University of Hawaii AT Manoa
College of Education Partnership

In 2018, Hanahau‘oli School and the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (UHM) College of Education (COE) entered into a Memorandum of Agreement — “for their mutual benefit and the benefit of education in Hawaii. With a mutual desire to build a Professional Development School (PDS) that emphasizes progressive, interdisciplinary, and inquiry approaches to learning — Dr. Amber Strong Makaiau, Specialist in the UHM COE Institute for Teacher Education Secondary Program, will serve as a bridge between Hanahau‘oli School and the COE as Hanahau‘oli School’s Professional Development Center Director.”

Since then the Hanahau‘oli School PDC and the UHM COE have built upon many longstanding partnerships and relationships to collaborate on:

  • Teacher Preparation, including: hosting school tours and visits designed specifically for teacher candidates; UHM COE coursework held onsite so that teacher candidates can directly observe content being studied in methods and foundations courses; and mentoring via formal UHM COE Observation and Participation coursework, and as a site for Student Teaching during the culminating semester of candidates’ UHM COE teacher preparation programing.

  • The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s (UHM) MEd-CS Progressive Philosophy and Pedagogy track. This 30-credit graduate program is designed for educators and scholars from diverse disciplines and contexts who aim to bring about meaningful social change. Grounded in Hawai‘i’s long and rich progressive education movement, the program is built upon the UHM COE’s partnership with Hanahau‘oli School and other local schools and organizations who are bringing the theories and practices of early progressive educators into the twenty-first century.

  • Teacher professional development, both in-person and online, specializing in: progressive philosophy and education; social justice; school culture & community; early childhood, child development & preserving childhood; inquiry-based, interdisciplinary, integrated and concept-based teaching and learning; the arts, music, physical world lab, world language, digital literacy, and physical education; multi-age and teaming classroom structures; and parent and community engagement.

  • The Hanahauʻoli School PDC--UH Mānoa College of Education joint initiative to advance social justice education. A collaboration with the nationally renowned Teaching Tolerance program, this three-year $100,000 Social Justice in Education project is aimed at growing local educators’ capacity for preparing children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. It is made possible by the generosity and forward thinking of longtime Teaching Tolerance supporters and past Hanahau‘oli parents of Ari Wolff ‘03, Jana and Howard Wolff.

  • Research related to progressive education, inquiry, interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning, and parent engagement. This includes opportunities for “scholars in residence,” who spend longer durations of time on campus pursuing research and scholarship related to progressive education.

As the Hanahau‘oli PDC and the UHM COE continue to grow this partnership, we look forward to further developing Hanahau‘oli School as a lead PDS that is grounded in progressive education philosophy and practice.  We will continue to design and carry out programs for educators, scholars, and researchers from schools across the state, and look forward to expanding the work we are currently doing with national and international audiences via distance learning platforms. We will continue to foster partnerships like our recent collaboration with the UHM COE Learning Design and Technology Department to build the state’s capacity for sharing and utilizing local talent and resources to produce important innovations in education that meet the needs of our rapidly changing world. 

With a commitment to serving a public purpose, the Professional Development Center at Hanahau‘oli serves as an institutional bridge between the school and the community. To view a more detailed timeline from the school’s recent history that describes the evolution of the establishment of the PDC at Hanahau‘oli School, please visit PDC History.