"Lived-In": Embedding Teacher Education in Middle & Secondary Classrooms

An overview of a clinically intensive “lived-in” model to teacher education is provided. For sixteen weeks, teacher candidates enrolled in their methods courses mentor, tutor, and teach academically vulnerable middle and high school students, all identified as the school’s most academically vulnerable, in urban schools. Under the supervision of their professor and a cooperating teacher, methods students plan and take turns implementing rigorous and individualized instructional units in classrooms. Methods professors deliver instruction on-site in schools working alongside cooperating teachers, and instructors are consistently present and visible. This paper describes how two methods instructors, one in secondary social studies and in special education, successfully employed lived-in models to better prepare the next wave of educators while also empowering them to deliver individualized and high quality instruction to some of our area’s most vulnerable urban youth.


Introduction
It was Sir William Osler [1] that noted, "He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all." This lack of commitment to teaching as a profession of practice fosters a gap between how teachers are trained and what schools actually need [2]. In order to grow as an educator, pre-service teachers must be provided with sustained and supportive opportunities in schools that allow for meaningful interactions with Pk-12 students, teachers, administrators, and even university faculty. This should take place well before student teaching, their culminating clinical experience. We believe university-based teacher preparation programs can engage in mutually beneficial partnership that both advance Pk-12 student learning while preparing the next wave of skilled and competent teachers that our society needs. Knowing that a transformation away from ineffective isolated field placements and towards university-school partnerships was needed, we set out to design and study a" lived-in" model to teacher preparation.
The leading national accreditor of teacher education programs, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), notes that "…to prepare for the unprecedented responsibilities educators are required to take on, the U.S. must dramatically transform teacher preparation" [2]. This transformation must entail teacher preparation programs and their faculty prioritizing and investing in initiatives that allow teacher candidates the opportunity to learn and train alongside university faculty in schools. This call for "learning about practice in practice" [3] and for closer collaboration between Pk-12 schools and university teacher preparation program is not new and reaches back to the early 20 th Century with calls by the National Association of Directors of Supervised Student Teaching, now called the Association of Teacher Educators. In fact, it was John Dewey [4] that noted the promise of grounding teacher education in practice and the lives of learners. Several decades of research make it clear that critical elements of professional teacher practice can only be learned in real classrooms under guidance from faculty mentors [3,5]. Emphasizing educational philosophies and understanding education research becomes highly theoretical and undervalued without pre-service teachers having actual concrete experiences with Pk-12 students to draw from in their teacher preparation experience.
Research in teacher education continues to find the many ways in which Pk-12 students, their teachers, pre-service teachers, university faculty, and the wider community benefit when teacher education is grounded in real classrooms and communities. For example, Campus Mentors is one such approach that includes a win-win partnership between a local education agency and a university to assist at-risk youth [6]. A multi-year study found the program to be mutually beneficial and effective in helping to prepare pre-service teachers for success in the teaching profession, while also helping to improve the academic and social outcomes of elementary, middle, and high school students [6]. The Community Teaching Strand involved a similar approach where a local school district, its broad community members, and an area university partnered to promote communitybased learning within teacher preparation. In this model, preservice teachers were assigned to a local school, then, given well-supervised and intensive clinical experiences in order to gain valuable local community knowledge as to best meet the unique learning needs of its students. However the program only lasted a few years [7]. Guillen and Zeichner [8] found that more research is needed on how to build and then sustain these win-win partnerships between local schools and preservice teacher preparation programs.
Evolving out of the notion that subject-specific methods courses and their adjoining field placements, which usually come before student teaching, could do more to get students in supportive, sustained, and mutually beneficial field placements, we worked to locate models of teacher preparation that promoted strong collaboration and partnerships between schools and university teacher preparation programs. In addition, these placements would provide a rigorous, relevant, and differentiated curriculum to Pk-12 students [9,10]. It was essential for this model to allow university methods professors to deliver semester long on-site instruction and coaching to methods students, and to facilitate clear communication and interaction with cooperating teachers. This model also needed to embed teacher education in actual classrooms whereby university methods candidates plan, instruct, assess, and reflect with their methods professor for a sustained period of time in a authentic setting with real students. Finally, it was essential that this model advanced and put at its center, the success of academically vulnerable Pk-12 students. This manuscript presents such a model that maybe relevant to practitioners as they design and implement meaningful mutually beneficial field placements.

In Practice: A Lived-In Model to Teacher Preparation
It is essential for pre-service candidates enrolled in methods courses to engage in supportive, relevant, authentic, and rewarding field experience in real classrooms [9][10][11][12]. Subject specific field experiences attached to and/or embedded in methods courses can play a significant role in laying an important foundation of pedagogical content knowledge before students move into full-time student teaching [13]. Research indicates that when methods professors place students in random classrooms candidates often experience instructional approaches and beliefs that run contrary to what they learned in methods courses [12]. As a result, university method teachings are "washed clean" or discredited by pre-service teachers as they advanced in their program. In order to avoid this washout and to better connect theory and best-practice, it was essential the methods professor spend significant time on-site delivering instruction, have a direct, supportive, and trusting relationship with the cooperating teacher, and that methods students and faculty be embedded for sustained periods of time in the Pk-12 classroom [5,9,10]. For all of these reasons, a lived-in model for teacher preparation was implemented in the spring of 2012 in Maguth's social studies methods courses, and Daviso soon followed with his implementation in the fall of 2016 in his special education methods course.
The authors learned about this cost-free model to teacher preparation and its ability to reach those most vulnerable students through Foster [14] discuss a livedin model to teacher preparation that was highly successful in advancing a rigorous and differentiated English Language Arts secondary curriculum to some of this nation's most vulnerable high school students in Akron, Ohio. In this model, the authors identify the benefits of moving teacher preparation programs and methods courses into Pk-12 schools in order to leverage necessary resources to help our nation's most vulnerable ("invisible") students and to support the extra-ordinary efforts of teachers working in our most disadvantaged schools. Foster & Nosol [14] assert this model not only benefits Pk-12 students, teachers, and administrators but provides an authentic and meaningful laboratory in which university faculty can work alongside teacher candidates in their teacher preparation courses.
Foster and Nosol [14] identify the primary goals and principals of the lived-in model as the following: a. Focusing on developing "strong" Pk-12 students (i.e. providing an advanced and meaningful curriculum, motivating and supporting academically vulnerable students, etc.) b. Engaging in long-term, sustained relationships with Pk-12 students over the course of the semester. This included methods students building strong rapport with youth, individualizing and differentiating instruction, helping them feel welcomed and more visible in the classroom, and in building and maintaining a professional and powerful pre-service teacher to Pk-12 student relationship. c. Consistently reflecting on the quality of instruction, with their peers, cooperating teacher, and university methods professor, provided to Pk-12 students and adjusting their instruction and interactions where/when necessary to meet the needs of learners. This lived-in model also provided a framework to meet the requirements under the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) standards. CAEP requires university teacher preparation providers ensure that effective partnerships and high-quality clinical practices are central to preparation so that candidates develop the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to demonstrate a positive impact on all P-12 students' learning and development (CAEP, Standard 2: Clinical Partnership and Practice). The authors attempted to align the components of the lived-in model with CAEP Standard 2 and its indicators for professional preparation. See table one for a detailed alignment of indicators and components. Partners establish mutually agreeable expectations for candidate entry, preparation, and exit a. Entry: prior coursework has been completed, minimum GPA in content area b. Preparation: All materials reviewed in advance and posted to calendar, timely grades and feedback given to Pk-12 students, collaborate well with all stake-holders when planning, implementing, and reflecting on unit c. Exit: Minimum of 100 hours in the field, C or better in course, participates in end of the year celebration with mentees at university.
Partners collaboration to connect theory and practice a. Integrating research-based practices into lesson planning and units b. On-going program evaluation research c. Professor provided professional development to middle/high school teachers Ensure coherence across clinical and academic preparation a. Requires candidates to apply previously learned understandings in a supportive, school environment b. Feeder into student teaching Share accountability for candidate outcomes a. Priority employment opportunities and student teaching opportunities made available to successful university students

Clinical Educators
Partners co-select, prepare, evaluate, support, and retain high quality clinical educators (both provider and school-based) that positively impact candidates development and P-12 learning a. Program faculty are on-site teaching methods courses b. Urban High School teachers' feedback help with continuous improvement of faculty and programs Collaborating with partners, providers to refine criteria for selection and performance evaluation of clinical educators a. Project leadership meetings once a month b. Survey at end of the experience for cooperating teachers and faculty used for program improvement

Clinical Experiences
Partners collaborate to design mutually beneficial experiences to ensure candidates positively impact Pk-12 learning a. Project leadership meetings once a month b. Project leadership listserv c. Grant writing and research Experiences are structured to provide candidates with structures performance-based assessment opportunities at key points in their program a. Performance based assessments enacted in middle/secondary classrooms b. Opportunities to use assessment data in decision making

Secondary Social Studies Methods
Drawing from numerous discussions with Hal Foster, as he is a colleague of both Maguth and Daviso at a midsized Midwestern university, and using his book as a resource, Maguth decided to embed his social studies methods courses at a local urban high school. In this semester long course, twenty-three secondary social studies majors (gr. 7-12) were divided, based upon a matching inventory and placed into two different classrooms within this urban high school. These two classrooms, at the request of the instructor, served a high percentage of students identified as academically vulnerable. These courses were: a. 10 th Grade U.S. History Classroom with Cooperating  Cooperating teachers, under this lived-in model, work alongside university methods professors on-site to promote strong collaboration and communication. On-site methods students researched and planned units of instruction for implementation in two periods (6 th Block and 7 th Block) in their teacher's classroom. In the first three weeks, methods students became acclimated to the school, built a strong rapport with their high school students, were issued copies of the curriculum (i.e. exams, content standards, texts, etc.) and began the process of planning rigorous and relevant units which were vetted by their methods professor and cooperating teachers. In weeks four through sixteen, preservice teachers took over all instructional responsibilities for both blocks to implement their approved units. All units were required to prioritize an advanced curriculum focused on individualized instruction, small well supervised group activities, and project-based learning. For more information on how this new lived-in model compared to the previously implemented traditional model at this university, see table three below. a. All candidates assigned to one school with one 10 th grade secondary teacher. b. By week four, the candidates take full instructional responsibility for blocks 6 & 7. c. Candidates put in groups of 2-3 to plan and implement units. Must be approved by methods class, methods instructor, and cooperating teacher before implementation. Class reviews and provides feedback on group units. d. On-site instruction by professor and cooperating teacher. e. Candidates expected to build strong rapport with students, and teach every day.
10 th graders at this urban school are teamed, meaning that all 10 th grade students on a team travel together from teacherto-teacher. Tenth grade teachers are afforded common planning time and since they have the same students they are well positioned to reach across subject areas to discuss student performance and to plan and implement interdisciplinary units. The university methods professor and teacher candidates often attend 10 th grade team meetings when possible. In the past, social studies methods students and their professor have teamed with English Language Arts university methods students and their professor (who have previously engaged in this lived-in model) to plan and implement a 10 th grade interdisciplinary unit (Global Education and STEM) at the high school. Unfortunately, teaming is not a part of the 12 th grader experience, which makes cross-curricular collaboration and interactions in Economics more difficult.
Throughout the semester university methods students worked with their peers in teams to plan, construct, implement, and reflect on instruction in their discipline. In the first week, methods students were presented with the required units to be implemented, as selected in consultation with cooperating teachers. Two to three methods students were assigned to a unit and these two-week units include such topics as the Great Depression, WWII, Cold War, and U.S. in the World Today. All draft lesson plans and instructional materials were shared amongst the class for online peer review and comment a week ahead of time, and final documents used the day of instruction were housed forty-eight hours ahead of time in an on-line master calendar. Methods students were responsible for all instructional tasks, with instructor supervision, such as making copies, taking attendance, grading papers, and entering student grades.
While groups rotated in their planning and in implementing units, all methods students were responsible for teaching high school students in class each day. High school students worked individually and in small groups with methods students, which allowed for differentiated and individualized instruction-all of which would be more difficult with just one teacher delivering whole class instruction. Methods students at the start of the semester were also paired up with two to three secondary students they consistently mentored, tutored, and worked with over the course of the semester. High school students looked forward to seeing and working with their university methods students, and at times, rich trajectory changing relationships were forged.

Special Education Methods
Building on the approach listed above in social studies, Daviso was invited to implement special education methods courses within the same district. Stakeholders in the teacher preparation program collaborated to implement advanced academic and behavior methods courses for students with mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-intensive disabilities. The stakeholders included the middle school principal, Maguth, Hal Foster, multiple classroom teachers, intervention specialists from the district, and special education administrators. The district administrative team identified classrooms in need of support and cooperating teachers willing to provide guidance to pre-service teachers in special education. These courses were: a. 8 th Grade Social Studies with Cooperating Teacher 1 b. 8 th Grade Science with Cooperating Teacher 2 c. 8 th Grade English/Language Arts with Cooperating Teacher 3 d. 5 th Grade Science with Cooperating Teacher 4 e. 5 th Grade Science with Cooperating Teacher 5 Under this model, all teacher candidates enrolled in special education methods (grades Pk-12), for students with mild to moderate disabilities (4 credit hours) and its co-requisite field experience were required to be on-site at an area urban middle school Monday and Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. This requirement resembled the requirement Hal Foster had for his Secondary Language Arts methods students [14]. Our university course schedule was based upon the teachers' and middle school's block bell schedule. This approach worked well as it provided the methods students and Daviso the opportunity to debrief on their teaching with the cooperating teachers at the beginning and end of the classroom block. See table four below for delivery details.
University classroom briefing on the lesson of the day in dedicated classroom 9:30 -11:00 a.m.
University students debrief and discuss what to expect for next class 12:00 -1:00 p.m.
Pre-service teachers in special education provide one-to-one instruction as needed with mentor student 12:00 -1:00 p.m.
Daviso meeting with cooperating teachers regarding progress, projects and scheduling issues Under this lived-in model Maguth and Daviso invited cooperating teachers to work alongside them on-site to promote collaboration and sustain communication. Preservice teachers researched and planned units of instruction for implementation for two morning periods in their cooperating teacher's classroom. In the first three weeks, methods students became acclimated to the school, built relationships with their middle school students, are were issued copies of the curriculum and the students individualized education program goals (i.e. exams, content standards, texts, etc.) and began the process of planning relevant interventions and adaptations to units which were vetted by their methods professor and cooperating teachers. In weeks four through sixteen, pre-service teachers took over all instructional responsibilities for middle school students in need of remediation or Tier 2 intervention based on the Response to Intervention (RTI) model. All units were required to incorporate technology and high leverage practices to assist students with learning difficulties. Preservice teachers worked in groups of three in each of the cooperating teacher's classrooms.
Each group of three pre-service teachers was required to complete lesson and assessment plans that matched the curriculum goals of the classroom in a format that would prepare them for educational teacher performance assessment (edTPA). Pre-service teachers were also presented with instruction on high-leverage teaching practices (TeachingWorks), evidence-based practices in special education (Ohio Department of Education and the Employment First Initiative), and research-based practices in special education (National Technical Assistance Center on Transition). This instruction was delivered face-to-face and supplemented with instructor made video recordings. The following projects were implemented in the Fall of 2016: a. Creation of self-correcting materials in social studies and science b. Creation of guided notes and graphic organizers for ELA and science c. Creation of educational games for social studies d. Creation of visual supports for vocabulary in science The project stakeholders agreed that implementing one group of students (SPED Methods for students with mild/moderate disabilities) in the Fall of 2016 would be appropriate as Daviso learned the logistics of the district and the needs of the cooperating teachers. However, the following spring semester of 2017, an additional group of pre-service teachers (SPED Methods for students with moderate/intensive disabilities) were moved into the middle school model. Under this newer model, beginning in spring semester, all teacher candidates enrolled in special education methods (grades Pk-12) for students with mild to moderate disabilities (4 credit hours) and its co-requisite field experience were required to be on-site at an area urban middle school Monday and Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. All teacher candidates enrolled in special education methods for students with moderate to intensive disabilities (4 credit hours) and its co-requisite field experience were required to be on-site at an area urban middle school Monday and Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. See table five for dual class delivery details.
University Classroom briefing on the lesson of the day in dedicated classroom 9:30 -11:00 a.m.
Pre-service teachers in special education provide one-to-one instruction as needed with mentor student 12:00 -3:00 p.m.
Daviso meeting with cooperating teachers regarding progress, projects and scheduling issues At the beginning of the semester, special education methods students became familiar with the primary goals and principals of the lived-in model. Throughout the semester university method students worked in teams to plan, construct, implement, and reflect on instruction in their discipline. In the first week, methods students were presented with the required units to be implemented, provided instruction in edTPA formatting and planning, IEP construction and implementation, and a curriculum topic to plan as selected in consultation with cooperating teachers. Daviso provided access to instructional videos and materials for the semester using Live Binder and a YouTube Channel. As the class moves from campus to the middle school setting, SPED methods students were responsible for remedial instructional tasks, co-teaching with some supervision, and some teacher duties such as making copies, taking attendance, grading papers, and behavior management.
The implementation of both advanced special education methods classes provided a unique opportunity. There is a significant overlap between the educational needs and experiences of a pre-service intervention specialist for students with mild to moderate disabilities (MM) and a preservice intervention specialist for students with moderate to intensive disabilities (MI). Under this model, pre-service teachers can interact with students across the continuum of classroom placements and experience RTI. The school setting offered inclusive settings in core academic subjects (Tier 1), resource rooms for alternate and functional skills curriculum (Tier 3), and small group intervention with grade level tutoring (Tier 2).

Research Findings on a Lived-In Model
After five years of implementing this lived-in model to teacher preparation, Maguth has observed the significant impact it has had on secondary students-some of whom were the most academically vulnerable. Research compiled after the 2016-17 school year finds that 96% of the middle and high school students felt that it was "pretty true" or "very true" that the pre-service teachers helped them improve in school, and students mentored and taught by pre-service teachers, while participating in a lived-in model, showed statistically significant academic gains in those classrooms [15][16][17]. Research by an established external evaluator found secondary students enrolled in classrooms where a lived-in model is enacted demonstrated statistically significant academic gains in overall GPA versus a control group, and students in the model were inoculated against traditional GPA declines as the semester came to a close [15].
While on site, it is commonplace for students we worked with to approach Maguth and Daviso to tell them how a university methods student inspired them, taught them, and made a difference. Maguth has observed a change in both high school and social studies method students' classroom performance, as this authentic learning environment enlivens classroom discussions. With so many trained, competent, and caring adults in each classroom, youth look forward to coming to class and feeling special with all the individual attention received.
Research that investigated pre-service students' experiences after completion of a lived-in methods course show they benefited as well [16][17] In particular, this research shows pre-service teachers believe they have benefited because of this experience in five ways: a. Prepared them to be a more adept reflective educator b. Provided new insights and an awareness into the challenges and pressures urban youth face today c. Improved their ability to plan and implement instructional activities that better relate and connect to the interest of adolescents d. Grown in being a strong communicator, better listener, and classroom manager e. Feel like they are making a difference, while enrolled in their methods class, in the lives of youth The cooperating teachers involved have commented on how their participation has energized them, given them new resources and tools in meeting the needs of learners, reduced behavior management issues and student time offtask, and provided valuable experiences in seeing their classroom and instruction in new and different ways through the eyes of the university students and professor.
Methods professors note how pre-service student attendance has been stronger in lived-in method courses, how using schools as learning laboratories has helped their research and provided an authentic context when assessing pre-service teachers, as they actually work routinely and directly with youth in classrooms, and that teacher candidate's Educational Teacher Performance (edTPA) has increased. While this antidotal data has been valuable, empirical research is greatly needed, that better investigates cooperating teachers' and university professors' participation and perceptions of a lived-in model to teacher education. This data is currently being collected and findings will be reported once data analysis is complete.

Conclusion
This paper described how two methods instructors, one in secondary social studies and the another in Pk-12 special education, successfully employed lived-in models that embedded teacher preparation in real classrooms, all in an attempt to better prepare the next wave of teachers while also empowering them to deliver individualized and high quality instruction to some of our area's most vulnerable urban youth. While there were slight differences in the ways in which these models were employed by the methods professors (i.e. the number of hours logged by methods students, subject and grade areas, etc.), both courses lived-up to the core lived-in principals presented by Foster & Nosol [14]. These included: a. Focusing on developing "strong" high school students (i.e. providing an advanced and meaningful curriculum, motivating and supporting academically vulnerable students, etc.) b. Engaging in long-term, sustained relationships with middle/high school students over the course of the semester. This included methods students building strong rapport with students, individualizing and differentiating instruction, helping youth feel welcomed and more visible in the classroom, and in building and maintaining a professional and powerful pre-service teacher to middle/high school-student relationship. c. Consistently reflecting on the quality of instruction, with their peers, cooperating teacher, and university methods professor, provided to middle/high school students, and adjusting their instruction and interactions where and when necessary to meet the needs of students. Knowing that subject specific methods courses are at the core of advancing essential pedagogical content knowledge [9][10][11][12], we believe that a lived-in model to methods courses help pre-service teachers experience supportive, relevant, authentic, and rewarding field experience in real classrooms working with academically vulnerable youth. Methods courses often come before pre-service teachers progress into full-time student teaching, and lay an important foundation of pedagogical content knowledge [13]. Outside of helping methods students learn about practice in practice [3], this lived-in model aligns well to CAEP's call for university teacher preparation programs and their faculty prioritizing and investing in initiatives that allow teacher candidates the opportunity to learn and train alongside university faculty in schools [18].
While the discussed lived-in model could be considered a low-cost win-win for both university teacher preparation programs and Pk-12 schools, we understand that this model does come with both opportunities and challenges. In the future, we hope to be able to provide methods students and faculty with additional opportunities working across subject areas (special education, math, science, social studies, language arts, etc.) while learning in schools. These opportunities are not as prevalent in the middle and high school as we would like as methods professors. While it's true candidates invest a great deal of time and effort in classrooms over the course of the semester to learn how they are organized and structured, it is also true these efforts in practice take time away from candidates reflecting on how classrooms, learning environments, and the teaching profession could be better reformed and structured. Methods students must not simply be able to regurgitate current practices and the status quo, but draw from their experiences and reflections, across many different placements, to think critically and work towards the transformation and creation of inclusive and successful learning environments. Finally, with methods courses being embedded in schools, pre-service teachers and faculty must remain flexible (i.e. assemblies, fire-drills, school delays/cancelations, etc.) while also understanding the necessary transportation and time commitments for travel to and from schools.