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This chapter describes pre-service teachers' teaching practices of didactic methods based on cognitive apprenticeship. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate potential of Second Life® as a space for teaching practices of pre-service teachers. The participants were 160 college students who were completing a practicum at Korea National University of Education. These students enrolled in four sections of teaching methods and educational technology, which was one of the requirements for their teaching certificate. The students were placed in groups of three to five students according to their majors. In Second Life, they practiced their teaching and participated in the evaluation of other groups' teaching. They discussed Second Life's potential, such as a space for expanding their teaching experiences and explored possibilities for using it as an environment for teaching practices. The authors believe that readers will find that Second Life can offer a valuable environment to promote pre-teachers' understanding of teaching techniques.

This paper presents the results of empirical research on the effects of teaching practice on student teachers’ teaching competence and psycho-emotional development using the “most significant change” narrative investigative technique.

Following a qualitative research approach, the study was conducted during the academic year 2021–2022 in two phases (January and May) with the participation of 73 student teachers of the Department of Theology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) during their mentored teaching practice. Student teachers’ narratives were collected and analysed using the most significant change technique (Davies and Dart, 2005). Content analysis was conducted with the contribution of seven independent judges.

The results indicate that the Teaching Practice course with the guidance of mentors has a direct and positive effect on student teachers’ teaching competence. Mentors also seem to have a positive effect on student teachers’ psycho-emotional development. The research also confirms the reliability of the most significant change narrative technique for investigating the effect of related educational interventions.

The study empirically validates the usefulness and potential of the investigative narrative most significant change technique for evaluating the effects of teaching practice on student teachers’ professional development with the guidance of experienced mentor teachers. The results of the study also have implications for the design and evaluation of teacher practice programmes.

Teacher education has long been criticized for having little apparent impact on practice. Despite the fact that the teacher education literature is replete with examples of alternative or restructured programs designed to better align teacher education practices with the anticipated demands and expectations of school teaching, principles of practice seem strangely absent. Principles of practice for teacher education programs must be at the heart of any attempt to construct a meaningful and relevant program that might realistically respond to the expectations, needs, and practices of student teachers. In this chapter, the authors develop a set of foundational principles based on teacher education programs in Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands, in order to initiate a renaissance of teacher education based on fundamental principles to guide the development of responsive teacher education programs that genuinely make a difference.

To explain how an innovative practice-based approach to teacher preparation called the Adaptive Cycles of Teaching utilizes video reflection as part of multiple cycles of teaching across high impact literacy practices.

The faculty research team adopted a design-based research approach to develop and test the ACT model through iterations of design, implementation, analysis, and redesign. The chapter outlines the curriculum and findings from the initial iteration of design.

Teacher candidates experiencing the ACT model developed a strong knowledge of core literacy practices and were able to implement them with children. They continued to need additional scaffolding with respect to the quality of their instructional discourse and the gradual release of responsibility.

Continued research on the ACT model will allow us to refine the ways in which video use can enable preservice teachers to reflect and analyze their teaching and learning.

This chapter considers teacher learning in inclusive co-teaching contexts, specifically the moral dimensions embedded within it. The chapter draws data from a study focusing on teachers’ perceptions of their learning during co-teaching in inclusive classrooms, and salient moral features embedded in co-teaching situations. Data from joint stimulated recall interviews conducted with three co-teacher pairs illuminate that teachers perceived both possibilities and challenges in key learning situations during co-teaching in inclusive classrooms. In these situations, it is possible for teachers to articulate and extract their guiding beliefs toward salient moral aspects in inclusive teaching in order to extend their understanding and revise their inclusive teaching practices. This chapter suggests that co-teaching is a promising practice for promoting inclusive classroom communities where teachers and students can learn together.

Due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary and secondary schools worldwide are deploying online teaching/learning practices, fostering and thus innovation practices. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which practices reflecting educational innovation are implemented in the Greek public primary and secondary schools operating under conditions characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Determining the relationship among these educational innovation practices is also an aim of the present study.

A research study was conducted in the Greek public primary and secondary schools. 522 teachers fully completed a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that administration-related innovation practices, teaching-related innovation practices and online teaching/learning practices are implemented to some extent in primary and secondary schools in Greece, but there is still scope for continued development. The online teaching/learning practices set the foundations for further developing a culture of fully adopting other educational innovation practices in these schools to improve education.

Limited research concerning educational innovation practices has focused on primary and secondary schools. The need for more studies on teaching and learning innovations that have resulted from the COVID-19 crisis is highlighted by the literature. The results of this study support the fact that online teaching/learning implemented in primary and secondary schools is positively associated with administration-related and teaching-related innovation practices, concluding that this forced change in the educational process can act as a catalyst for more changes and innovative actions.

This chapter investigates the impact of a teacher preparation program that includes specific attention to the needs of bilingual learners on participants’ subsequent teaching practices. Specifically, this mixed methods retrospective study examines graduates’ reports of their current teaching practices as well as their perceptions of the Teaching English Language Learners (TELL) program’s impact on these practices. Multiple-choice survey data were analyzed quantitatively to identify trends among reported practices and perceptions. Open-ended survey and interview data were analyzed qualitatively to identify interrelated themes within teachers’ detailed, first-hand accounts of their pre-service and in-service experiences. The results showed that there was variety with respect to whether particular linguistically responsive practices were routine, used occasionally, or rarely. There was also a difference with respect to whether such practices were perceived to be the result of having participated in the program. Notably, the most frequently used practices attributed to the TELL program involved teaching language (TL) to facilitate content learning. Other aspects of the teacher preparation program supported effective practices for academic content learning, but only TELL coursework and experiences facilitated practices that emphasized academic language development. These results suggest that programs created to improve the preparation of teachers to work with bilingual learners in mainstream classroom contexts must make a special effort to develop teachers’ skills in regard to language teaching, especially practices that focus on language beyond the word-level. There are limitations to the study because of the small number of participants and the fact that they were self-selected as program participants.

An investigation of how secondary history teacher education candidates implemented research-based instructional practices for instruction is described as a model of pre-service teacher preparation for social studies teachers. Cohorts of candidates participated in a five-year project while enrolled in a discipline-specific capstone senior methods course and subsequent student teaching experiences. Candidates were surveyed and interviewed concerning their use of, and feelings about, twelve instructional strategies developed with a focus on authentic history pedagogy. Surveys were administered three times: before the secondary social studies methods course, after the methods course, and after student teaching. A variation on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model was used to measure the levels of use and stages of concern of the candidates. Artifacts of practice, including lesson plans from a model unit plan and actual student teaching, also were analyzed to document use of the strategies. Results indicate an increasingly high level of implementation of and comfort with the strategies, as well as the developmental nature of the process. Implications and recommendations for pre-service activities in history teacher education are presented.

This study arises from a recent school-based professional development (PD) programme conducted for English language teachers (ELTs) in a secondary school in the Kingdom of Bahrain, where a participatory lesson study (PLS) strategy was implemented to develop four ELTs' teaching skills and their senior teacher's leadership. The influence of the PLS on creating a participatory PD experience for the participants was investigated through exploring their perceptions of their professional growth during their PLS experience.

Following a qualitative interpretive approach, a total of eight lesson study cases and 16 meetings were conducted and analysed.

The main factors that influenced the participants' perceptions of their professional growth in PLS were high self-efficacy and confidence; dominancy of their peers; the informality of the PLS practice; and reflective practice. Relatedly, the results revealed critical thoughts about PLS as a means for ELT's self-directed PD in non-native English-speaking contexts.

The study provides an alternative approach to PD that can be offered for ELTs in any ESL/EFL context that focusses on supporting non-native English-speaking teachers' practices by associating theory with practice. This approach has enabled them to gain the practical skills they need and develop their awareness about the theoretical principles of these practices. For the first time, teachers were given the role to act as the trainers and the theorisers of their own teaching practices.

The paper discusses the influence of instructional leadership on effective teacher teaching practices and learning outcomes. In particular, the paper examines one of the instructional leadership practices, namely teaching evaluation, and seeks to investigate the influence on the effective teacher practices and on the achievement of 6th grade primary school students studying mathematics in the Cyprus educational system.

A quantitative research approach was deemed appropriate and employed for the purpose of the research subject, and in particular for the type of questions studied. Data were collected from 81 principals, 139 6th grade teachers and 1,553 students in the Cyprus educational system. In addition, data analysis was performed using structural equation models (SEM).

The instructional leadership approach assumes that principal evaluations influence high learning outcomes. Findings demonstrated that the principal evaluation has a positive and statistically significant impact on effective teaching practices and student achievement.

It is important to acknowledge that in the Cyprus educational leadership field the corellation among the instructional leadership, the effective teaching practices of teachers and the students achievements were not examined through the above parameters. Furthermore, the survey provided important insights into the principals, teachers, pupils and, more generally, on Cyprus's educational policy.