Placing students' needs at the center of PDS work is critical to achieving the integration of professional and student learning. PDS partners and candidates focus on identifying and meeting students' diverse learning needs by drawing on academic and practitioner knowledge. Just as the patient provides the curriculum for medical students, residents, and staff physicians in a teaching hospital, the P-12 students provide the focus for candidate learning and faculty development in a PDS setting. The curriculum for candidates or for professional development for teachers does not come from outside the school. Rather, it is generated from the needs of students in the ESU PDS students and Resica students.
In the end, our student ultimately benefit as our PDS students often return to their host teacher for a portion of their student teaching experience. Through this process our students are receiving additional instruction, instruction presented in a different manner and the benefit of another adult who is familiar with each student's diverse needs.
Once the student teacher graduates, he or she has a more diverse scope of knowledge and strategies for teaching. He or she has already dealt with many of the challenges that new teachers are often faced with, therefore, he or she is able to enter his or her first professional teaching assignment with more confidence, professionalism, and an awareness of the diverse needs of students and how to effectively address these needs.