A Community of Teachers (CoT) is a teacher education program for prospective middle and high school teachers that is strongly supportive of individuals and is highly personalized. CoT is grounded on the premise that, if we are to change the way teachers teach, we must ensure that they experience preferred ways to learn as integral parts of their professional preparation. Three features of the program form the heart of its unusual approach: the Seminar, the Apprenticeship, and the Portfolio.
The Seminar is the cornerstone of all work in the program. It is comprised of 15 to 18 teacher candidates who represent all stages of preparation from beginners to student teachers and all concentration areas. The Seminar is continually led by one faculty coordinator who guides teacher candidates' personalized programs and functions as their advisor and supervisor of their fieldwork until they achieve a teaching license. The Seminar replaces most of the professional education coursework that is usually required to complete a license.
CoT is heavily field-based, requiring teacher candidates to commit to working with one teacher in one school in which they perform essentially all their fieldwork. Teacher candidates spend the equivalent of at least one day a week in their Apprenticeship. Their work leads naturally into the student teaching experience which occurs in the same setting.
CoT teacher candidates achieve teaching licenses not by accumulating credits and grades, but by collecting evidence that they, indeed, possess 30 qualities of good teachers that are described in CoT's Program Expectations. CoT is a performance-based teacher education program; teacher candidates earn their teaching license not by accumulating course credits and grades, but by presenting evidence in the form of a Portfolio that demonstrates that they are prepared to teach.