Benjamin H. Dotger

“Where's the Line?”—Negotiating Simulated Experiences to Define Teacher Identity

Teacher professional identity is a concept defined and researched in a multitude of ways (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004). This manuscript approaches teacher identity formation from the foundations of situated cognition, social learning, and identity in community practice. Focusing on a unique teacher development intervention designed to simulate parent-teacher interactions, we examine emerging data on teacher professional boundaries and identity formation. Findings suggest that complex simulations and technology-enhanced video reflections provide novice teachers with opportunities to bridge traditional gaps between educational theory and classroom practice.

Because Wisdom Can't Be Told: Using Comparison of Simulated Parent-Teacher Conferences to Assess Teacher Candidates' Readiness for Family-School Partnership

This study used text-related, video-based case materials to assess teacher candidates’ readiness to communicate with families. Participants (N = 141) rated their efficacy for home–school communication and then responded to a description of a classroom-based challenge regarding one student’s behavioral and academic performance. Next, they evaluated two videos, each capturing how a teacher addressed the challenge in a parent–teacher conference. Cases offered contrasting models of communication effectiveness along two dimensions: structuring and responsiveness. Finally, candidates chose which model did the better job and justified their choice. Findings revealed that candidates had high self-efficacy for communicating with families but generated a small number and range of strategies for dealing with the situation; could discriminate between the models’ effectiveness; and their reasons for choosing one model as best centered on their valuing of structuring or responsiveness and their conceptions of partnership. Content validity and reliability assessments of the research materials are described.

Emerging authenticity: the crafting of simulated parent–teacher candidate conferences

Schools of education struggle to provide future teachers with opportunities to engage in and practice parent–teacher conferences. This manuscript addresses the diffusion of a signature pedagogy from medical education to teacher education, specifically highlighting the design and implementation considerations surrounding simulated parent–teacher conferences. Focus group data center on the training of individuals to portray parents authentically during these simulated parent–teacher conferences. Pre‐service teachers’ interview data reflect on the authenticity of this new approach to novice teacher preparation. Implications center on the connections between medical and teacher education contexts and the further diffusion of this pedagogy to prepare future school leaders for complex social interactions with parents.

Core Pedagogy Individual Uncertainty, Shared Practice, Formative Ethos

Attention to the core practices of teaching necessitates core pedagogies in teacher preparation. This article outlines the diffusion of one such pedagogy from medical to teacher education. The concept of clinical simulations is outlined through the lens of “signature pedagogies” and their uncertain, engaging, formative qualities. Implemented in five different teacher preparation programs, simulation data highlight design principles and resulting outcomes for general scholastic and subject-specific problems of practice.

From a medicinal to educational context: implementing a signature pedagogy for enhanced parent–teacher communication

Many teachers are not well prepared for, nor are they being trained to communicate effectively with, parents/caregivers from the different backgrounds and cultures with whom they will interact (Epstein 2001). Yet we know that teachers’ professional communication skills are important as they work with parents to promote the success of all children in the classroom. This summary of research in practice addresses this important preparation need by adapting a widely employed method of training physicians and physical therapists to that of training future teachers in effective communication. Medical and physical therapy schools employ a standardised patient diagnostic tool to present distinct professional cases and provide medical students with the opportunities to practice their professional communication skills in a simulated clinical setting (Barrows 1993; Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) 1998; Manyon et al. 2003). In a similar fashion, I instituted the use of simulated parents as a pedagogical tool that provides teachers with the opportunity to interact with parents who present a variety of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and scholasticrelated variables during simulated parent–teacher conferences. The diffusion of this signature pedagogy (Shulman 2005) from medical to teacher education contexts is guided by a cognitive-developmental framework that: (a) recognises that knowledge is constructed by individuals through experience; (b) emphasises gradual skill development, as persons’ organising principles, interpretations, and reasoning become more complex and integrated over time; and (c) acknowledges that growth is not automatic, but instead occurs as a result of positive interactions within a supportive, yet progressively challenging, environment (Mead 1934; Vygotsky 1978; Reiman 1999). These cognitive-developmental principles are manifest in the following research questions:

What Does Innovation Mean for Moral Educators

This article examines the links between prosocial moral education, educational innovations and concerns of school system personnel during an innovations implementation process. The role of social innovations in promoting prosocial moral education is discussed with attention given to the challenges and processes associated with implementing such innovations. Promising moral and prosocial education innovations are reviewed with outcomes. The authors then describe implementation challenges identified by the original designers of the reviewed moral education interventions. Among the challenges is the difficulty of maintaining fidelity as the moral education innovation is expanded to educational settings. The analysis of prosocial moral education innovations leads to a recommendation of an important new direction for scholars and practitioners as they support diffusion of the moral education innovation. The recommendation highlights the importance of monitoring the affective concerns of facilitators as they diffuse moral education curricula to site‐specific kindergarten (5 years) through Grade 16 undergraduate (average age 22 years) contexts.