Finding a Third Space in Teacher Education: Creating an Urban Teacher Residency
Source: Teaching Education, Volume 24, Issue 1, 2013, pages 27-57.
This article describes an urban teacher residency program.
The program is the Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency, a collaborative endeavor between the Newark, New Jersey Public Schools and Montclair State University, built on a decades-long partnership.
The authors see the conceptual work of developing this program as creating a “third space” in teacher education.
The authors detail the ways in which they conceptualize epistemology and clinical practice in teacher education, and changes in the roles of the community, and P-12 teachers that occur in a third space.
Providing an account of this nonlinear process demonstrates the struggles of creating new spaces for teacher education.
The authors believe the theory that informs their work, the challenges they face, and the strategies for meeting those challenges illustrate the tenuous and ever-evolving nature of doing work in the “third space.”