The role of a teacher is far more complex than conveying content to students. Rather, teachers engage in a broad range of complex interactions daily. These interactions can span from talking to a concerned parent about her son's dropping grade to combatting deficit language from a coworker to deescalating a student who wants to engage in a physical altercation - sometimes all in one day. In these situations, teachers need to engage but must do so thoughtfully. Recognizing this complexity, I orient my goals for my students away from simple tips and tricks that will never be able to cover all the situations my students will encounter as future teachers. Instead, my goal for my students is for them to engage in situations that closely approximate authentic teaching scenarios to the best of their ability and then to reflect on their experience as a key aspect of their learning.
Goal #1: Students engage in situations that closely approximate authentic teaching scenarios.
My teaching model borrows heavily from the learning theory of situated cognition – the idea that learning is the process of enculturating learners with knowledge that can be used as tools rather than demonstrating routines to be replicated (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). The use of clinical simulations is a core component of my instruction, as their use engages each future teacher in several authentic scenarios throughout the semester. The use of clinical simulation draws from a common practice in the medical field, in which future medical professionals interact with a standardized patient, an actor trained to exhibit certain symptoms (Barrows, 2000). In similar fashion, clinical simulations have been adapted for their use in teacher preparation, instead relying on an actor to portray a parent, colleague, or student (Dotger et al., 2022). I use clinical simulations to prepare the future teachers that I teach as their use challenges my students to engage – every student has the opporunity to engage one-on-one with each scenario – but also allows them to do so in a safe environment with low consequences for any potential missteps. I periodically remind my students that mistakes are expected in simulations. I pair this with a reminder that there is no real student in the scenario that they engaged with, that no one has been harmed by their mistakes, and that the simulations are used only as a tool to help them develop as future teachers.
Goal #2: Students reflect on their experience as a key aspect of their learning.
One of the best things about using clinical simulations as an instructional tool is that my students naturally know and learn a lot from their interaction in the simulation. This allows me to position my students as competent and listen to what they felt went well and what they have questions about. Their engagement in the simulation guarantees that they have all had a similar experience and can work together following the simulation to collectively approach the challenges they faced. Rather than telling my students how to handle a situation they may encounter as a future teacher, I ask them how they chose to approach the simulation, what they did well, what they would change, and how they would change it. I have found that students are regularly much harder on themselves than I would be about their simulation interactions. By allowing students to share with one another and reflect on specific, data-driven moments of their simulation, students can work through many of their own questions naturally.
When students reflect, they not only share things they wish they had done differently but they often speak to how they wish they had done something differently and why they think a different approach may be more successful. In this way, students are able to learn from their experience in the simulation before encountering a situation in their professional career. Rather than lecturing at students about how to engage thoughtfully with a parent, colleague, or student, I allow my students to try the interaction, use what they already know to reflect on the interaction, and then I can support them with some of the specific information that they may not already know, such as the requirements for mandated reporting or the nuances of Individualized Education Programs.