1. Design Problems in
Prac0ce‐Focused Teacher Educa0on
Francesca Forzani and Deborah Loewenberg Ball
ASCD Annual Conference  San Antonio, Texas • March 7, 2010
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2. Acknowledgements
Bob Bain Vicki Haviland
Hyman Bass Pat Herbst
Tim Boerst Joe Krajcik
Tabbye Chavous Pamela Moss
Betsy Davis Annemarie Palincsar
Donald Freeman Cathy Reischl
Lauren McArthur Harris Lesley Rex
Teresa McMahon Laurie Sleep
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3. The problem
• Calls for teacher educaPon to be more focused on pracPce an
increasingly common refrain
• Some work underway to idenPfy focal pracPces for teacher
educaPon, in general and in specific subject‐areas, and to
design TE around them
• But to date, we have not created a common language for
talking about the core elements of the work of teaching or
focused TE on that work in detail
• LiTle knowledge exists about what the challenges of this kind
of design work would be
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4. Our goal:
To develop a comprehensive professional
training curriculum for teachers that will span
pre‐service educaPon through the first five
years of pracPce, with corresponding
performance assessments
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5. Key ques0ons for today:
1. What do we mean by “pracPce‐focused” or
“outcomes‐oriented” teacher educaPon?
2. What is involved in designing a professional
educaPon curriculum focused on pracPce?
3. What is the difference between learning from
“experience” and learning through a formal
clinical curriculum?
4. What pracPces are essenPal for competent
beginning pracPce, and what disPnguishes
expert teachers from beginners?
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6. Overview
1. IntroducPon: What do we mean by “pracPce‐focused”
teacher educaPon?
2. A short exercise: What is challenging about trying to
idenPfy focal pracPces for teacher educaPon?
3. Five problems inherent in making pracPce the
centerpiece of teacher educaPon, and an example from
the University of Michigan
4. Another exercise: What do teachers need to learn to do
during their first five years of pracPce?
5. Next steps and images from our current work
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7. 1. Introduc0on:
What do we mean by “prac0ce‐
focused” professional educa0on for
teachers?
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8. What is meant by “prac0ce‐focused”
teacher educa0on?
Lampert (2009) has idenPfied 4 ways the term
“pracPce” is used in relaPon to TE:
1. PracPce in contrast with theory: What people do
rather than what they think or know;
2. PracPce as the collecPon of the things that teachers
do rouPnely;
3. PracPce for future performance: doing something
conPnually, in order to improve;
4. The pracPce of teaching: what teachers do in
common
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9. What do we mean by “prac0ce‐
focused” teacher educa0on?
• TE focused on a pre‐idenPfied set of prac%ces,
with repeated opportuniPes for deliberate
pracPce of those pracPces (i.e., definiPons #2 and
#3)
• And we contend that this kind of TE will help
develop a more robust prac%ce of teaching
(definiPon #4)
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10. Core components of
prac0ce‐focused teacher educa0on
• Curriculum: What do student teachers need to
learn in order to become competent beginners?
• Instruc0onal ac0vi0es & seMngs: What specific
approaches and seings work best to prepare and
support novices as they do the complex
relaPonal, psychological, social, and intellectual
work of teaching?
• Assessment: How do we know when beginning
teachers are ready to take responsibility for their
own classrooms?
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11. Consider some of the foci of medical
training
e.g., Conduct a chest examinaPon:
• Observe respiratory efforts and note presence/
absence of respiratory distress
• Confirm midline tracheal posiPon with gentle
palpaPon anteriorally
• Percuss the chest on lel and right
• Ascultate the chest using using the diaphragm
of the stethoscope on both right and lel sides
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12. . . . and of pilot training:
• ConducPng a preflight inspecPon
• Glassy‐water approach and landing
• Normal and cross‐wind approach and landing
• Straight turns and climbing turns
• EffecPve visual scanning
• Runway incursion avoidance
• Crossed control stalls
• S‐turns across a road
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13. . . . or of training for the clergy
• Presiding at life‐cycle events (bat and bar
mitzvah, funerals, christenings)
• Counseling parishioners
• HomilePcs (developing and delivering a sermon)
• Reading for preaching
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14. No equivalent in teaching
• ObjecPves for coursework and for student
teaching and other clinical experiences lack
similarly precise professionally‐determined and
agreed‐upon learning objecPves
• Performance expectaPons for graduates of
teacher educaPon underspecified and weakly
assessed
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15. 2. A short exercise:
What is challenging about trying to
iden0fy focal prac0ces for teacher
educa0on?
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16. What teaching pracPces
are the most essenPal for beginning
teachers to be able to perform
competently?
What would
you say?
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17. 3. Five problems inherent in making
prac0ce the centerpiece of
teacher educa0on, and an
example from the University of
Michigan
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18. The challenge
Professionals working toward prac%ce‐focused teacher educa%on
would need to manage at least five inherent problems:
1. Specify and develop consensus around the core tasks and
acPviPes of teaching
2. Choose the elements of pracPce most necessary for entrants
to the profession
3. ArPculate those elements at an effecPve grain‐size
4. Manage the general and subject‐specific aspects of teaching
pracPce
5. Manage the context‐specific nature of pracPce
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19. 1. Specifying and developing consensus
around core tasks and ac0vi0es of teaching
• Absence of robust professional knowledge base
• Link between parPcular teaching pracPces and
student achievement not always clear
• Weak common language for describing and
studying teaching
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20. 2. Choosing elements most important for
competent beginning prac0ce
• Given vast scope of teaching pracPce and brevity
of professional training, what is most important?
• Are some aspects of pracPce fundamental to
more advanced elements?
• Are there elements of pracPce that are best or
only learned through formal training (rather than
experience)?
• What makes a “safe” beginner?
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21. 3. Ar0cula0ng core prac0ces
at an effec0ve grain‐size
• How to decompose the intricate pracPce of
teaching into parts that are small enough to be
learnable but are sPll meaningful?
• Does it maTer if core pracPces are of different
“grain‐sizes”?
• What to do about pracPces that cut across
mulPple elements of instrucPonal work?
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22. 4. Managing the general and the subject‐
specific aspects of teaching
• How does the work of teaching differ from one
subject to the next?
• Are there pracPces that all elementary teachers,
all secondary teachers, or all K‐12 teachers need
to be able to do, independent of their field?
• What are the subject‐specific pracPces that are
most important for beginners?
• How can we manage with the lack of a common
K‐12 curriculum in the U.S.?
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23. 5. Managing the context‐specific nature of
instruc0onal prac0ce
• How does context interact with a given teaching
pracPce?
• How can we account for that interacPon in
teacher educaPon, parPcularly given the diversity
of instrucPonal contexts in the United States?
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24. An example: Iden0fying high‐leverage
prac0ces at the University of Michigan
At U‐M, we have tried to manage the first three of these
problems by:
• EnlisPng the experience and imaginaPon of a broad range
of pracPPoners and researchers to create a
comprehensive “map” of the work of teaching
• Specifying and using criteria for idenPfying those aspects
of the work that are the most “high‐leverage” for
beginners
• Deliberately choosing tasks and acPviPes at grain sizes
useful for a curriculum of learning to teach
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25. “High‐leverage” prac0ces
• Have significant power in teaching because they:
• Are central to the daily work of teaching
• Make much more likely that teaching will be
effecPve for students’ learning
• EssenPal; if teachers cannot discharge them well,
they will face significant problems
• Fundamental to the development of more
complex pracPce
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26. Considera0ons for iden0fying
“high‐leverage” prac0ces
• Drew on research on teaching
• Drew on recent design work in teacher
educaPon, most of it in specific school subject‐
areas (Ball, Sleep, Boerst, & Bass, 2009; Franke &
Chan, 2009; Hatch & Grossman, 2009)
• Created and veTed our own list
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27. Examples of considera0ons
Considera%ons central to the prac%ce of teaching:
• High probability of making a difference in
teaching quality and effecPveness
• EffecPve in using and managing differences
among pupils
• Useful broadly across contexts and content
Considera%ons central to teacher educa%on:
• Can be assessed
• Can be taught to beginners
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28. Iden0fying
high‐leverage prac0ces
• Used consideraPons to idenPfy list of 88 potenPal
HLPs
• Bundled or further decomposed items to achieve
a shorter list that highlights a range of crucial
features of the work of teaching
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29. Examples of
high‐leverage prac0ces
• Explaining ideas and processes
• Choosing and using representaPons, examples,
and models of core content
• Seing up and managing small‐group work
• Recognizing and idenPfying common paTerns of
student thinking in a content domain
• SelecPng and using specific methods to assess
students’ learning on an on‐going basis
• ConducPng a meePng with a parent or caregiver
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30. 4. A second exercise:
What do teachers need to learn
and demonstrate in the next
stages of their development?
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31. What should a teacher be able to do
skillfully at the end of 5 years of pracPce?
What should differenPate
teachers at the highest level of experPse?
What would
you say?
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32. 5. Next steps and some images
from our current work at U‐M
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33. More work to elaborate the high‐
leverage prac0ces
• Choose content for learning the HLPs, given that the
U.S. has no common curriculum
• Incorporate aTenPon to cross‐cuing issues such as
equity, language, and learning
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34. Design of clinical ac0vi0es and
seMngs
• What approaches work best to prepare and
support novices do the complex relaPonal,
psychological, social, and intellectual work of
teaching?
• What kinds of clinical seings work best for
preparing novices?
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35. An example:
Clinical training at U‐M

36. Assessment
Assessment Points: Assessment Foci:
1. Entrance and • High‐leverage
admissions pracPces
2. In‐program • Content knowledge
3. Exit for teaching
• Ethics,
professionalism, and
relaPonal skill

37. Elementary Mathema0cs
Laboratory
July 26 – August 6, 2010
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Professional development
for teachers, teacher
developers, cooperaPng
teachers, and teacher
leaders
For details: Please contact
eml2010@umich.edu
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38. A closer look: The inner circle
Inner circle: The children’s class
• An elementary summer school class ––
27 local students entering filh grade,
wide range of mathemaPcs
achievement and disposiPons
• 2.25 hours of instrucPon per day
• MathemaPcal topics: fracPons,
permutaPons, place value, number line,
equivalence
• MathemaPcal pracPces: explaining,
represenPng, proving, defining
• PracPces of learning math: recording,
summarizing, aTending to language &
precision, studying

39. A closer look: The outer circle
Outer circle: Research and TE
• Diverse group of professionals
interested in mathemaPcs teaching
and learning, instrucPon in general,
and teacher educaPon
• A laboratory for developing and
studying mathemaPcs instrucPon
and the mathemaPcal demands of
the work
• An opportunity to make the work of
teaching visible to researchers,
student teachers, and teacher
educators

40.
back (wide)

41. Thank you!
dball@umich.edu
fforzani@umich.edu
www.soe.umich.edu/tei
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