Research On Urban Teacher Residency Program In America

Urban Teacher Residency is a post bachelor teacher education program which draws on the successful experience of cultivating residents in medical college. Based on the urban district, Urban Teacher Residency stresses the collaboration among district, higher education institution and non-profit organization. The potential residents of UTR are individuals who own bachelor degree and are willing to be teachers. After being a resident of UTR, each resident has to intern under the guidance of a veteran mentor in the classroom of public schools in the urban district within a year and takes the coursework in the cooperating university. The resident will receive salary in a year long resident period. When the residency is over, the qualified residents will harvest a Master degree and a state certification of teachers. Besides, the residents must implement the contract on working in the public school in the district for more than three years under the support of UTR, or they have to repay the salaries and training expenses.Crowned as the third way of teacher education in America to distinguish from the traditional teacher education and alternative route, the cultivating model of Urban Teacher Residency is a new pattern of teacher education after the American teacher education circle conforms to the world trend of stressing practice in teacher education. Since its birth, it gets extensively attention and public praise from American president:Obama. The research is established in the bright spot in innovating tide of teacher education in America and attempts to analyze the model in every corner.Firstly, the research starts from the emerging background and reasons of Urban Teacher Residency. The deficiencies of traditional teacher education, alternative route and professional development schools are background which made it born, while the special environment of urban district and the shortage of teaching force in quantity and structure are reasons. Secondly, the research digs into the cultivating ideologies and objectives of Urban Teacher Residency. It discusses the clinically-practiced teacher education, cognitive apprenticeship and reflective practice teacher education. It also refers to the concept of teacher leaders which is the objective of UTR. Thirdly, the research explores the three process of UTR, namely recruitment, residency year and post residency. Nevertheless, it also inspects the Urban Teacher Residency Union as its development. The Boston Teacher Residency and Academy for Urban School Leadership are two examples to investigate in this part. Fourthly, after exploration into UTR, the research educes seven features, seven achievements and four main difficulties it meets. Last but not least, on the basis of previous discussion, the research not only holds on the essence of Urban Teacher Residency but also gives some good advices for teacher education in China like changing value orientation of emphasizing the connection between theories and practices, strengthening vocational education to carry out the integration of teacher education and so on.