Practice-based Teacher Education Research Articles

Lifelong Learning and Metacognition in the Assessment of Pre-service Teachers in Practice-Based Teacher Education

Initial teacher education should prepare pre-service teachers to develop effective teaching and lifelong learning tendencies. This study aimed to identify the component to consider in pre-service teachers’ assessment processes that promote lifelong learning and develop metacognition skills. For this, it analyzed how the planned and implemented actions by the teacher educators in Practice-based Teacher Education programs promoted metacognition and lifelong learning in the pre-service teachers. The method was a mixed explanatory sequential design. Quantitative and qualitative instruments were applied. Information was obtained from the learning and assessment resources (72 syllabi and 14 assessment tasks) and pre-service teachers’ opinions (survey: n = 231, interviews: n = 8). The findings identified three main components: (i) authentic and relevant assessment tasks, (ii) prior communication of instructions and evaluation criteria, and (iii) frequent performance-focused feedback from peers and teacher educators during and at the end of assignments. The study results can be valuable in teacher education programs to strengthen assessment processes, promote lifelong learning tendencies, and develop metacognitive skills among the teachers in training.

An Analysis of the Questions Elementary Education Teacher Candidates Pose to Elicit Mathematical Thinking

ABSTRACT This paper describes the findings of a study that examined the questions elementary education teacher candidates (TCs) posed while facilitating a number talk or a discussion about a word problem with elementary school students. The TCs in this study were undergraduates participating in a practice-based mathematics pedagogy/methods course designed to provide multiple experiences unpacking, planning, and rehearsing pedagogies focused on eliciting students’ mathematical thinking. Recordings of the TCs facilitating a discussion were analyzed using two different frameworks: question types from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Principles to Action and components of eliciting students’ thinking. Findings indicate varied levels of questions across participants, but showed that some TCs were able to pose question types aimed at effectively eliciting students’ mathematical thinking. Implications for future studies include further examination about how to increase TCs’ enactment of effective questions in classrooms after practice-based teacher education activities.

Ambitious Coaching Core Practices: Borrowing From Teacher Education to Inform Coach Development Pedagogy

Coach development programs have been moving away from knowledge focused, rationalistic pedagogies toward more constructivist, applied approaches that recognize the complex, relational, and contextual nature of coaching and learning to coach. Teacher educators have been doing similar pedagogical work: trying to identify the dynamic elements of what makes an expert teacher and distill those elements into a learner-centered teacher education framework that brings knowledge into action. One such practice-based teacher education framework is ambitious teaching core practices. Core practices are empirically-based moves and social routines that teachers learn to enact adaptively to enhance learning across diverse groups of students. The purpose of this study was to explore the application of ambitious teaching core practices to coach development and take a step toward identifying and defining coaching core practices. Findings from this Delphi panel of expert coaches resulted in 15 ambitious coaching core practices for facilitating athlete performance and well-being including allowing space for athlete exploration, creativity, and problem solving and developing and flexibly executing a practice plan. Applying the concept of core practices to coaching is both a novel way to understand effective coaching and a first step toward a new practice-based coach development framework.

Understanding and Learning to Do Teacher Education in an Introductory Methods Course

ABSTRACT The development of a teacher educator requires a sustained, systematic, and critical inquiry into one’s own practice. The purpose of this study was to explore how two doctoral students, in their first semester of doctoral study, understood how to do physical education teacher education in an introductory teaching method class, through the lens of socialization theory. This was a collaborative self-study using an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three themes were identified. First, social justice and its sub-themes: (a) challenges in changing habited behaviors, (b) social justice issues embedded in the class material, and (c) understanding diversity, change, and the importance of adaptability. Second, practice-based teacher education and its two sub-themes: (a) alignment between theory and practice, and (b) core teaching practices. Third, adapting to the COVID-19 environment and sub-themes of: (a) environmental constraints, (b) improving while being online, and (c) creating a supportive and caring atmosphere in the breakout sessions. Our recommendations include using self-study as a tool to help doctoral students understand and do teacher education.

Developing Preservice Teacher Conceptions of Effective Teachers Using Classroom Scenarios to Practice Difficult Conversations

Faculty from three different teacher preparation programs implemented classroom scenarios to help preservice teachers practice holding difficult conversations with students. The goal was to enhance critical reflection and discussion around creating culturally responsive classrooms to change preservice teacher conceptions of effective teachers' qualities. Results indicate that preservice teacher conceptions of effective teachers shifted from a focus on personal attributes to teaching skills. This study addresses the need for practice-based teacher education that has advanced in parallel with efforts to find new ways to the practical knowledge needed to be culturally responsive teachers.

Opportunities to Develop Lifelong Learning Tendencies in Practice-Based Teacher Education: Getting Ready for Education 4.0

Education 4.0 prepares new generations to develop the skills required to perform in a technological, dynamic, and unpredictable world. The main barrier to implementing Education 4.0 in schools is that teachers have not been trained for it. Given the advances and new resources of the technological field, teacher preparation will be insufficient if it focuses on technological skills but does not incorporate the necessary dispositions for lifelong learning. Universities have the ethical imperative to update teacher education so teachers can become lifelong learners. The objective of this study was to understand whether practice-based curricula offer opportunities to promote lifelong learning tendencies. We used a sequential explanatory method. Quantitative and qualitative instruments were applied to pre-service teachers (survey: n = 231, semi-structured interviews: n = 8), and causal and descriptive approaches were supported by a structural equation model and constant comparative method, respectively. Data triangulation confirmed and added depth to the relationship found. Practice opportunities provided by teacher educators in learning activities and assessment tasks promote curiosity, motivation, perseverance, and self-learning regulation, when they are (i) systematic; (ii) relevant to the classroom work; (iii) presented with clear instructions and effective rubrics; (iv) accompanied with feedback focused on the task, soliciting reflection, and performed by peers and teacher educators in a trustworthy environment. This research may be of value to universities looking to renew their Education 4.0 programs because it shows that practice-based curricula not only transform pre-service teachers into teaching experts but also into lifelong learners.

Preservice Physical Education Teacher’s Development of Adaptive Competence

Purpose: This study had two purposes. One purpose was to explore preservice physical education teachers’ development of adaptive competence in six core practices during planning and teaching in physical education. The second purpose was to understand how rehearsals and repeated teaching as two pedagogies of practice-based teacher education were perceived by preservice teachers in their development of adaptive competence. Methods: This was a mixed-methods study using descriptive analysis to analyze data collected from lesson plans and a collective case study to analyze semistructured interviews. Findings: Preservice teachers made the most adaptations in the core practices of coordinating and adjusting instruction, establishing rules and routines, and providing precise instruction. Rehearsals and repeated teaching were perceived as effective strategies to facilitate the development of adaptive competence in teaching. Conclusions: Findings are discussed in terms of three contemporary teacher education conceptualizations: (a) adaptive competence, (b) core practices in physical education, and (c) practice-based teacher education pedagogies.

A COVID-19 Re-envisioned Teaching Practicum Curriculum

The changes taking place in the schooling landscape because of the coronavirus are real and meaningful and have implications for the training of preservice teachers, especially the teaching practicum component of their initial teacher education programs. The havoc caused by COVID-19 forced many faculties of education into a state of ‘panic-gogy’ to ensure that student teachers could complete their teaching practicums. In this paper we argue that consideration should be given to core teaching practices and practice-based teacher education pedagogies (i.e., representations and approximations) that can be used in alternative “placement contexts” that will supplement and harness the authenticity of school-based experiences. We provide two conceptual tools, collaboratively developed by teaching practicum educators and mentor teachers, that can be used as heuristic by other university-school partnerships when considering teaching practicum redesign efforts.

Democratizing social studies teacher education through mediated field experiences and practice-based teacher education

This dual methods study explored one social studies teacher education program as it attempted to incorporate a cycle of practice-based teacher education into a methods course for the purpose of democratizing the teacher education experience. In addition to detailing the pedagogical decisions of the course instructor, researchers followed two social studies teacher candidates into their student teaching experience. Findings suggested that promoting social studies practice through a pedagogy of enactment is not enough. Rather, mentor teachers, course instructors, and teacher candidates need to be aligned pedagogically as to the purposes and practices of social studies education.

Critical Conversations in Practice-Based Teacher Education: Fostering Equitable Teaching in a Yearlong Practicum

ABSTRACT This study explores the use of critical conversations in a field-based practicum setting to develop dispositions toward, and understandings of, equitable teaching practices. To date, few studies have examined how mentors and mentees use shared reflection to examine issues of equity alongside learning how to teach. Using self-study methods and discourse analysis, I describe how two mentors and one preservice teacher engaged in five critical conversations across one school year. Critical conversations centered around how to design curriculum and use inclusive teaching practices to serve culturally, linguistically, and racially minoritized students in one fifth grade classroom. Findings indicate the participants used ten discursive strategies to initiate and sustain critical conversations, and issues of race surfaced new tensions that challenged the group’s collaboration. Given the turn toward practice-based teacher education, this study offers insights into the ways mentors and mentees can use critical conversations to mediate field experiences and suggests the need for repurposing existing resources to prepare culturally relevant, antiracist, and equity-focused educators.

Does Practice Make Perfect? The Curricular Give and Take of One Teacher Education Program’s Re-design

ABSTRACT As teacher preparation programs across the country evolve in response to criticism, declining enrollment, and increasing competition, research is needed to guide and inform their evolution. In response, faculty at one teacher preparation program embarked upon a two-year journey to transform a program to make it more conceptually coherent as well as convenient and affordable. Upon completion, the researchers employed a mixed methods design involving valid and reliable performance assessments, surveys, and interviews to investigate the impact of the re-design on teacher candidate performance and perceptions of their preparation. Results suggested that the changes led to some improvements in candidate performance, but that these improvements may have come at the expense of other knowledge and skills. Despite prioritizing a practice-based teacher education, results indicated that the re-designed program did not provide completers with adequate opportunity to practice skills across the entire program, and as a result, left completers of the re-designed program less confident in their degree of preparation than their peers who completed the original program. The study shares a number of lessons learned that other teacher preparation programs should consider before embarking upon programmatic re-design.

Preparing Future Mathematics Teacher Educators to Develop Mathematics Teacher Educator and Researcher Stances

The purpose of this paper is to support mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) to prepare their graduate students in becoming MTEs by creating a learning environment to develop epistemological stances. I present the components of my graduate seminar taught in a Practice-based Teacher Education program. The seminar aims to support graduate students to develop their stances and to address the “practice-theory” tension that exists between university courses and the work of teaching. I provide an overview of the class activities and present assignments that support graduate students in becoming MTEs.

Systematic Identification, Implementation, and Evaluation of High-Leverage Practices in Teacher Preparation

An emphasis on practice-based teacher education has led the Council for Exceptional Children to develop 22 high-leverage practices (HLPs). Each HLP is research based, used frequently in classrooms, and applicable across age, grade, and content area. In this article, we discuss the importance of a systematic process for teacher preparation programs to consider when identifying, implementing, and evaluating HLPs. The extent and quality that HLPs are integrated within preparation programs will affect graduating teacher’s professional readiness and their ability to immediately affect student outcomes. It is our intent that this article supports teacher educators and scholars to continue the conversation around HLPs in teacher preparation. In addition, we encourage preparation programs to consider data-based decision making when identifying, implementing, and evaluating HLPs within program curricula.

Second-career teachers’ workplace learning and learning at university

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine career-change student teachers’ practice-based learning in teacher training, with a special focus on the support they received. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a qualitative content analysis of 15 group interviews, including 58 career-change student teachers and focuses on their learning at university and the workplace. Findings This paper indicates that career-change student teachers’ learning is task-related and based on interactions. It benefits from the support provided by actors at the university and workplace. Their learning is highly self-regulated and built on skills from prior professional and life experience. However, behaviourist learning and trial-and-error learning strategies are more often mentioned than constructionist learning and goal-oriented learning. Practical implications The findings underline the fact that universities and schools can enhance career-change student teachers’ learning by providing professional support, helping them to form links between experience from their prior profession, as well as their knowledge acquired at the university and experience from the workplace. Originality/value Until now, few studies have addressed workplace learning in teacher education. The present study aims to address this lack. Moreover, the study shows how career-change student teachers deal with the challenge of bridging the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge acquired during practice-based teacher education.

Approximations of practice as a framework for understanding authenticity in simulations of teaching

Human-in-the-loop simulation is a valuable tool that can support novice teachers in learning how to lead classroom discussions. We ground our use of simulation in a theory of practice-based teacher education, examining how authenticity is theorized around approximations of practice. We then illustrate the use an approximation of practice approach, discussing guiding principles of project work in which novice teachers learn to facilitate small-group discussions with digitally simulated fifth-grade students. Several provocative vignettes illustrate the complexity of authenticity, suggesting additional theorization to help us authenticity as more a malleable attribute than as simulation’s end goal. One implication is that more study is needed, in the context of using virtual environments and humans in teacher education, addressing authenticity, participant perception of authenticity, and their interaction.

Cultivating Epistemic Disobedience: Exploring the Possibilities of a Decolonial Practice-Based Teacher Education

Even as momentum builds for critical, culturally sustaining, and decolonial approaches to pedagogy, curriculum, and teacher education, efforts in practice-based teacher education remain epistemically linked to Eurocentric, colonial objects of schooling, and shallow notions of justice. Yet attention to the what the day-to-day work of teaching is critical to novices’ development, especially when the challenges we hope they will embrace—disrupting oppression and advancing liberation—are so complicated. Clear, concrete models of decolonial repertoires of practice are needed to ensure our teacher education efforts produce skilled practitioners prepared to advance the decolonial project in education. In this article, through a decolonial reading of the practice-based literature, and an examination of rehearsal deployed with decolonial intent, I argue for a decolonial practice-based teacher education that will cultivate educators to engage in epistemic disobedience, learning how to teach while resisting the coloniality that permeates schools.

What if … ? Exploring thought experiments and non-rehearsing teachers’ development of adaptive expertise in rehearsal debriefs

Recent critiques of practice-based teacher education raise concerns about reducing pedagogy to acontextual procedures and decentering teacher reasoning. Building on our model of non-rehearsing teachers’ development of adaptive expertise in rehearsal debriefs, we examine thought experiments as a mechanism for pedagogical reasoning and resisting prescription. Non-rehearsing teachers’ thought experiments were characterized by discussions of what could have happened or might happen under different conditions or contexts. We examine four interrelated types of thought experiments and consider the role of position. Results suggest that thought experiments function as bridges between the simplification of rehearsals and the complexity of practice in context.

Five Trends in Physical Education Teacher Education

In this article we present five trends that are impacting physical education teacher education (PETE). The trends are (a) practice-based teacher education that refines the knowledge base for teacher education, (b) core teaching practices that define the critical teaching practices for successful lifelong teaching, (c) pedagogies of practice that operationalize practice-based teacher education with core practices, (d) the reconnection of health education with physical education, and (e) the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child model. We describe each trend, discuss related policy implications and provide examples of how to use these trends in PETE.

The “wicked problem” of technology and teacher education: Examining teacher educator technology competencies in a field-based literacy methods course

This paper paints a complex portrait of the “wicked problem” of teaching technology integration in a field-based content literacy course in order to analyze how a teacher educator demonstrated a presence (and absence) of Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs). The study indicates that developing technology competencies in teacher educators shares challenges with broader issues of practice based teacher education. It suggests the TETCs would benefit from a clear grounding in theory and should consider the influence of teacher educator TPACK on teacher educators’ abilities to build and demonstrate competency. Overall, framing teacher educator professional growth and development through the lens of the TETCs facilitated reflection and spotlighted areas of strength, as well as areas for improvement, within practice.

Developing adaptive expertise in the wake of rehearsals: An emergent model of the debrief discussions of non-rehearsing teachers

This study explores conceptual links between practice-based teacher education and adaptive expertise, drawing on constructs of teacher noticing and position. We specifically examined debrief discussions following rehearsals, focusing on the experiences of non-rehearsing teachers (NRTs) who participate in rehearsals as students. We propose an emergent model of how debriefs can support NRTs’ development of adaptive expertise, through qualitative analysis of debriefs with secondary mathematics teachers. Debriefs provided opportunities for NRTs to socially construct adaptive expertise through making their experiences public and considering implications for teaching. We discuss ways debriefs contribute to the co-construction of adaptive expertise in practice-based teacher education.