Shifting Our Focus: Collaborating with Urban Schools to Support African American Students

This case study explores the intentional shift in a teacher preparation program at an urban metropolitan university. The need to develop teachers who choose to teach in the region’s urban settings, and who have professional competencies and dispositions that allow them to succeed and thrive, have propelled the shift. In this study, our objective is to describe how a traditional, nationally-accredited educator preparation program changes in order to increase support of urban schools in a Florida school district with a high percentage of African American students. Through the process of knowledge transfer, we utilize a qualitative case study design and collected data through focus group interviews of multiple stakeholders including College of Education faculty, K-12 school administrators, in-service teachers, and prospective teachers. The significance of this study lies in the reconceptualization of preparation practices to be replicated by other urban metropolitan universities. This approach aims to encourage university faculty to collaboratively engage with urban schools and school systems as well as prepare teachers to teach in schools that have high African American student enrollment. Keywords: Urban Schools, Teacher Preparation programs, African American Students