Supportive Relationships in Communities of Practice
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Teacher candidates can benefit from professional learning communities within their university classrooms, clinical placement schools, disciplinary groups, and sometimes, within other affinity groups. These communities can allow candidates to productively engage with real problems of practice as they promote active, interactive, constructive, and iterative learning. School communities are expansive and candidates should have experiences with every element of the community—such as faculty and staff in all parts of the school, families, and community organizations that may work with the school.
Preparation programs should consciously create, model, and help teacher candidates learn to engage productively in these communities so that they are surrounded with examples and supports for problem solving. To do this, programs need strong, reciprocal relationships with PreK-12 schools, enabling clinical placements aligned with the candidates’ learning. Engaging with research and reflecting on practice are ways that communities of practice can learn together. This facilitates candidate understanding of the whole child within the contexts that are closest to the child.
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Debriefing What’s Needed to Plan and Facilitate a Discussion in a Secondary English Methods Course 
In this secondary English methods course, the teacher educator is leading teacher candidates in a debrief after a small group discussion of an assigned passage. The teacher candidates were tasked with collaboratively preparing for and facilitating a short discussion among their classmates using specific facilitation strategies. In the debrief, the teacher educator asks candidates to think about their growth in using the specific facilitation strategies they’ve been learning, pressing them to notice the knowledges—content knowledge, knowledges of learners and learning, pedagogical knowledge—they needed in order to prepare for and facilitate a successful discussion.
This video demonstrates the SoLD educator principles of curriculum rooted in a deep understanding of learners, learning, and development; supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; development of skills, habits, and mindsets of an equitable educator; and pedagogical alignment and modeling.
Explicitly Teaching Routines in an Elementary Literacy Methods Course
A teacher educator engages an elementary literacy methods course, focusing on the importance of explicitly teaching routines “one day at a time; one day one center” so that centers are not “busywork” but are explicitly introduced to students. In introducing a multimedia example, the teacher educator emphasizes the importance of teachers being intentional about the HOW of their teaching in addition to the WHAT of their teaching. She has selected a video of accomplished teaching to exemplify and model the strategy of teaching students the expectations and routines of center work, and the discussion among candidates is positive and engaged. The teacher educator discusses how over the course of a year, teachers might move from teacher-initiated and teacher-structured centers to those initiated by young learners, aligned to child development.
This video demonstrates the SoLD educator principles of curriculum rooted in a deep understanding of learners, learning, and development; supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; and pedagogical alignment and modeling.
Identifying Effective Discussion Strategies in a Secondary English Methods Course
A teacher educator engages a secondary English methods class in identifying effective discussion strategies. Facilitating equitable discussions is something that educators need to know and be able to do. By engaging the students in examining the practice of veteran teacher Yvonne Divans Hutchinson, the teacher educator leverages her class as a supportive community of practice, develops their skills, and provides pedagogical modeling.
This video demonstrates the SoLD educator principles of supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; development of skills, habits, and mindsets of an equitable educator; and pedagogical alignment and modeling.
Elementary Literacy Read Aloud Rehearsal with Coaching
In this video, elementary literacy teacher candidates practice reading aloud with teacher educators coaching them on strategies to elicit ideas from students as they read aloud. Several candidates practice their reading-aloud strategies—asking questions about the title, having learners turn and talk, etc. The teacher educator interjects during their practice to suggest possible changes to their practice with explanations. These opportunities to practice and learn from and with peers offer rich experiential learning opportunities that can support the development of a community of practice. In one instance, a male teacher candidate pauses and asks whether a moment was fair/unfair, asking for a thumbs up/thumbs down, and then invites the circle to turn and talk. The teacher educator’s coaching encourages the teacher candidate to invite student participation and offer space for multiple perspectives. In a final debrief, the teacher educator suggests letting students’ comments sit for a moment rather than quickly moving on after a student has responded in order to “get more voices in here.” These reminders are to further develop the skills, habits, and mindsets of an equitable educator.
This video demonstrates the SoLD educator principles of supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; rich, experiential learning opportunities; development of skills, habits, and mindsets of an equitable educator; and pedagogical alignment and modeling.
A Cycle of Planning, Enacting, and Reflecting in an Elementary Literacy Course
In this video, a teacher educator supports teachers to plan for, enact, and analyze one of their first quick image lessons with elementary students. The teachers are specifically working on the practice of orienting students to one another. This video includes teachers reflecting and analyzing teaching followed by planning for subsequent lessons based on their reflections. The teacher educator focuses attention on the strategies used to represent students’ ideas and position students competently. See https://tedd.org/repeated-teaching/ for materials that support teacher educators to introduce, prepare for, enact, and analyze repeated teaching and https://tedd.org/designs-for-practice-based-te/ for materials to support designs for practice-based teacher education.
This video demonstrates the SoLD principles of a curriculum rooted in a deep understanding of learners, learning, and development; supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; rich, experiential learning opportunities; development of skills, habits, and mindsets of an equitable educator; and pedagogical alignment and modeling.
In this third-grade classroom, the mentor teacher is modeling for the teacher candidate how she circulates among students to hear their solution strategies in preparation for leading a strategy sharing session. The mentor teacher shares her thinking and decision-making with the teacher candidate to offer insight into when, how, and why she engages with specific students as she circulates and debriefs these student interactions with the teacher candidate to offer her thinking. The teacher candidate has the opportunity to practice after observing. The mentor and the teacher candidate are closely aligned, collaborating in working with individual students during mathematics work time. They are focused on effective questioning to help the students identify an efficient strategy for solving a multiplication problem. The mentor models it while the teacher candidate watches, then the teacher candidate selects a different student to try the mentor’s approach. See https://tedd.org/huddling for materials that support teacher educators to introduce, prepare for, enact, and analyze huddling.
This video demonstrates the SoLD educator design principles of curriculum rooted in a deep understanding of learners, learning, and development; supportive developmental relationships in communities of practice; and rich, experiential learning opportunities.