Supporting novice teachers for deeper learning through a school–university partnership

Beginning teachers face unique challenges that permeate their practice. These challenges include, but are not limited to, a lack of support from administration and colleagues, classroom management and a lack of experience in preparing beginner educators for the complexities of teaching (Able et al., 2018; Howey & Bents, 1979; Bickmore & Bickmore, 2010; Alhira & Fresko, 2010; Olson et al., 2021). Much of the research investigates factors such as administrative leadership and individual teacher characteristics (Borman & Dowling, 2008), rather than the intricacies of the induction programs themselves. Often, school districts or individual schools administer induction programs. These programs are typically designed without consideration for or understanding of teachers' experiences (Able et al., 2018). Feiman-Nemser (1983) highlighted the critical need to support beginning teachers during the induction years, not only for retention, but also because it lays the foundation for the type of teacher they will be for years to come. More recent studies have emphasized the importance of flexible, context-responsive induction arrangements that prioritize collaborative learning and situated professional growth (Feng, 2025).

Their research on creating such spaces provided a framework for supporting new teachers in meaningful ways. Scholars have increasingly called for strength-based approaches to induction that position novice teachers as capable learners whose professional growth emerges through supported inquiry (Skytterstad, 2025). A recent systematic review of professional learning models found that sustained collaborative structures and reflective dialogue are consistently associated with teachers' perceived professional growth and instructional development (Makhmetova et al., 2025).

School and university partnerships have a long history of producing mutual benefits for teachers, university faculty and university students (Burgard & Boucher, 2025; Compton-Lilly et al., 2025; Darling-Hammond, 2005; Levine, 2002). The expansive body of university-school partnership literature documents a range of models, benefits and obstacles to collaboration between educators and teachers. Throughout the literature, it is also evident that the context of school and university settings has great variation, and program models are often dependent on the needs and context of settings. Policy analyses similarly highlight a growing emphasis on sustained school–university partnerships as essential infrastructure for teacher preparation and induction reform (Sloan, 2025). Consistent with recent partnership research, the sustained and reciprocal structure of this collaboration reflects what Swanson (2025) described as a “continuum” of shared responsibility for teacher development extending beyond pre-service preparation.

One area that is understudied in the literature is how these partnerships can support beginner teachers (Little et al., 2024). When teacher shortages and retention are at a critical level in the United States (U.S. Department of Education, 2024), supporting teachers during induction years is paramount. Little et al.’s (2024) research called upon school-university partnerships to work together to support beginning teachers, “While there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing the persistent severe teacher shortage, there are indeed innovative, enhanced, collaborative school–university partnership models in teacher preparation programs that prepare and support teacher candidates for the challenges and rewards of teaching.” Recent research further demonstrates how collaborative school–university partnerships contribute to early career teachers' professional identity development by creating shared spaces for reflection, dialogue and instructional experimentation (Zaccarelli et al., 2025). The purpose of this study was to examine an organically developed school-university partnership with the intent of supporting a cohort of novice teachers.

A shift is materializing in our nation's schools, as educators and policymakers learn more about ways to engage K-12 students in deeper learning. (Darling-Hammond et al., 2025). Deeper learning encompasses knowledge, skills and dispositions for an evolving workforce and a democratic society. This shift is driven by multiple angles, including advances in the field of learning sciences that help us better understand how we learn, innovative technologies that are transforming the way we live, work and play, the changing economy that is revolutionizing how we manufacture and trade and our increasingly diverse society. Recognizing the critical need to prepare new teachers for this changing landscape, principles for deep learning in education were developed “to shift classrooms into learning environments that support the whole child, teachers themselves must learn their craft in preparation programs that attend to the science, structures, and practices that support deeper learning and equity” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2025, p. 58.

The students in our schools have nearly unlimited access to information. Today, teachers scaffold student learning through crafting activities that call upon students to use critical thinking skills and work together (Darling-Hammond et al., 2022; Mehta & Fine, 2015). Mehta and Fine call for the shift to this new way of teaching and learning by stating that deeper learning “captivating. Hard to achieve, yes, but once you've experienced it, shallower learning looks like black and white compared to full-spectrum color” (Mehta & Fine, 2015, p. 19).

The National Research Council panel defines deeper learning as “the process through which an individual becomes capable of taking what was learned in one situation and applying it to new situations (i.e. transfer).” Furthermore, the National Research Council (2012) organized teaching methods and strategies into three domains: cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal. The field of cognitive science often uses the term learning to understand as a way of thinking about the ability to transfer knowledge (Bransford et al., 1999; Darling-Hammond et al., 2022; Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). Critical thinking skills then support learners as they transfer knowledge to a related but different context.

The guiding premise of this research is that knowledge goes beyond the surface level or deeper when learners can apply new information in another context. This is a different way of thinking about teaching and learning that reigned during the era of No Child Left Behind and Common Core Standards. Although deeper learning is capturing the attention of policymakers, researchers and educators today, aspects of deeper learning may be traced back to pioneers such as John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019).

The practice of deeper learning in K-12 schools is growing and gaining traction (Chow, 2017) as more schools shift toward learning skills, knowledge and dispositions for our fast-changing society. Research bridging the fields of teacher education and learning sciences report that we are at a critical juncture in which teachers must be prepared to support student learning in this rapidly changing “knowledge-based society” that “requires a different kind of teaching and learning from prior eras of education when learning was conceptualized as the acquisition of facts and teaching as the transmission of information to be taken in and used “as is” (Darling-Hammond et al., 2022, p. 1). These principles may manifest in classrooms as internships, problem-based learning or interactive learning groups of students. Darling-Hammond and Oakes (2019) defined schools in which deeper learning occurs as follows:

Recognizing that many schools are transitioning to deeper learning, Darling-Hammond and Oakes (2019) called attention to the need to prepare pre-service teachers for deeper learning. She and her team identified five dimensions for preparing teachers for deeper learning instruction. They called for teacher education that is (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019):

1. Developmentally grounded and personalized

2. Contextualized

3. Applied and transferred

4. Occurs in productive communities of practice

5. Equitable and oriented toward social justice

The principles they developed to frame pre-service teacher education are guided by essential principles of learning: students come to the classroom with prior knowledge that must be addressed if teaching is to be effective; students need to organize and use knowledge conceptually if they are to apply it beyond the classroom and students learn more effectively if they understand how to learn and how to manage their own learning (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019). Lampert et al. (2011) called for schools of education to be more intentional in how they prepare new teachers with specific strategies and methods that facilitate deeper learning for students. Mehta and Fine (2015) further supported the call to turn the lens on teacher education if we are to truly shift to deeper learning in large numbers of classrooms:

This study examines the experiences of novice teachers in an induction program. The research question that guided this study was: In what ways did the school and university induction program offer the novice teachers opportunities to engage in deeper learning?

For several years, I taught a six-credit elementary social studies method course embedded in a local elementary school, Peabody Elementary School. Twice a week, my students and I met for three hours in a partner school. We worked in classrooms for half of the morning and held classes for the other half. This teaching model was based on a partnership between the school district and university. One year, I noticed that five first-year teachers on staff were in my course the previous year. Throughout the semester, I found myself engaging in informal conversations with them during their first year of teaching. These conversations usually started with me asking about things that were going on in the classroom, asking about their thoughts on something I was teaching or inquiring about professional development in which they were engaged. In return, I found that they often wanted to show me something new that they were trying in their classroom or ask my advice about a situation with which they were dealing.

Repeatedly, I heard from these five teachers that they did not have the time or space to engage in professional conversations with one another. They expressed frustrations with feeling isolated in their teaching practice and wanted to talk with other first-year teachers who understood “where they were coming from” because they had graduated from the same teacher education program. After hearing this frustration several times, I approached the five teachers with the idea that we got together for coffee one day after school. We had a lively conversation about their first year of teaching and soon made plans to meet for coffee another time. These gatherings were held late in the spring, near the end of the school year. It was through these informal gatherings that the Peabody Elementary Induction Project was imagined.

After the summer break, I approached the teachers and asked them about strengthening the school–university partnership by formalizing our after-school meetings. The teachers agreed to meet monthly and provided their consent to participate in this study. We officially began our monthly group meetings in the fall of participants' second year of teaching. This continued for two academic years. Our meetings were structured to foster supportive dialogue that “helped the new teachers cope with their situations in a way that would foster personal and professional learning growth” (Babinski & Rogers, 2002, p. 20). Our sessions were structured based on Babinski and Rogers' (2002) research with new teacher support groups. Babinski and Rogers' work with novice teachers adapted the Caplan consultation (Caplan & Caplan, 1993). The collaborative consultation model is grounded in dialogue and relationships that foster problem-solving and community engagement. This structure supports moving the discussion forward through mutual support rather than focusing only on what is not going well. Babinski and Rogers (2002) maintain that it is optimal for supporting new teachers “because it focuses on the noncoercive nature of the consultant-consultee relationship and on the need for a collaborative dialogue to foster orderly reflection” (Babinski & Rogers, 2002, p. 21). Rogers offered professional consulting throughout the research on both group facilitation and research design. The purpose of the monthly meetings was to give the teachers time and space to talk with one another about their practice and to work together to problem-solve the classroom dilemmas they were experiencing. As a group facilitator, I followed the lead in the problem-solving process. However, I was there as a resource that could provide insight or suggestions, as needed.

Sessions were held once a month from August to June for two academic years. We met only when all five teachers were available to attend the session. The meetings typically lasted for 90 minutes.

Each session followed the same structure:

1. The teachers and I each shared a “chute and a ladder” that had happened since our last meeting. We defined a “chute” as a challenge or struggle faced in their classroom. An example of a chute one teacher brought to the group was talking with the other teachers at her grade level about making the immigration unit they all taught more culturally responsive. A “ladder” was defined as something positive or worth celebrating. An example of a ladder shared by a teacher was her adaption of an activity we had done in class at the university, George Ella Lyon's “Where I am From” poems. She was pleased with how the lesson went in her 3rd grade classroom and the insights she learned about her students' lives outside of the classroom.

2. Teachers reported on issues discussed in the previous month. This was important so that we could follow up on the topics over time.

3. We selected at least one challenge or “chute” to discuss and solve the problem. To this end, we attempted to first come to better understand the context of the challenge and view it from different perspectives. We talked about different perspectives and sought to develop strategies to support teachers.

4. Before leaving, each teacher shared at least one thing they were going to focus on until the next meeting. These ranged from launching a new unit in the history of the school building to trying strategies that engaged one student in new ways. The purpose of these statements was to allow teachers to intentionally follow up and support one another until our next meeting. Teachers came to ask one another for specific check-ins during the month, such as, “Could you observe me while your kids are at music?”

All five teachers I approached gave consent to participate in the research study. The study was approved by our institution's Office of Human Subjects. The five teachers, Jill, Maggie, Natasha, Jenny and Ella, were second-year teachers at Peabody Elementary School. These teachers graduated from our undergraduate teacher education program one year before the study. I taught five teachers in the spring of the junior year of their undergraduate teacher education program in a six-credit elementary social studies methods course. The participants were in their early twenties. Jill, Maggie and Natasha were all second-grade teachers; Jenny was a third-grade teacher and Ella was a fourth-grade teacher.

The school system had a formal induction program in which teachers met with a large group of beginning teachers from across the district four times a year. The teachers characterized these sessions as “informational,” in that staff members from the school system typically delivered presentations to the novice teachers. The teachers were members of their grade-level Professional Learning Community (PLC). The teachers reported that the PLC meetings focused on curriculum alignment and planning. The school did not provide a specific induction support program beyond what may have transpired in PLC or system-wide quarterly meetings.

Data collection and analysis were designed to document the monthly sessions and offer teachers an opportunity to reflect on our time together. Table 1 provides an overview of the data collection through the duration of the study. Each monthly session was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Additionally, a graduate research assistant interviewed each teacher four times over two years. Each set of interviews used a protocol to ask questions about the structure, content and outcomes of the monthly meetings. Interviews were transcribed verbatim. At the conclusion of our two years of working together, the five teachers participated in a focus group that prompted them to reflect on our experiences together. A graduate research assistant participated in this focus group. She transcribed audio recordings of the focus group. The graduate research assistants were full-time doctoral students trained in qualitative research.

A team of two graduate research assistants and I began formal coding after six months of data collection. Data analysis was performed throughout the duration of the study. First, we read the first six monthly meeting transcriptions and the first individual interview transcripts and generated a list of initial categories of focus (Glaser, 1987). We tested and modified the code to ensure its validity. To prevent researcher bias, each transcript (interviews and monthly meetings) was coded twice by me and by two graduate research assistants (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017; Marshall & Rossman, 2016; Miles & Huberman, 1994). The graduate students had not interacted with the participants prior to data collection. Recognizing the potential for researcher bias given my role as the participants' former professor, the graduate students played an essential role in the data analysis process. We also solicited participants' validation of the codes through a member check process by having the teachers read the transcripts with the themes highlighted. The member checking of the codes allowed the participants to assume a more “participative and dialogical undertaking and less monological activity” (Schwandt, 1997, p. 89). Throughout the analysis process, careful attention was paid to researcher reflexivity, particularly in relation to the author's dual role as a former university instructor and group facilitator, to minimize bias and support the trustworthiness of interpretations. Throughout the data collection, we continued to read the data, reflect upon the content, refine the themes and focus on the primary themes. We each individually read the data and took notes before coming to research team meetings. Working with the team of graduate students to thoughtfully discuss assumptions and interpretations created a process of collaborative and multifaceted data analysis. We generated a key with themes and sample quotations at the onset of data coding and modified the key as the themes were refined.

Based on this key, we reduced our themes to categories that encompassed peer support, classroom dilemmas and self-understanding. We developed subcategories within each of the organizational themes. Once developed, we compared them with the first three recommendations for preparing teachers for deeper learning (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019). Therefore, we named three organizational codes to align with the recommendations: communities of practice, authentic problem-solving and identity and growth. This enabled us to better understand the findings by demonstrating how deeper learning principles can also be used to support new teachers. Using deeper learning principles to analyze the data helped us understand the participants' experiences through the lens of the shifting landscape of today's schools. Table 2 presents an overview of how the data were coded and organized.

Deeper learning principles were used not only as a conceptual framework, but also as an analytic lens through which participants' experiences were interpreted. Three themes – community of practice, authentic problem-solving and identity and growth – were identified as central ways in which deeper learning processes were enacted within the induction context. An analysis of the data offers insight into how deeper learning principles can support teachers during the induction years. These findings parallel recent evidence that collaborative partnership contexts play a central role in shaping novice teachers' professional identities through shared meaning-making and collective problem-solving (Zaccarelli et al., 2025). This section presents the data through the lens of three themes: community of practice, authentic problem-solving and identity and growth. Data are presented to highlight the participants'’ “voices” to forefront their experiences as beginning teachers.

It is not surprising that communities of practice emerged as a theme, given that this study investigated an intentionally designed peer group for new teachers. However, we were surprised by the depth of the data that informed our understanding of the impact of the social nature of learning on these five novice teachers. The literature shows that teaching can be an isolating profession. Teachers are with people all day; however, for an elementary school teacher, these people are primarily young children. One day, Ella remarked at the start of one of our meetings, “I'm so glad to use my adult voice now!”

It was evident that the monthly meetings helped chip away at the isolating feelings that these new teachers often felt and created a supportive community. Babinski and Rogers (2002) argued that the sociocultural context of most schools contributes to why new teachers may “feel extremely lonely and isolated but are also afraid to reveal uncertainties about their practice”’(p. 45). The teachers repeatedly showed appreciation for one another and for the time we had together in our monthly meetings. There were regular comments, such as when Natasha entered the room and was quickly exclaimed, “Oh my gosh. I need you guys. You won't believe the email I got from a parent today. You've got to hear this.” They also ended each meeting with words of appreciation, such as the time Jenny commented as she started to stand up, “I don't know what I would do without you all. Thank you so much for being here.”

The interview protocol intentionally asked the participants to reflect upon the structure, content and outcomes of the monthly meetings. Each participant first responded with comments on how much they valued the opportunity to have a safe space to talk with one another. Maggie opened her responses by sharing.

The value of the monthly meetings went beyond merely having a space to talk to being a space to be heard. The data demonstrated that the teachers felt heard by the group. Ella, who was struggling with how to balance having one of the literacy specialists in her classroom while she was teaching, shared in one of the monthly meetings, “Ok, so I've been waiting all day to tell you what happened with the specialist who was in my classroom today. You have been following this for a while now. I just need to vent.” These teachers created a safe space where they could trust each other and speak with the candor.

As the monthly meetings progressed, the teachers grew from simply being a space to talk and listen to a space to help one another. As noted in the overview of the structure of the meetings, the teachers intentionally selected something they wanted to focus on over the following month. Their areas of focus included topics such as interactions with a specific parent, balancing a specialist in the classroom, trying a new technology tool or making a unit more culturally responsive. The teachers eagerly offered ideas and suggestions to one another before leaving the meeting.

The transcripts of the monthly meetings demonstrated a high level of energy around brainstorming with one another. For example, one month, Jill said she was going to try to use iPads with her second graders for an upcoming science unit. The teachers each took turns sharing ideas of the different apps they had used and tips for using them in the classroom. The notion of supporting one another extended beyond monthly meetings and demonstrated the genuine power of this community of learners, as noted when Natasha shared in one of her interviews.

The participating teachers came to value their community for the impact it had on them and their teaching practices. They informally noted their appreciation for the space to be shared and heard throughout the monthly meetings. They responded to the interview questions with a depth of understanding, the support they felt from supporting one another and sharing with one another. In finishing one of her interviews, Maggie said, “No significant learning happens without a significant relationship.” Clearly, the monthly meetings fostered genuine relationships that led to meaningful professional growth, as evidenced by the supporting data related to authentic problem-solving, identity and growth, which will be discussed in the following sections.

The design of the monthly meetings was intentionally structured to use dilemmas from teachers' own teaching practices for discussion and problem-solving. The structure of the meeting was purposeful to encourage teachers to think more deeply about their practices. By sharing their chutes and ladders, which then led to problem-solving, the teachers engaged in a dialogue that was inquiry-based and authentic. For example, at a monthly meeting, Jill shared that she was frustrated by an email she had received from an “angry parent.” After sharing the email, Ella offered that she had the same parents' younger children in her class, and she had received a similar email from the parent a few weeks earlier. Ella explained how she responded to the parent and productively navigated the relationship with the parent. Jenny told the story about the time when a parent sent her a similar email and how she responded. After hearing about these two situations, the group helped Jill craft an email response to the parent. We noted in the transcript from the next month's meeting that Jill had expressed appreciation for the suggestions and successfully navigated the situation.

The teachers' discussions during the monthly meetings demonstrated a genuine commitment to helping one another. In her interview, Maggie reflected on how the community they had with one another prompted them to care authentically about helping one another. Laughing, she broke into singing the lyrics from “We're All in this Together” about how the teachers felt about one another. They genuinely wanted to help and support each other. The data showed that the desire to support one another offered impactful professional development. We came to see that through the problem-solving process, the teachers were deepening their own professional knowledge.

Often, the challenges presented by teachers went beyond sharing their own experiences in the past, such as parent email. The teachers sometimes presented challenges that required them to continue the discussion outside of our monthly meetings. One month, three teachers from the second-grade team expressed frustration with the math curriculum, and the school system required them to use it. It was a rigid curriculum that did not offer much space for teachers to adjust the lessons to meet the needs of the students in their classrooms, as they were required to keep up with the required pacing guide. The teachers brainstormed a list of possibilities but were still frustrated with how they could keep up with the pacing guide and best support their students. I was able to offer some suggestions, but I did not have expertise in mathematics education. They asked me to reach out to a mathematics teacher educator, Dr. Williams, in our School of Education for suggestions. I was able to meet my math education colleague to share my situation and ask for help. Dr. Williams provided me with an excellent list of resources that I shared with the teachers. That month, we scheduled an extra meeting to work through resources and plans. Jenny recalled this experience in an interview:

Throughout the data, we noted that the teachers were actively engaged in supporting one another and growing as professionals. The teachers invested in problem-solving not only because of their strong sense of community, but also because they genuinely wanted to improve their teaching practices. In the interviews, the teachers remarked that one of the reasons they were so invested in problem-solving was that challenges were situated in their own context. Jill remarked in one of her interviews that they were “real life,” unlike the “theoretical cases we read about in our classes.” The structure of monthly meetings encouraged teachers to go beyond sharing or venting. We purposely took a challenge, examined it from different perspectives and sought a deeper understanding of it. Through deliberations, the teachers came to see how complex many of the challenges were and that there were multiple paths to address them. These conversations were not always easy, as the teachers brainstormed different perspectives to create an action plan. Frustrated one day, Natasha sighed, “I just wish there was an easy fix. Sometimes these conversations just make things seem even harder. However, the teachers came to understand the benefits of not accepting surface-level responses to address issues around their teaching. The more they dug into their own practices, the more they seemed to grow into teachers. One day, Ella commented

The way teachers came to see this organic process was very similar to the inquiry-based teaching styles they had learned in their pre-service teacher education program.

Through data analysis, it was evident that the teachers' participation in our community of practice not only prompted them to think more deeply about their teaching but also led to a sense of empowerment from their growing identity as classroom teachers. All five teachers described themselves as someone who almost always knew that they wanted to be teachers. In Ella's words, “I was that kid who always played school and knew I wanted to be an elementary teacher one day’. However, they each struggled to come to know themselves as teachers. At some point over the two years, each of the teachers confessed feeling like an “imposter.” Jenny's sentiments at one of the monthly meetings symbolize these moments.

Through ongoing conversations, teachers reported an evolving sense of their understanding of themselves as teachers. Maggie described this as, “It's like I've stepped into seeing myself as a teacher.”

In their final interviews, each teacher noted that they felt more confident as teachers. Some of this simply may have come from being in the classroom for three years, but the teachers clearly articulated that they felt they had grown as teachers from ongoing meetings. Jenny reflected in her final interview.

The data demonstrated that the teachers grew in their practice and sense of self as teachers. They had a sense of empowerment in their knowledge as teachers. Jill commented

Analysis of the monthly meetings sheds light on the evolving nature of teachers' sense of identity as classroom teachers. At the end of nearly every session, there were resounding words of appreciation for how they helped one another see things from a different perspective and grow. They noted that by putting “six heads together,” they could learn so much more and “move into this space of being a teacher” in ways that may not have happened if they each remained isolated in their own classroom.

Toward the end of the final year of our sessions, we started discussing other opportunities for continued professional growth. We discussed a range of opportunities that they could pursue. The teachers eventually decided to apply to a part-time graduate program at our university to earn their M.Ed. in literacy education. They saw this graduate program as a way to stay in the classroom and continue their professional development through graduate coursework. All five teachers applied and accepted the same graduate program. In her final interview, Jill reflected. “It's a lot to take in. I'm nervous. But it's exciting. It is exciting to go back together. It's just a whole new element of support for each other.”

The fact that novice teachers experience isolation and challenges during their induction years is well supported by the literature. There is a depth of research that forefronts different induction models and their impacts on teacher retention, student achievement and pedagogical practices (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Much of this work suggests that induction models offer solutions to the perennial challenges that thwart teachers during the induction years and suggest remedies to the perennial issues of novice teachers. Lieberman and Miller (1999) contended that induction programs should go beyond being “prescriptive” and support teachers by creating spaces in which teachers are encouraged to be in “continuous inquiry” about their practice.

This study examined an organically designed model that supported new teachers. The data brought to life the challenges and successes that beginning teachers often face and demonstrated how collaborative problem-solving can support new teacher development. The program offered regular time and space for a small group of graduates of the same university teacher education program to come together, share and discuss professional dilemmas. Support from the monthly meetings was carried over into the daily practice of the teachers as they sought ways to support one another and learn from one another. In this partnership, the university's role extended beyond facilitation to serve as a bridge between pre-service preparation and induction, providing continuity of professional learning and access to disciplinary and pedagogical expertise that is not otherwise available within the school context. This continuity enabled novice teachers to connect theoretical perspectives from their preparation program with the practical challenges of classroom teaching, strengthening the reciprocal nature of the school–university relationship. In this way, the induction model aligns with emerging perspectives that conceptualize early career support as an opportunity for professional agency and growth rather than as a remediation of perceived deficiencies (Skytterstad, 2025).

This study was designed to gain an understanding of the experiences of new teachers who participated in monthly teacher support meetings. The challenges teachers shared in the monthly meetings were not different from those of other novice teachers. What was unique to these teachers was their participation in monthly meetings and the informal support that grew from the scheduled meetings and their development over time. Through the analysis of the data, we came to see evidence of Darling-Hammond and Oakes (2019) four dimensions of teacher preparation for deeper learning.

1. Developmentally grounded and personalized

2. Contextualized

3. Applied and transferred

4. Occurs in productive communities of practice

5. Equitable and oriented toward social justice

The induction program was designed to support teachers in becoming active members of a community of practice. Within this community, teachers interacted with one another, listened to one another and worked together to solve challenges. As evidenced by the data, the teachers trusted one another and cared for each other authentically. They became members of a group in the sociocultural learning context. This ethic of care permitted them to feel safe in sharing their challenges and to support one another in learning and growing. The emphasis on reflection and collaborative inquiry mirrors broader findings that sustained professional learning communities contribute to teachers' instructional confidence and adaptive expertise (Makhmetova et al., 2025).

These teachers entered their first year knowing one another from their undergraduate teacher education program. However, through the first year of teaching, they had not engaged in meaningful and sustained professional dialogue about their practice until the development of the induction program. The induction program was designed to center discussions around teachers' classrooms. We saw evidence in the data that, by doing this, teachers' learning was personalized and contextualized. The teachers brought authentic challenges from their own practices for sharing and discussing them. These were meaningful and relevant for teachers to work with one another.

At the end of each session, the teachers shared at least one area of focus for the next month or something to focus on or try before the next session. Thus, the learning was applied and transferred. Therefore, rather than just talking through solutions to the challenges, they were asked to discuss and apply them to their classroom. These experiences called upon the teachers to transfer their learning in authentic ways. The fifth dimension of preparing teachers for teaching for deeper learning, teaching that is equitable and oriented toward social justice, was not as apparent in the data. There was an indication of equity and social justice in the data in the form of challenges teachers shared during the monthly sessions. This dimension did not appear in the structure of the induction program; rather, it emerged from teachers' selection of challenges to share. A recommendation for future work is to structure monthly sessions to address this dimension with intent. Future iterations of this induction model could more intentionally foreground issues of equity and social justice by incorporating structured opportunities for teachers to examine how institutional contexts, curricular decisions and instructional practices shape student opportunities to learn.

The findings from this study have implications for the work we do here at our institution and the broader field of school-university partnerships. The data demonstrate support for the continued support of beginning teachers from their teacher education program to the induction years. It also supports the benefits of schools and universities partnering to support pre-service and beginning teacher. The findings suggest that supporting teachers through both their university coursework and beginning years of teaching could deepen teacher professional development. Viewed within the current policy and reform contexts, this partnership model reflects broader international calls for integrating university and school systems to support teacher learning across career stages (Sloan, 2025). Our institution has reinforced the importance of building upon school-university partnerships that take place in different forms. We are presently engaging in the process of rethinking the structure of our teacher education program and how we might deepen our school partnerships in specific ways.

The findings highlight not only the importance of new teacher support and partnerships, but also the nature of field-based coursework like the courses the participants took as undergraduate students. This study demonstrates the impact of supporting beginning teachers in ways that build upon their pre-service teacher education program and demonstrates the supportive nature of cohort-based new teacher support. Even though this was a small-scale study within the specific context of a university-school partnership, this model could serve as inspiration for other schools and universities seeking to support beginning teachers and strengthen their partnership. The work of supporting novice teachers and building strong university-school partnerships continues to evolve and respond to the shifting landscapes of education. This study is a reminder of how critical it is for schools and universities to conduct this work and study it so that progress can be made. This study contributes to the school–university partnership literature by demonstrating how collaborative induction models can extend partnerships beyond pre-service preparation to teachers' early professional careers, positioning partnerships as a long-term infrastructure for professional learning rather than short-term programmatic interventions. Taken together, these findings and recent scholarship suggest that induction programs embedded within sustained school–university partnerships may serve as powerful sites for integrating professional identity development, deeper learning practices and collaborative inquiry.

Teacher education has long attempted to identify optimal ways to support beginner teachers. These efforts have been initiated by schools of education, school systems, policymakers and others invested in retaining our newest teachers in the classroom. Decades of work have shown that supporting novice teachers is a complicated yet critical process. This study sought to understand the experiences of a small group of teachers in a uniquely designed induction program. It should be noted that a limitation of the study is that it was conducted with one group of five teachers who graduated from the same teacher education program and taught in the same school. Although the findings are not intended to be statistically generalizable, they offer insights that may be transferable to similar school–university partnership contexts characterized by sustained collaboration, cohort-based support and shared commitments to teacher learning. It is also worth noting that the model was time extensive and required time and effort commitment by the participants and researcher. Despite these limitations, the findings offer insight into new teacher experiences and perspectives that can benefit teacher education programs and schools. Beyond the partnership, structures such as the Caplan model used in this study could be useful for teacher education programs and schools.

Taken together, these findings and recent scholarship suggest that induction programs embedded within sustained school–university partnerships may serve as powerful sites for integrating professional identity development, deeper learning practices and collaborative inquiry; however, the findings offer insight into the benefits of supporting novice teachers to have the opportunity to be members of a productive community of practice that affords them the ability to dig deep into their practice. The findings offer insight into the field of scaffolding teacher learning during induction years. Future research should examine whether the unique nature of an induction program such as this one goes beyond new teacher support and has a longitudinal impact on teacher retention. More specifically, subsequent research could follow these specific teachers as they transition beyond the induction years of teaching. The school partner did not have an active role beyond the participants' engagement. Future research would benefit by engaging the school partner in all aspects of program planning and research.

Darling-Hammond and Oakes (2019) dimensions of teacher education were published as a framework for pre-service teachers. The findings from this study indicate that they are applicable to educators in their first years of teaching. We noted meaningful growth and identity across participants from their participation in induction programs. This study focused on teachers. We suggest that subsequent studies investigate how deeper learning in an induction program may be transferred to deeper learning for students in their classrooms. As an instructor in the participants' pre-service teacher education program, I gained valuable insights into how to better prepare pre-service teachers for the induction year. Future research should also examine how induction programs can inform teacher education programs as a model for school and university partnerships. Research of this nature would offer insight into the reciprocal nature of school and university partnerships and potentially offer suggestions to strengthen collaborative efforts. Additionally, future research could employ more participatory methods, such as action research methodologies, to engage teachers in the research process beyond member checks. Collaborating with teachers through an action research study could add depth of insight to this research. It is the hope that this work will lead to continued efforts to strengthen school and university partnerships to support teachers.