Journal of Teacher Education

Recently scholars have advocated for using teachers’ practice as a site for teacher learning. The recent proliferation of online, digital spaces, including simulated classrooms, has paved the way for novel approaches within practice-based teacher education. Yet, limited research has investigated the extent to which and how the use of online, simulated teaching experiences promote teacher learning of core teaching practices. The purpose of this study was to examine whether and how integrating simulated teaching experiences into teacher education coursework impacts preservice teacher (PST) learning. Findings showed that the use of simulated teaching experiences within elementary teacher education methods courses resulted in evidence of statistically significant growth in PSTs’ ability to engage in one core teaching practice: facilitating argumentation-focused discussions.

A major affordance of one-on-one mathematics coaching is its potential to provide individualized, contextualized support for mathematics teachers’ learning. Coaches can adjust their work to individual teachers by focusing on instructional improvement goals that take account of teachers’ current knowledge, practice, and classroom contexts. It is, however, essential that coaches and teachers work to attain productive instructional improvement goals that are both feasible for teachers to attain and likely to result in immediate improvements in students’ learning, if attained. In this article, we describe how coaches can identify productive goals for individual teachers and then, on that basis, negotiate goals successfully with teachers, thereby supporting teachers in seeing productive goals as worthwhile. By describing these two processes, we further clarify the forms of coaching-specific expertise central to effective one-on-one mathematics coaching.

Teaching practices that are responsive to student thinking are complex and challenging to learn, particularly for novice teachers. Skilled responsive teaching involves adaptive expertise, or the ability to deliberate about and respond to students’ emergent ideas. This study explored the learning of early-career teachers through participation in a video-feedback inquiry group around the enactment of a number talk routine introduced in preservice teacher education. Conceptualizing teacher learning as socially situated within a discourse community, we consider how participation in the asynchronous inquiry group supported both collective interpretations and individual growth in implementing responsive instructional practices. Findings suggest that giving and receiving asynchronous feedback provided novice teachers with opportunities to engage in dialogic conversations that involved several types of deliberation related to responsive teaching and the development of adaptive expertise. This study provides evidence of the potential of asynchronous teacher inquiry groups and the importance of giving, as well as receiving, feedback on practice.

The present work discusses the relevance of meta-reflexivity, both for the professionalization of the teaching profession and for teacher education. Meta-reflexivity is based on the multiparadigmatic system of teacher education, which finds itself grounded in diverse scientific disciplines. The approach takes uncertainty as an essential element characterizing the act of teaching. Inherent rationales of specific theories and empirical findings are made explicit, thus creating a referential framework for situation-specific interpretations and professional action. Based on a theoretical reconstruction, we propose meta-reflexivity as an essential element of pedagogic practice and, consequently, teacher professionalism. Such professionalism is characterized by teachers being able to undertake exemplary-typifying interpretations of situations, based on a deep understanding of multiple approaches. While assessing specific situations in school, a teacher can refer to these interpretations. Possible principles of a meta-reflexive teacher education are proposed that can potentially enrich the practice of teacher education for a future-proof profession.

Supporting teachers’ attention and responsiveness to the substance of student thinking is increasingly emphasized across disciplines. Yet studies demonstrate how such responsiveness, in practice, is highly contextualized and often fleeting. This study conceptualizes and examines what functioned as “resources for responsiveness” within and across nine sustained cases of responsiveness in three science teachers’ inquiry-oriented classrooms. Analyses demonstrated how a diverse range of personal, social, and material/structural resources facilitated teachers’ responsiveness, with some commonalities but also much variation across teachers. These findings contribute to the field’s understanding of what may support teachers’ attention and responsiveness to student thinking and suggest the importance of (a) responsiveness in the design and facilitation of professional learning and (b) increased attention to teachers’ affect.

In this study, we share the understandings and the reflections of preservice teachers as they engage in focus group interviews about inquiry in social studies, generally, and their reactions to publicly available Inquiry Design Model blueprints. These preservice teachers first discussed their understanding of inquiry, which was rooted in their university coursework. They then described their self-efficacy for implementing inquiry, generally, and the IDM blueprint, specifically, in their current field placements and future classrooms. This envisioned implementation often involved adaptations of the blueprints. Our goal in this research was to reconsider how preservice teachers experience and learn about social studies inquiry and, as a result of these experiences, whether and how they see themselves implementing social studies inquiry with students. This study can inform teacher educators to proactively address common barriers and better support preservice teachers.

Numerous nations implement Student Perception Surveys (SPS) in their schools to assess teaching for student learning improvement. However, research suggests no significant change in teachers’ practices following such student voice-based assessment initiatives, noting their struggle to act upon it. Utilizing the pyramid of student voice as a key framework, we investigate how a Participatory Action Research (PAR)-based professional development (PD) shapes a group of Australian secondary teachers’ interaction with SPS and professional learning. Analyses of the teachers’ interviews, research projects, and reflective notes about their use of SPS illustrate how the PAR-based PD informed their practice, specifically: (i) transforming ‘survey fatigue’ to increased student voice; (ii) contemplating personal, professional, and political entanglements; and (iii) (re)building teacher agency—employing SPS as collective learning tools of professional empowerment rather than accountability measures of teaching. Implications include pathways to strengthen teachers’ agency—honoring their professionalism—in assessment spaces increasingly shaped by student voices.