Residency Experience

Real World Experience, Rigorously Examined

The residency experience is a cornerstone of the Masters in Educational Transformation, combining the study of educational research and theory with hands-on, experiential learning in schools, nonprofits, school districts, and public agencies. Through their residency, students are immersed in the complex educational contexts of DC, a center of education policymaking and innovation with offers a vivid perspective on the rewards and challenges of a career in the field.

As a center of policymaking and a hub of educational innovation,
DC offers insight into the rewards and challenges of a career in education.

As part of their residency, students work in a setting that aligns with their learning objectives, whether classroom instruction or policy advocacy. In these settings – schools, advocacy organizations, district or charter leadership offices, public agencies, and more – you will apply the skills learned within your courses to real world opportunities. For students in Learning & Teaching, instructional leaders from schools throughout DC serve as clinical faculty for our students. For Advocacy & Policy, students regularly engage with leaders in both local and national nonprofit, public, and advocacy arenas.

A Path to Full Teaching Licensure

As a Learning & Teaching student, you will be placed with a PK-12 classroom in DC as a paid instructional aide, working full-time as a co-teacher while engaging coursework on pedagogy, culturally-relevant education, and child adolescent development. Your time on campus will help you gradually assume greater responsibilities in the classroom, and through our clinical faculty you will receive direct, specific evaluation and feedback on your instructional practice. The goal is to gradually ramp up your skills, confidence, and efficacy by integrating on a daily basis the skills of teaching and running a classroom with the specific knowledge of how to guide aspiring learners. Our hope is that this powerful combination will ensure your success as an instructional leader, a role you will be prepared to assume immediately following graduation. Our students have spent their residency year in DCPS and public charter schools.

From the Classroom to the Hill

In the Advocacy & Policy concentration, students are matched with a nonprofit, public agency, lobbyist, advocacy group, think-tank, or school district, such as DC Public Schools, the US Commission on Civil Rights, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and Parents Amplifying Voices in Education. An agreement between the student, program, and residency sponsor sets ten months of objectives and concrete skills that interplay with coursework to ensure students experience the challenges, frustrations, rewards, satisfactions, and accomplishments of advocacy and policy. The goal is to ensure an immersive, experiential mode of learning while also providing a research-anchored curriculum taught by faculty undertaking their own research into the dynamics of the field. Past residency placements have included:

Diverse Experiences

As educational policy is an ideologically diverse terrain, we welcome contact from any group or entity that seeks to enter into a residency agreement with us, and students may also propose their own residency. We want our Educational Transformation program students to be exposed to all perspectives within the field and we take no position on the advocacy or policy work any residency partners undertake, so long as it complies with all applicable local, state, and federal laws. Whenever possible, we aim to place students in paid positions.