Professional Partnerships: Supporting the Preparation of Pre-Service Teachers Through a Tiered Online Mentoring System

The University of Maryland University College’s (UMUC) Department of Education developed a program to increase achievement of secondary school students and increase retention of Master of Arts in Teaching Program (MAT) pre-service teacher candidates entitled, “Professional Partnerships”. “Professional Partnerships” is a tiered system of support that promotes stakeholder success by providing online mentoring to pre-service teacher candidates from master mentor teachers. The master mentor teachers were provided with web conferencing workshops and online mentoring in the use of technology tools, The goals of the program are based upon the Redesign of Teacher Education and a research based framework that strengthens partnerships with local school districts to include: improvement of secondary student achievement, enhancement of instruction provided by teacher candidates and in-class teachers through the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) content as a tool for instruction, improvement, assessment, and communication within the global educational community.