The Problem of Fragmentation in Teacher Education

Most teacher education in the US is highly fragmented. Typically, university teacher education is a system where preservice teachers learn content in one place (literature, science and arts coursework), pedagogy in another place (education coursework), and how to apply these in a third place (K-12 classrooms). Often there is too little coordination across (or within) these three sites. Thus, those who are least prepared to build coherence and develop programmatic meaning—the preservice teachers—are charged with the task of determining the connections between their many experiences.

At its core, Clinical Rounds is about building programmatic coherence by designing structures, routines, and tools and building capacity among the many individuals involved. Of course, each new innovation has led to additional innovations. We are committed to continually using data and feedback to assess and modify features of the program.