The presentation includes the results of a descriptive case-study in which a university-based Hungarian practice school is compared to the model of Professional Development School.

Hungarian Initial Teacher Education (ITE) is based on a concurrent model which means that the theoretical component and practical training are given at the same qualification time (European Commission, Eurydice, 2015). Pre-service teachers need to take part in three kinds of school practice. There are two (short) school practices in a group form of the candidates parallel with the theoretical courses set in a university-based practice school, and one long individual teaching practice at a non-university based school after that. (Hungarian Government, 2012).

The Hungarian system works with what is called a “complementary” university-school partnership, which means that the maintenance agency of the practice schools is the higher education institution. However, it aims to achieve the complementary partnership by giving some responsibilities to the partner institutions, the problem is that both the university and the practice school have their own responsibilities but the real integration of different fields is missing (see Furlong, 2006). Hence, some problems were identified in this kind of ITE system. The isolation of the university courses, as well as the missing element of improving candidates’ collaborative skills lead to some challenges for novice teachers: inability to link the pieces of subject, psychological and pedagogical knowledge and transfer them into practices; the lack of procedural skills especially on the field of class management and meeting student needs (Hagger & McIntyre, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 2006; Vick, 2006; Jensen, et al., 2012). That is why ITE systems like the Hungarian one need to be reformed into a more practice-focused and collaboration-based system. Professional Development School (PDS) is one of the ITE models that has a specific focus on these aspects (The Holmes Group, 1990, Clark, 1999). The goals of the organizational model are teacher candidate’s preparation, professional development of in-service teachers, supporting action researches and dissemination of innovations, as well as improvement of students’ school experiences.

This research aims to examine a typical Hungarian practice school that works in academic ITE environment with a complementary partnership in the light of the PDS model. The research questions are as follows:

What kind of features of system thinking are achieved in the practice school?

Who and how are involved in collaborative learning?

What does experiential learning mean in the practice school?

What possibilities of experimentation does the practice school provide?

On what level and in what form is knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing achieved in the practice school?

Research design: The presented study is a descriptive case-study in which a case school is compared to idealized theoretic patterns. The case school is a typical practice school operating in a university-based model of ITE system. The idealized pattern in this study is Professional Development School. The study is based on the examination of the case according to five main PDS factors: system approach (problem-solving), experimentation, experiential learning, collaborative learning, and knowledge sharing. Sampling: The case school is a part of Eszterházy Károly University which is one of the largest teacher training institutions in Hungary with around 3000 students. The University Practice School is an average primary and secondary school in Hungary as far as the assessment of children’s performance is concerned. The school has two main functions. It is a public school and a part of higher education. There are 1300 school children. The current study focuses on three sample groups concerning the higher education role of the case school: primary and secondary school teachers (N=102) of the practice school including student teacher supervisors (N=34); university educators of subject teaching methodology (N=20); and pre-service teachers (N=22) doing their group practices during the research. Research methods: The researchers developed three questionnaires: One for school teachers of the practice school; one for university educators of subject teaching methodology; and one for pre-service teachers. The questions were linked to five main topics of the research: features of system thinking in the practice school, the possibility of collaborative learning, the possibility of experiential learning, the possibility of experimentation, the forms of knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing. The data collection took place in online form. Data analyzation: The data were analysed with descriptive (frequencies, crosstab analysis) and mathematical (correlations, regressions) statistics by SPSS software. The open-ended questions were content analyzed with an open coding process of the answers. The reliability of the content analysis was proved by intercoding process. (Dafinoiu & Lungu, 2003 Lombard, et al. 2002).

In our case study, we analyzed a typical Hungarian practice school by five factors of a Professional Development School. Our results gave evidence of the main shortage areas of university-based ITE. Based on the findings, it can be claimed that the biggest problem of this kind of system is the lack of synchronicity between university courses and school practice, which is the result of not effective collaboration on different levels. It implies the need for a new approach. Therefore, only some structural changes in the concept of ITE are not enough. Moving from a complementary university-school partnership to a collaborative one (by following PDS model) would lead to thinking in a system concerning the approach, the structure and the contents of ITE. The collaborative work of involved members of ITE not only helps to improve the problematic fields of supporting children’s learning process but also stimulates experiment, innovations and researches. It would contribute to a wider form of knowledge sharing as well as more complex and effective professional development of pre-service teachers, teachers and educators. The data also showed that pre-service teachers’ main problems and feelings of deficiency with teacher education seem to be related to the school teachers’ main general challenges, such as students’ behavioral problems, meeting students’ needs.

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