Since 1997 the Ithaca College Department of Education has maintained partnerships with public schools in New York City through our NYC Field Experience Program (NYCFx). Our first and longest partnership has been with the Frederick Douglass Academy. Over the years the partnerships have expanded from one school to four partner schools across Harlem, Washington Heights and Queens.
Students Learning from our NYC Partners
Read more about the program and what students have to say.
"I have learned the importance of understanding the history of a community before entering into it and needing to be prepared before entering a space that is unlike my own."
History
"I learned how important it is to get to know the community around the school and/or where your students are coming from (even if it's far) so that you can talk to your students about things that are familiar to them and build community assets into lessons."
Goals
Principal Fullerton Speaking to IC Students
Goals
- To utilize the unique strengths and resources of each institution to enhance the learning experience of all participants;
- To foster a deeper understanding of cultural competence and educational equity by encouraging students and faculty from partnering institutions to cross cultural, social, and economic boundaries to work together;
- To have Ithaca College serve as a consistent college partnership to support students and faculty in their personal, academic, and professional goals; and
- To provide Ithaca College students with experiential learning opportunities in New York City teaching and to encourage teaching in a city environment as a career path.
"The facilities they have for Agricultre are every Ag teacher's dream, and the way the Ag program is run is top-notch."
Purpose
The farm at John Bowne High School in Queens
As a teacher preparation program, we strive to prepare our teacher candidates to teach in a variety of environments and think critically about educational equity in those environments. Our partnerships with NYC schools continue to push our thinking around teacher education and educational equity. While IC and its teacher candidates benefit highly from our NYC partner collaborations, we feel we can do more to enhance what our partners gain from the relationship. During this unprecedented time, when many of the long-existing educational inequities have been further revealed, we are determined to make a greater impact through developing our NYCFx Program.
"My cooperating teacher gave me some great advice before I took over the class - he said, 'Let them be smart for you. Let them teach you.' This transformed my image of what teaching is, and reaffirmed my belief that if you have high expectations for your students, they will meet them."
Mr. Jones speaking to IC Students
While our program provides a meaningful experience for our teacher candidates, we have identified limitations and believe, with resources, our program has the potential to be a richer, multifaceted, more purposeful program and one that exemplifies a model of social justice and equity by explicitly promoting the following tenets:
- implementing anti-racist and culturally responsive curricula
- assisting partnering NYC teachers and students to access needed resources
- fostering teacher and student agency, choice, self-care and dignity
- emphasizing bidirectional relationships grounded in collaboration, feedback and evaluation
"A major thing I learned is to make sure there is a way to make all students feel heard and able to participate."
Foundational Components
To uphold our departmental mission of educational equity and social justice, and to model a culture of mutuality with our partners, our goal is to enhance our practice by supporting our partnering schools in new and creative ways; ways in which our partners have expressed interest. Currently there are three foundational components to the NYCFx Program to expand on: 1.) the fall visit to our partnering schools, 2.) IC Summer College, and 3.) year-round correspondence and collaborations.
Every October, Ithaca College faculty, staff and teacher candidates travel to NYC to be in our partner schools for a week of rigorous professional development. Teacher candidates shadow teachers and students, create and facilitate class lessons that align with their content areas of study, and most importantly, build relationships with teachers and students. Every year, our teacher candidates express how impactful their fieldwork in NYC is and how much they learn from our partners and their students.
NYC Teachers visiting Ithaca College and IC students in the summer
During the summer, Ithaca College offers a Summer College Program to high school students in which students can enroll in select courses. Each year a group of five to ten students from a NYC partner school have participated in this program, providing college credit to those who may otherwise not have equitable access to advanced placement (AP) courses. While students are at IC taking classes, staff and faculty involved in the NYCFx Program organize events on campus to welcome NYC students and build community. At times, teachers from NYC have joined us in Ithaca to celebrate their students and our partnerships.
Additionally, throughout the year, we continue to collaborate with our NYC partners. IC faculty and staff have travelled to NYC upon request of our partners to offer professional development workshops and opportunities for in-person fall program planning. Regularly, our NYC partners reach out with powerful ideas to enhance our collaborations and we do the same.
NYCFx Mini-Grants
This grant is specifically designed to support NYC partnering schools. Teachers eligible are those who mentor IC students during our fall visit to NYC. Funding is to support classroom projects, resources or professional development. Mini grants will generally not exceed $800 per applicant. Multiple teachers can collaborate on an application, and/or include students as collaborators on an application. Funds cannot be used to pay for any personnel expenses. The application deadline is November 15, 2021, and decisions can be expected by December 1, 2021.
Link to survey application will be posted soon.