The Professional Development Schools (PDS) program offers student teachers a unique opportunity to experience a full year at one placement. The Pekin PDS site specifically has a 25-year history of welcoming interns into their community and sharing their commitment to professional learning.
Dr. Carolyn Hunt, the Pekin PDS liaison, explains how the teachers in Pekin District 108 “are highly skilled at providing high quality instruction that engages students in authentic and meaningful learning opportunities.” She believes that all stakeholders, including the interns, mentors, and professors, are teacher educators who work together to support the elementary students’ learning and engagement.
In addition to observing and teaching in a classroom, the interns also finish their Illinois State coursework. Rather than traveling back-and-forth between Pekin and Normal, they spend three days a week in the classroom with their mentor teachers and the other two taking School of Teaching and Learning courses on site in Pekin. Hunt reiterates, “The Pekin PDS also allows interns to develop meaningful professional relationships with teachers and to learn valuable professional collaboration skills.”
In describing a typical day of school, current Pekin PDS Intern Emma Puntch describes arriving early to her fourth grade classroom to help her mentor teacher plan and prepare before students arrive.
“When the bell rings I stand outside greeting my students every morning while they walk in before the school day starts,” Puntch said. “After announcements, I usually lead a morning meeting and then we get started with our day. I have not fully taken over the classroom yet, so I am taking lots of notes on things my mentor does that will help me in the future, answering my students’ questions, and being a second set of hands (and eyes) for my mentor.”
Dr. Margaret Parker, science education coordinator in the School of Biological Sciences, emphasizes that this immersive experience supports her science methods course because she is able to learn what is happening in the interns’ classrooms, then provide specific support for planning, teaching, and assessing science. Being housed in one of the clinical placement schools also lets Parker and her students easily observe and interact with elementary students during class, which she says “gives our science methods course more of a professional development feel where there is more practical application of lessons, activities, and assessment.”
These opportunities for meaningful and engaged learning are facilitated by Sherry Harding, the Pekin PDS site coordinator and supervisor. Before the year even begins, Harding meets with each intern to get to know them and find the right fit with a mentor teacher in the schools. During the fall semester, she teaches TCH 260 to help interns connect theory with practice, then in the spring, she observes the interns’ teaching and engages them in reflective conversations.
For Harding, the greatest benefits of the program come not from the coursework or observations, but rather, the year-long structure itself. “Interns assist their mentors in preparing the classroom and participate fully in the beginning of the school year,” Harding said. “They learn how teachers set up productive learning communities from the very first day and how routines and expectations are reinforced. Throughout the fall, interns build relationships with their students, establish their role as a teacher, and become familiar with the curriculum. By the time they are ready to begin taking over their first subject in January, interns already know their students well and have had time to grow in confidence with leading whole-class instruction.”
Having the embedded support of district administration and university supervisors also creates further opportunities for professional development, like mock interviews.
Puntch echoes this idea that the year-long experience provides invaluable opportunities to connect with students and mesh with the mentor teacher’s expectations in a way that the traditional student teaching semester does not always enable. What sold her on the PDS program was the promise of a full year of experience before she graduates, and she encourages other teacher education students considering PDS to “go for it!”
A PDS Showcase every fall gives interested students the opportunity to learn more about the various sites across Illinois and engage with coordinators at each site. Applications are due each September for the following school year.
