That in teacher education we have limited amount of time, so we need to be intentional about what we teach, how we teach it and how we get novices to practice in preparation for the what they will face in school and their classroom.

Whilst there are a number of critiques about practice based pedagogy (that is training not education, that it focuses on observable behaviours and not professional judgement and decision making etc.) what I really like about it, is that it asks the teacher educator to be intentional.

Finally their is approximations of practice refers to creating simplified models of real-life professional situations to provide novices with opportunities to practice and develop their professional skills and expertise, with on time support and feedback.

Decomposition is about how we break down complex practices to more effectively teacher and student to learn. The is is done by giving it a shared language for it to be identified, observed, understood, analysed and reflected upon. Doing this well can make facets of practice visible.

Representation is about the way we make practice visible and accessible to novices. This could include videos, teacher educator modelling, case studies, planning templates, classroom transcripts and classroom observations.

They identified three concepts for understanding the pedagogies of practice in professional education (and therefore teacher education):

1. representation of practice

2. decomposition of practice

3. approximation of practice

Finally Lampert questions the composition of the teacher education workforce & whether they are capable of choosing appropriate practices for pre-service teachers to learn (she doesn’t think this should be left to individuals) + how to organise practice so it enhances learning more than experience.

She also asks this wonderful question about local cultures and whether teacher education can be useful in a universal way.
I don’t have a good answer to that.

It challenges the idea that practice is just doing, seen in opposition of theory, is unhelpful. The job of teaching requires both thought and action if we are to prepare students for the realities of teaching (and help those who are already teaching get better).

A teacher should be able to know what they are trying to teach, what methods are developmentally appropriate and effective, how they might be organised & implemented within the context & how to determine whether the teaching was successful.