A School-University Collaboration for Preparing Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments: Linking the University and a State Residential School

Abstract

To address calls for restructuring and reform in the mid 1980's, educators proposed joining schools and universities in collaborative partnerships to improve education. Little attention has been given in the educational reform literature, however, to the field of teacher education for teachers of students with blindness or low vision. Reform efforts in this field have been directed at redefining the relationship between universities and state residential schools. In this paper, the authors examine the identification of partners and the establishment of partnerships for teacher preparation, and the resulting lessons learned from developing a school-university collaboration between a state residential school for students who are blind or who have low vision and a university teacher preparation program for the teachers of these students. The authors follow the progress of this residential school-university collaboration through its stages and analyze the implications of the lessons learned for all teacher educators.