There is more than one way to become a teacher.
For generations, many teachers have entered the profession through traditional, university-based teacher preparation programs. But today, aspiring teachers can also prepare through residencies, apprenticeships, grow-your-own programs, and other alternative pathways. Perhaps unsurprisingly, enrollment in these non-traditional pathways has grown in recent years. In many communities, schools face persistent shortages of teachers in particular grades and subject areas, while the cost of traditional teacher preparation and the opportunity cost of leaving the workforce to prepare for teaching can create significant barriers for aspiring teachers. Pathways that allow candidates to earn a credential while working in schools can offer a different way into the profession.
As the landscape of teacher preparation changes, one question should remain constant: What do beginning teachers need to know and be able to do to help all students learn at high levels?
This is where the TeachingWorks high-leverage practices (HLPs) are critical.
HLPs identify central components of teaching that are important for student learning, participation, agency, and flourishing. They include practices such as leading a group discussion; eliciting, interpreting, and responding to student thinking; explaining and modeling content; building respectful relationships; preparing for teaching using instructional materials; designing, adapting, and using formative assessments; and providing feedback to students.
These practices are not specific to a particular kind of teacher preparation program. A teacher learning through a university-based program needs to develop them. So does a teacher entering the profession through a residency, apprenticeship, grow-your-own program, or accelerated certification pathway.
Indeed, the HLPs offer a useful way to think across these different approaches to preparation. Programs may differ in length, structure, coursework, clinical experience, and who provides instruction and support. But those differences should not mean that beginning teachers emerge with fundamentally different expectations for what they should be able to do in classrooms. Different pathways can lead to the same profession, and all beginning teachers need opportunities to develop the practices that profession requires.
This does not mean that every pathway should teach the HLPs in the same way or devote the same amount of time to them. Programs should make thoughtful decisions about how candidates will learn, practice, receive feedback on, and demonstrate these practices, given their particular design and context. In a “traditional” teacher education program, for example, candidates might study video of an HLP in action in different kinds of classrooms before participating in rehearsals of the same practice, grounded in academic content chosen by the teacher educator. The focus would be on creating shared examples of practice, with the teacher educator’s feedback aimed at illuminating problems of practice with broad relevance across school contexts. Later, candidates might engage in a field task in which they carry the HLP out in a lesson in their field placement. In a residency program, candidates’ practice might be grounded more quickly in the school where they work. They might observe and analyze the work of teachers in their school using an HLP before rehearsing the practice in the context of a specific lesson that they will teach the next day. In this case, the teacher educator’s feedback would likely be more urgent and attend to the specific school setting in which the lesson will be taught. Whatever the pathway, the goal should be the same: preparing teachers who are ready to do the complex work of teaching.
As the landscape of teacher preparation continues to change, we need standards that can travel across pathways. High-leverage practices can provide one such common foundation—helping programs of all kinds focus attention on what beginning teachers need to be able to do for their students, not simply on the route they took to become teachers.
For more information on the high-leverage practices and how they can be used in teacher education, see our newly published report, High-Leverage Practices of Teaching.