from 2021–2023. In this capacity, one of my responsibilities was to support the instructional needs of Teachers and Teaching. I currently serve as the principal of another high school in the PDS network.

I was a student in the embedded Teachers and Teaching class. After graduating, I was hired as a social studies teacher at DFHS. Now, I serve as a mentor to current Teachers and Teaching practicum students. I work closely with Brittany and Jeff in the PDS partnership. Like Brittany, I am a PDS fellow.

When I began teaching Teachers and Teaching at DFHS in 2018, the course had only been offered there once. This switch occurred because I was designated as the PDS liaison in January of that year. I worked with two assistant principals: Susan Elvis and Christian English. As Susan and I discussed the PDS goals, we saw Teachers and Teaching as one way to update the goals to best impact the faculty. Susan, Christian, and I discussed how to revise the curriculum to provide preservice teachers with an experience that they could only receive at DFHS. We wanted to utilize the expertise of the teachers and administrators at the school as guest teachers in the course and identify role models of instruction and student relationships as practicum teachers. By 2021, Susan and Christian moved on to other opportunities in administration and I began to work more closely with Brittany and Joe.

Burns et al. (2023) noted the importance of “co-mingling of theory and practice” with “experiential” approaches (p. 108). Thus, what I value about working with Brittany and Joe, and Susan and Christian before them, is their openness to ideas, creativity, and collaboration and their willingness to engage in teacher education to make the course an important aspect of DFHS’s culture. Thinking about the teachers, I am struck by their level of commitment to the course. Many teachers are willing to adjust their schedule to serve as guest teachers for the class and a core group of teachers hosts preservice teachers during the practicum each semester. Therefore, within the school, there is a community built around Teachers and Teaching, all working toward the purpose of teacher education.

Prior to 2017, the PDS partnership focused on supporting research students in our STEM program. As the former Advanced Placement Research teacher, I had the opportunity to work with the former PDS liaison. We had several conversations regarding how to support more of the teachers outside of the STEM program that extended to our administration. When the new administration changed the PDS partnership to focus on supporting more faculty members and the Teachers and Teaching course was embedded at the school, our teachers were excited to support the preservice teachers. Little did we know at the time, the preservice teachers also supported veteran teachers, like me, in our own pedagogy. As my role shifted from biology teacher to digital integration specialist to instructional coach, my role with the course shifted from practicum teacher to guest teaching and providing logistical support as the PDS clinical adjunct. In these positions, I have seen the benefits not only from teaching lessons for Teachers and Teaching on instructional data and technology integration but also by learning from our preservice teachers. The course is now an integral part of our school community as teachers are focused on supporting our education community.

During my first year at DFHS, I observed the relationship that Jeff had built with the faculty. I came to understand the work that had focused on best practices for all learners and wanted to work more closely with Teachers and Teaching. As I transitioned into being the PDS administrator, I helped to communicate what Jeff needed to support the Teachers and Teaching students with our faculty. This communication became two-way as Jeff, Brittany, and I sought to blend the needs of the course and the school’s PDS goals. One of the most notable connections we made was aligning the goals of the course with not only the school’s instructional goals but also with the school district’s goals. The partnership became increasingly symbiotic, and as that occurred, the preservice teachers became members of our school community.

During the initial stages of my collaboration with Jeff, we worked to immerse the Teachers and Teaching students in authentic and essential school functions. For example, when they learned about data-driven instruction, I arranged for Brittany to model data analysis using current student performance data. This style of immersion led us to consider how our school and district instructional practices aligned with the needs of these preservice teachers. As a school, we invited the preservice teachers to participate in our professional learning communities to explore topics such as relationship building and student engagement. What impressed me most was how both the preservice teachers and DFHS teachers embraced each other. Those were more so meetings among colleagues, rather than preservice teachers’ observing teachers at work. The atmosphere was one of respect and appreciation.

My involvement in the PDS partnership began during my final semester – Spring 2021 – as an undergraduate at USC when I took Teachers and Teaching at DFHS. My prior education courses were on USC’s campus and focused on theory. Teachers and Teaching offered a combination of theoretical analysis and practical application. It was the first time I had set foot in a traditional high school and classroom setting since I graduated K–12. The embedded course positioned me cognitively and physically to develop as a reflective practitioner (Stoicovy et al., 2023). I engaged cognitively with lectures and activities related to educational theory while situated physically off the university campus and immersed in the high school environment.

The Teachers and Teaching curriculum, as shown in Table 2, focuses on the significance of building and engaging in relationships within the school context. In doing so, we engaged with various spaces at DFHS. We developed lesson plans and teaching dispositions that focused on academic achievement for diverse learners (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Hollie, 2011). Our time at the school concluded with the practicum experience, which included our initial teaching practice. Notably, we collaborated with DFHS’s professional learning community by reading chapters from Hollie (2011), aligning with the PDS focus group (Holden & Eargle, 2025). The embedded course included us as active members of the classroom, school, and greater community by emphasizing personal and professional relationships in supporting academic success.

Ikpeze et al. (2012) observed that successful third spaces in a PDS require a shift “from individualism to collective consciousness” (p. 286). In relation to our conversation, two things stand out that connect to the creation of a third space. The first is that the relationships built among me, Joe, Brittany, and others at the school have developed over time. Thus, we have been able to shape a shared vision for how the school can play a unique role in the development of preservice teachers. The trust between us has made the partnership mutually beneficial. I can see in Brittany and Joe's responses the sense of ownership they have in making sure that the experience of preservice teachers at the school is meaningful. Bethany’s response underscores, from the student perspective, how these relationships and the sense of ownership directly impact the student experience.

As a classroom teacher, I had the opportunity to be a practicum teacher for the Teachers and Teaching students, which allowed me to reflect on my pedagogy (Stoicovy et al., 2023). During that time, I served as a guest teacher by teaching a lesson on using data to support instruction. Because I modeled the lesson on our district’s data analysis protocols, preservice teachers experienced how their practicum teachers are expected to use data. I grouped preservice teachers as though they were on data teams tasked with analyzing data to create SMART goals.

After I became the school’s instructional coach, I served as a guest teacher by teaching a lesson on effective technology integration, which helped me learn what support new teachers need with curriculum and technology. Teachers and Teaching students then utilized the content I taught in the development of theory practicum lessons, which allowed students to process the information and apply it directly in classrooms. Due to the sudden changes in classrooms and plans, teachers need to rely on their own experiences and expertise to keep up with the current technology-integrated learning environment (Xu, Yang, & Stefaniak, 2022). Therefore, preservice teachers need a variety of tools to draw from and a true understanding of standards for effective technology integration. Not only am I able to teach our preservice teachers about data and technology, but I learn from engaging with the curriculum of the course.

Collaboration is central to preservice teachers’ immersion in the workings of the school. Earlier, Bethany recalled the impact that the diverse learner engagement strategies assignment from Table 2 had on her as a preservice teacher. Building on the PDS focus group’s use of Hollie’s (2011) book to discuss engagement during the pandemic (Holden & Eargle, 2025), I developed the assignment in 2021, when Bethany took the course. Similarly, Teachers and Teaching is immersive for the teachers. Teachers are guest teachers throughout the semester (see Table 3). They also assess preservice teachers’ teaching and professionalism (see Table 2). As Brittany stated, she teaches “our preservice teachers” about data and educational technology. Brittany’s use of the word our is evidence of her integration into – and ownership of – the course.

Successful PDS partnerships are built around relationships (Ikpeze et al., 2012). Building and maintaining relationships with the faculty and staff at DFHS took time. I continue to integrate their expertise into the course (see Table 3). Additionally, I work with teachers to ensure that their assessment of the students’ teaching and professionalism align with program expectations (see Table 2). Also, when conducting classroom management observations (see Table 3), I work with Brittany and Joe to identify teachers who can exemplify good classroom management. These examples of collaboration indicate a shared responsibility for making the course a natural component of the school. Given its relative newness in 2018 (Lotter et al., 2019), these examples underscore reciprocal, collaborative qualities of the third space that has developed in the subsequent 7 years.

At DFHS, I was tasked with the management of the master schedule, meaning I was acutely aware of the courses each teacher taught. This information was key in planning with Jeff and Brittany to meet the needs of Teachers and Teaching. For example, in preparing for classroom management observations (see Table 3), I was able to identify an assortment of teachers to give the Teachers and Teaching students a view of various positive teacher–student interactions. Additionally, we intentionally exposed the students to teachers across disciplines. How a visual arts teacher manages a classroom can vary greatly from how an English teacher may manage their classroom. Yet, the teachers share the same high school students throughout the day.

Through this exercise, like other activities (see Table 3), we were also able to introduce the students to some of the teachers they would be collaborating with later in the semester. We worked to immerse the preservice teachers in the classroom to help them feel part of the school and not just observers from afar. The effect was similar on teachers, in that they quickly viewed the preservice teachers as members of the school. This resulted in a greater sense of trust between the students and teachers as they learned from each other. For example, both groups were familiar with the Hollie (2011) book study. Thus, the preservice teachers were able to observe how teachers applied such strategies and were able to test the approach for themselves as they participated in the classroom as teachers. Jeff then invited teachers to attend the students’ presentations on the book (see Table 2). For many of the teachers, Hollie’s strategies for working with diverse learners were new. During the presentations, the preservice teachers had as much knowledge of these strategies as the DFHS teachers who chose to attend, leading to discussions where both groups were on equal footing.

As a student, I noticed that each aspect of our syllabus centered on immersion and collaboration. Embedding the course in a high school, when paired with the collaboration discussed earlier, creates a preservice education environment that cannot be replicated in a college lecture hall. As Brittany mentioned, Teachers and Teaching required us to engage in data analysis and mirror the work of teachers in the school. Observing the teachers provided a model for effective and positive collaboration regarding student learning. An assignment that worked to promote collaboration was the Transdisciplinary Unit Plan in Table 2 that further reflects the work of current teachers and their professional learning communities. As a group, we established common objectives and learning goals for a unit of instruction and collaborated on instructional strategies, assignments, and assessments. The process of creating the unit required input from everyone to ensure a cohesive, effective unit plan. Furthermore, the Practicum Lesson Plan and Teaching (see Table 2) created an opportunity for one-on-one collaboration with my practicum teacher. The assignment emphasized creating a lesson plan that not only aligns with the state standards but centers on classroom culture and is integrated into the teacher’s current unit of instruction.

Our discussion highlights the importance of strong relationships for an embedded course to be an immersive school experience. Jeff pointed out that integrating school culture into the course depends on relationships established at the school between him and the teachers, which created a stronger curriculum for our preservice teachers. Furthermore, as Joe noted, understanding the master schedule supported the Teachers and Teaching curriculum to allow opportunities for the preservice teachers to immerse themselves in the school. They become part of our school, which builds a greater sense of community. This community is further evidenced by Bethany’s observation that preservice teachers were able to be part of our school and work in collaboration with DFHS teachers as they grew in their pedagogical knowledge.

Reading our conversation, I am reminded of how Jeff and I collaborate on adjusting the Teachers and Teaching curriculum. For example, when the PDS focus group studied Tucker and Novak’s (2022) work on universal design for learning (Holden & Eargle, 2025), I suggested to Jeff, and he agreed, that a teacher could work with his students on universal design practices in preparation for their Transdisciplinary Unit Plan assignment (see Table 2) and their practicum. Ikpeze et al. (2012) concluded that third spaces in a PDS require “horizontal forms of expertise or expertise across groups that involve respectful cross fertilization of ideas and capacity building” (p. 286). Thus, our collaborative atmosphere fosters shared expertise among teachers, administrators, university faculty, and Teachers and Teaching students.

The practicum was my first time in the high school classroom as a preservice teacher. I was assigned a teacher in my content area to collaborate with for 10 class periods, which included the creation and teaching of a 90-minute lesson. My practicum experience emphasized creating a lesson plan aligned with state standards and integrated into the practicum teacher’s classroom environment. As a Teachers and Teaching student, I found the practicum to be a distinct point in my journey as a preservice teacher. The practicum emphasized active participation and engagement with the learning environment. In preparation for my lesson, I walked around the classroom during group work to have conversations with students. My practicum teacher encouraged me to answer questions about content and provide feedback, placing me in an active role within his classroom.

Although it was only 10 class periods, the experience was impactful because it occurred within the larger scope of the course. The experience emphasized using feedback and observations as tools to promote professional growth and development. The practicum reinforced the lessons and skills from our coursework and allowed us to apply our learning in a classroom. The discussions of effective student-centered teaching, utilization of data and technology, and effective lesson planning all contributed to my learning as a student.

For many preservice teachers like Bethany, this practicum is their first experience in a classroom from the viewpoint of a teacher. Teachers use dynamic decision-making to create lessons that contextualize the material and include technology (Xu et al., 2022). Our preservice teachers use the practicum to integrate pedagogical theories from the course to support the lessons they teach with their practicum teacher’s mentorship, which allows them to apply their learning from the semester to the practicum experience.

The relationship is reciprocal. From my position working with the course, I learned a lot about the needs of preservice teachers and veteran teachers and how to support them. I can see where extra support is needed – from classroom management to technology integration – and can plan such support as an instructional coach. This experience has helped me refine how I design professional development at DFHS by making it more responsive and personalized. It has also given me firsthand insight into common instructional gaps and areas to support or model by anticipating needs and differentiating support for teachers. Also, many teachers have learned new skills working with preservice teachers, which expands their own learning. This dynamic has built a bridge between our preservice teachers and teachers.

Brittany wrote it best that the practicum experience is the first time preservice teachers step into the classroom not as students but rather as teachers. While there remains the comfort and direct support of a practicum teacher, the preservice teacher steps into the classroom with the responsibility of directing student learning for the first time. The experience is irreplaceable, if the practicum teacher works to support and nurture the preservice teacher.

In my role, I paired preservice teachers with teachers who would support them and help them have a meaningful experience. I aimed to place each preservice teacher with a teacher who would not only provide an opportunity for the preservice teacher to engage in the curriculum but also to participate in the process of classroom management – to put the preservice teacher on the high-wire but to provide the net as well. Additionally, when selecting the practicum teacher, I considered how dedicated the teacher was to promoting culture and inclusivity. As I conducted classroom observations, I often thought about Teachers and Teaching and kept these questions in mind:

1. Does the teacher actively work toward the betterment of the school?

2. Does this teacher participate in professional development on a personal and school-wide basis?

3. Will this teacher embrace working with preservice teachers as an opportunity to develop themselves?

Jeff and I then discussed the preservice teacher placements and the potential practicum teachers. Our goal was to pair Teachers and Teaching students with a teacher eager to learn from the experience and take part in preservice teacher education.

We have developed a strong cadre of practicum teachers who understand the expectations of Teachers and Teaching, thus becoming integral to the course. Joe discussed the intentionality with which we pair students and practicum teachers by identifying teachers who have a commitment to mentoring preservice teachers. I have also seen the commitment that those teachers have as teacher educators. For example, teachers often ask me how best to support the students. Additionally, I often work with them one-on-one or in small groups to understand the rubric used to assess the practicum teaching. This boundary spanning role (Cosenza et al., 2023b) ensures teachers are engaged in the development of our preservice teachers. Thus, Bethany referenced that she felt successful in her practicum because of the support and guidance of her practicum teacher. Bethany, like many Teachers and Teaching students, completed the practicum with a better sense of how to bridge theory and practice. This learning directly results from the quality of mentorship provided by the practicum teachers. Thus, the success of students in the course is a direct result of the commitment of the practicum teachers to preservice education.

Each of us highlighted a different aspect of active learning in Teachers and Teaching. As a student, I applied theories I learned in coursework when immersed in the high school classroom. Brittany highlighted the importance of utilizing pedagogical theories and technologies in the classroom to support diverse teaching practices. Joe emphasized selecting teachers who are active members of the school community to maximize the practicum experience. The intentionality of selecting practicum teachers who are engaged, passionate educators, as both Joe and Jeff noted, promotes an active practicum experience and sets the stage for collaboration as an important professional practice. As Jeff pointed out, the yearly commitment of teachers to the practicum experience strengthens the immersive learning environment for preservice teachers.

When I began teaching at DFHS, the Teachers and Teaching experiences contributed to my decision to work with our PDS partnership. I have experienced the third space as a preservice teacher and as a practicum teacher. It is a unique perspective that I am grateful to offer to current Teachers and Teaching students, where I discuss what I learned from my practicum and my current practice. The conversations allow for mutual learning and collaboration integral to the immersive and active experience.

Having left DFHS in 2023 to serve as the principal at another high school in the PDS Network, I came to my new school with a clear understanding of the effect a PDS partnership can have. During my first summer at the new school, Jeff and I met to discuss the existing partnership. It was a short conversation. Because we had spent 2 years together crafting a third space at DFHS, Jeff and I devised a plan to create another third space as he was scheduled to teach a section of Teachers and Teaching there in the Fall 2023 semester. We had a clear path forward, yet that path differed from what had been done in the past. While Lotter et al. (2019) noted that my new school was the venerable context for Teachers and Teaching, the partnership had changed over time and Jeff and I learned we needed to explain our rationale behind incorporating the preservice teachers into the school. We had to explain how we conceptualized an embedded course, the third space. Now, in my second year, deeply embracing our preservice teachers is becoming more natural for our school as Jeff and I are working to integrate a new approach to embedding the course.

Third spaces create a reciprocal relationship as all educators learn from each other (Cosenza et al., 2023a). When reflecting on Teachers and Teaching at DFHS, the third space has become an integral part of our school’s culture. Teachers are excited and expect to be part of our preservice teachers’ journeys. The way our third space is integrated into the school incorporates teachers’ voices and experiences in the core of the professional development and learning activities with the preservice teachers. Collaboration between our faculty and the preservice teachers allows for reflection and professional dialogue to help all educators grow.

The third space is closely guided by our school and district’s mission. We carefully plan and align the Teachers and Teaching curriculum to school and district goals, ensuring the learning experiences are purposeful. Although the third space is unique to our building, this approach can succeed at other schools when aligned to their goals and supported by the overall rationale as Joe mentioned, creating the kind of collaboration, innovation, and shared commitment to educational excellence that we have seen through our own third space.

When I reflect on the most impactful experiences in my preservice teacher development, the experience in Teachers and Teaching at DFHS is the pinnacle. The emphasis on third spaces as “hybrid spaces in preservice teacher education programs that bring together school and university-based teacher educators and practitioner and academic knowledge in new ways to enhance the learning of prospective teachers” (Zeichner, 2010, p. 92) continues to influence my professional pedagogy as a reflective practitioner. From the beginning of my preservice education to my current role as a practicum teacher, the third space sets professional development practices as a culture to pursue and continue throughout one’s professional career. The third space creates a culture of collective professional development between USC and DFHS to serve current educators, future educators, and the student body, whose education benefits from educators who are reflective practitioners.

When I think about what I have learned from developing the third space at DFHS, I reflect on the impact that it has on both the culture of the school and the development of preservice teachers. I appreciate Brittany’s observation that the class is not taught in isolation. As often as possible, she and I attempt to deliberately weave the goals, initiatives, and programs at the school into the course. This effort can provide preservice teachers with an experience they will receive only because they are taking Teachers and Teaching at DFHS, one contextualized by the school. Therefore, when Bethany reflects on her experience as a former preservice teacher in the course, the collaborative work Brittany, Joe, and I – as well as Susan and Christian early on – have done to create the third space is clearly noticeable to the students taking the course. Brittany, Joe, and others, are engaged in boundary-spanning work (Cosenza et al., 2023b) in the third space that positions them as teacher educators.

Joe mentioned that he is now the principal at another high school in the PDS Network, and I now teach a section of Teachers and Teaching there. While working to integrate the course in a new setting, I realized that I have taken for granted the relationships – developed over years – that exist between me and the administrators and teachers at DFHS. I think it is one of those aspects of developing an embedded course, a third space, that we may not always think about while in the weeds of the work. Therefore, I am more intentional in expressing my appreciation to the teachers and administrators at both schools for the work they do to provide a collaborative and innovative embedded course for preservice teachers.

The third space has become part of the fabric of DFHS, and it is developing at my new school. Jeff and I discussed what we had become comfortable with, what we have taken for granted, in the ease of blending preservice teachers into experiences within the school. Previously, I may have characterized those experiences as contrived to simply expose the preservice teachers to the types of interactions they may experience as they became teachers. Yet the expereinces in Teachers and Teaching are not contrived for a show-and-tell experience of daily classroom and school interactions. Brittany, Bethany, and Jeff described it as a collaboration. This partnership between preservice teachers and teachers builds trust, and it invites us to view one another where we all are on our journey in education.

In our work at the school, we built trust over the course of 7 years. As both Brittany and Bethany describe, the third space exists as part of the professional development culture of the school. It is valued and protected by the teachers. We moved away from thinking that preservice teachers need to check boxes of experiences as part of their training toward embracing preservice teachers as colleagues within our professional development culture. They are members, not observers.

In advocating for preservice teachers to have embedded clinical experiences, the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (2018) noted that in a third space focused on “designing and enacting a partnership, stakeholders must develop a deep understanding of the local contextual variables and consider how those factors might shape a partnership” (p. 25). In this article, we have thought about the role of an embedded course in the third space and the reciprocal nature of school–university partnerships. Through embedding the course into the school culture, and the school faculty into the course, we provide an embedded experience for preservice teachers. For us, this means a course that utilizes the unique expertise of the teachers within that building, allowing school faculty to have input on topics addressed in the course, and adjusting the curriculum of the course to reflect the school culture.

The third space in a PDS partnership is one in which “all voices can be heard, ideas can be deliberated and revisions can be made that better meet the needs of schools and educator preparation” (Burns et al., 2023, p. 109). In this article, we captured four perspectives on the third space while reflecting on the deliberations that occurred over time to integrate Teachers and Teaching into the school culture. In documenting our work as a conversation, we offer a model for others to engage in similar conversations regarding their own partnerships. While Lotter et al. (2019) documented the benefits to preservice teacher learning and the logistical aspects of teaching embedded courses, we extended on this research by documenting the importance of relationships between university faculty, school faculty and staff, and preservice teachers. Additionally, where Lotter et al. (2019) used four perspectives to understand the logistics behind communities of practice, by presenting our four perspectives as a conversation, we captured the importance of trust and a shared vision to integrate a preservice education course into a high school. This trust has resulted in a tapestry of collaboration at DFHS focused on “honoring the critical role that skilled school- and university-based teacher educators play in supporting educator learning in clinical experiences” (Burns et al., 2023, p. 108).

Finally, time emerged as an important theme in our conversation. Relational spaces (Ikpeze et al., 2012) and hybrid spaces (Zeichner, 2010) are not automatically generated with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between a school and university or the scheduling of a preservice education course onsite at a PDS school. Time is needed to build relationships, trust, and a common vision for all involved. Time is central to generating a sense of responsibility for teacher education and to creating expectations for all PDS work in the partnership. Third spaces need consistency, time, collaboration, and relationships to integrate a teacher education course into the school culture, impact teachers in the school, and grow preservice candidates as professional educators.