sciencedirect.com – Conceptualizing the work of facilitating practice-embedded teacher learning

Increasingly, teachers are asked to make their practice public for collective inquiry. In “practice-embedded” professional learning experiences, educators work alongside colleagues to enact instruction in front of each other with students present. How teacher educators facilitate these professional learning settings is critical to successfully supporting teachers’ learning. This study identified facilitation practices and described the functions they fulfill toward fostering productive practice-embedded environments, including promoting collaborative learning, supporting teachers’ experimentation with and analysis of instructional practice, and shaping the emotional space. The practices identified can support the work of facilitators in creating practice-embedded experiences for pre-service and in-service teachers.