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The purpose of this paper is to explore the meanings and implications of communities of practice; to discuss how socio‐cultural theories and social learning improve pre‐service teachers' understanding of their profession; and to begin a dialogue on how teachers in training can benefit from having a community of practitioners guiding them. The aim here is also to provide a critical re‐evaluation of the state of teacher training in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by looking particularly at social and experiential learning.

In this paper, the author reports on a one‐year study case study designed to inform how communities of practice can shape the professional formation of pre‐service teachers enrolled in a teacher training program in the UAE.

Results indicated that the process of establishing communities of practice around the teachers improves their professional development, however, the danger of emulating poor pedagogical practices modeled by mentor teachers was also found to be a factor for these novice teachers.

This study was confined to the Higher Colleges of Technology in the UAE. The findings of this study need to be confirmed in a wider context.

The study draws attention to the relevance of the community of practice concept and socio‐cultural theory to teacher education.

Planning and implementing in-service professional development to support teachers’ pedagogical practices for English language learners (ELLs) first considers building upon existing teachers’ knowledge and understanding of practice. Teaching English Learners Academic Content (TELAC) is an in-service professional development model that provides an enriched program curriculum to urban teachers seeking to improve teaching practices for their ELLs. Through an integrative approach of learning coupled with learning experiences, practicum activities, observational feedback, and coaching, teachers initiate refinement to practice that reflect culturally sustaining pedagogy. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition/National Professional Development program, Teaching English Learners Academic Content (TELAC) (2012–2017) is a K-12 program in Arizona designed to build a cadre of teachers adept with implementation of instructional strategies that support ELL academic success. All of the participants in this in-service professional development program are K-12 teachers of English language learners, teach any grade level and subject area in urban school districts with a majority of students who are second language learners of English. Teachers’ shared common concern is the need to improve pedagogical practices for ELLs and to personally develop their knowledge and capability to change teaching practices.

Research is starting to suggest the value of professional learning networks (PLN) in terms of supporting educators in their practice. But further research is needed into how teachers’ on-going learning and practice development can be supported by features unique to a PLN. To fill that gap, the research described in this chapter examined the ways in which opportunities and supports for educators embedded within a unique multi-layered PLN enhanced and strengthened their knowledge and practice. Across one-year of a longitudinal project, we gathered multiple forms of evidence to trace 18 teachers’ experiences. Findings reported in this chapter identified conditions in the PLN overall that were combining to support teachers’ inquiry-oriented learning and practice. In addition, the authors conducted an in-depth analysis of one teacher’s experiences. The detailed analyses of this embedded case further uncovered how supports at different “grain sizes” (i.e., across the year; out-of-class activities; reflections in/on practice) were combining to foster shifts in her practice and transformative learning over time. The authors conclude with implications for conceptualizing how a multi-layered PLN can be structured to support teachers’ professional learning and practice development.

This study examined early childhood special education preservice teachers' perceived knowledge and confidence, as well as actual knowledge of functional assessment-based interventions pre- and postuniversity course participation. A quasi-experimental two-group pre- and posttest design was applied to examine (1) initial differences between two groups (by assigned instructor) in preservice teachers' perceived knowledge, perceived confidence, and actual knowledge, (2) growth over time on these three measures, and (3) their concluding performance following course completion. Results indicated mean score differences between groups at the start of the functional assessment-based intervention course instruction. Large magnitude effects were found for both groups when comparing pre- to posttest scores of preservice teachers' ratings of their perceived knowledge and confidence, as well as a measure of actual content knowledge. Posttest scores showed preservice teachers ended the experience with similar levels of actual knowledge, regardless of group membership. Findings indicate preservice teachers may benefit from a preparation course with applied practice to develop knowledge and confidence for using functional assessment-based interventions, a promising practice (What Works Clearinghouse, 2016), to support students with challenging behaviors. Limitations and future directions are presented.

In the United States, policy discussions of teacher education in relationship to teacher quality have tended to focus more closely around debates about the nature of teacher preparation and the need for quality teachers to possess advanced degrees or certification. The field is in need of an array of indicators – a set of powerful, well-researched indicators that can be applied to large public universities as well as small regional private colleges, from university-based programs to “alternative” programs and to more “hybrid” programs. These indicators need to be relevant for teacher certification across a variety of age-ranges and developmental stages. In this chapter, we build on a growing conversation about practice in teacher education and efforts on the part of researchers to identify key features of powerful teacher education. We propose that quality teacher education is designed around a clear and shared vision of good teaching; it is coherent in that it links theory with practice and offers opportunities to learn that are aligned with the vision of good teaching; and it offers opportunities to enact teaching. While these features are supported for the most part by growing consensus in the literature (National Research Council, 2010; NCATE, 2010), there is also an emerging empirical base that provides support for the value of these features as well.

Our purpose in this chapter is to present a model of coaching used in a preservice elementary teacher preparation program that relies on video as a mentoring tool. We call this tool RCA, or Retrospective Coaching Analysis, and it is based on Goodman’s (1996) work on Retrospective Miscue Analysis. We also provide examples of how cooperating teachers used videos to identify important moments of practice to elicit reflection with their preservice teachers.

We collected video recordings of cooperating teacher/preservice teacher pairs engaging in mentoring conversations using videos of preservice teachers’ practice.

In this chapter, we focus on the cooperating teachers’ choices about when to stop the video to engage in reflection with their preservice teachers. In selecting a focus point for the RCA Event, the CTs chose moments that met some of these four criteria: appreciative, learner-focused, disruptive, and/or generative. We also found the challenges in selecting focus points and in staying with moments of video long enough to generate reflection, which made the model of mentoring challenging to implement.

The analysis of this reflective mentoring tool has led to revisions in our theoretical model of coaching, as described in this chapter. The research suggests the importance of closely examining reflective talk between cooperating teachers and preservice teachers. Our work also illustrates a shift in the use of video in preservice teaching from a video-case based perspectives to reflection embedded in practice.

Our study suggests the importance of selecting moments of practice as the basis for mentoring and coaching, but the research helped us to understand that RCA has affordances and constraints, and therefore, should be a tool for teachers to use flexibly within our theoretical model of Coaching with CARE.

Teacher educators will find the RCA model to be a new way of approaching collaborative work with teachers in the field within a practice-based teacher education program.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs have traditionally evaded or been silent on issues of (in)equity and, thus, critiqued for their lack of attention to how social injustices create different outcomes for different groups (The Education Trust, 2020). Furthermore, these efforts have been criticized for placing the burden on individual youth to navigate challenges to SEL without recognizing the influence of systems. Transformative SEL offers an alternative approach that centers the integration of an explicit equity and social justice lens into the conceptualization and implementation of SEL (Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Williams, 2019). Notwithstanding its usefulness as a conceptual framework, mechanisms for “how” a transformative SEL approach may occur have not been well-specified. We recognize that historically, the curricular materials available to SEL educators often take a conformist approach focused on skill-building, coping, and even resilience absent attention to broader social injustices (Jagers, 2016), further burdening teachers with having to redesign curricula to incorporate their commitments into a culturally responsive, justice-oriented pedagogy. We offer stretching as a conceptual category that aims to capture the ways in which educators adapt SEL frameworks and school policies, student–educator relationships, curricula, and instructional practices in order to critically consider and responsibly address their students' experiences of injustice. We argue that stretching of SEL practice is a critical mechanism for conceptualizing how teachers go beyond traditionally equity–evasive notions of SEL to more proactively engage equity issues in their SEL implementation. We will use examples of teaching practice to illustrate and define what constitutes stretching in SEL instruction.

Teachers are central to the learning of their students, and teacher learning is integral to teaching quality. In this study, six teachers who had recently completed the National Board assessment in the Middle Childhood/Generalist certificate area were interviewed over a six-month period about the effects of the certification process on their views and practices. Overall, the six teachers described changes in their practices for each of the eleven standards, with nearly all of the teachers describing changes in three areas in particular – reflection, assessment, and family involvement. In addition, most of them reported that the certification experience increased their confidence as teachers in part because it validated their current practice and in part because others treated them with more respect. Overall, four of the six teachers described their experience as having had a significant positive effect on their practice, with one teacher characterizing the effect as modest, while another reported little change. The teacher who reported few changes did so because she believed that her practices were already consistent with the National Board vision. A number of features of the National Board certification process appeared to contribute to the professional development of these teachers, including the standards themselves, the portfolio process (but not the assessment center exercises), writing structured commentaries, and collaborating with colleagues.

Research over the last decade or so has made it clear that quality teachers matter to student achievement. What is less clear is the ways in which they matter and how we can prepare such high-quality teachers. Nowhere is this lack of clarity more evident than in special education, where we have few studies on teacher quality and even fewer studies on the type of preparation opportunities that would lead to high quality. Thus, it is difficult to make evidence-based decisions about how quality special education teachers should be defined and prepared. As a field, we have to turn to research in general education to provide a sense of some of the dimensions of teacher quality and effective teacher education. In this chapter, we provide a summary of the research on characteristics of highly qualified teachers and what we know from the research on teacher education and professional development that might foster these qualities, both in general and in special education. Part of our discussion centers on the concerns surrounding this body of research and the challenges of applying the findings to the field of special education. Although these challenges pose considerable problems, we are optimistic that potential solutions exist and can be reached through an alignment of initial teacher education and induction.