Design Principles for Teacher Preparation: Enacting the Science of Learning and Development
Over the last several decades, we have learned a great deal about how people learn and develop from research in neuroscience; the developmental and learning sciences; and fields like anthropology, sociology, and social psychology. New insights into how people learn imply that important changes should be made in both schools and educator preparation programs to support whole child learning and development. To shift classrooms into learning environments that support the whole child, teachers themselves must learn their craft in preparation programs that attend to the science, structures, and practices that support deeper learning and equity.
This report incorporates the emerging research with the wisdom of practice found in exemplary teacher preparation programs to create a set of five design principles that enable preparation programs to model Science of Learning and Development (SoLD)-aligned approaches to teachers. These principles include both the “what” of teacher preparation—the content educators need to learn about children and how to support their development and learning—and the “how”—the strategies for educator learning that can produce deep understanding; useful skills; and the capacity to reflect, learn, and continue to improve.
Principle 1: Curriculum Rooted in a Deep Understanding of Learners, Learning, and Development
A curriculum rooted in a deep understanding of learners, learning, and development is the most important foundation teacher preparation programs can offer to ensure that teacher candidates have the knowledge and skills to teach and support children well. Preparation programs should be attuned to these tenets of learning and development when considering how they are developing learning environments for their aspiring teachers.
To achieve these goals, educator preparation programs (EPPs) should prepare teachers to:
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Support the complex ways in which children learn and develop
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Foster learning that is rooted in culture, experience, and relationships
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Understand the conditions necessary for optimal brain development in children and adolescents
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Evaluate, modify, and adapt curricular materials to support individual students' learning
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Create assessment approaches that allow students to learn deeply, engaging in inquiry that is relevant to their lives
↓ Download PDF: Principle 1
Principle 2: Development of Skills, Habits, and Mindsets of an Equitable Educator
Students learn best when they can connect what happens in school to their experiences and cultural contexts; when their teachers see students' families and communities as assets and are responsive to their strengths and needs; and when their environment affirms and supports their identities, reinforcing their sense of value and belonging.
To achieve these goals, EPPs should prepare teachers to:
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Develop mindsets that support all students well and equitably
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Understand how to create environments of trust and belonging
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Build partnerships with families, community members, and other educators
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Understand how contextual realities impact the experiences of their students, their understanding of themselves, and their perceptions of social identities
↓ Download PDF: Principle 2
Principle 3: Rich, Experiential Learning Opportunities
All learners—including prospective teachers and their students—actively construct knowledge and pursue meaning based on their experiences, relationships, and social contexts. EPPs should be designed to immerse teacher candidates in active and compelling learning opportunities that are paired with authentic and performance-based assessments. Programs should coordinate coursework and fieldwork to provide a full range of adult learning experiences as part of their scope and sequence, including practice, feedback, skill development, growth in understanding, and expansion of capacity for adaptive expertise. This includes pedagogical activities that promote inquiry and cycles of reflection and the use of strategies that support purposeful analysis of teaching, learning, and reasoning through complex practice situations.
To achieve these goals, EPPs should prepare teachers to:
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Deeply examine student learning for different students in different contexts
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Plan curriculum with students’ learning goals and trajectories in mind
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Incorporate strategies that are supportive for individual learners
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Build tasks that are motivating and well-scaffolded
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Use a repertoire of teaching strategies that can build understanding by enabling discussion, application, practice, feedback, and opportunities to revise
↓ Download PDF: Principle 3
Principle 4: Pedagogical Alignment and Modeling
A critical program strategy for enabling teacher candidates to learn sophisticated approaches to teaching is pedagogical alignment in both coursework and clinical work around a coherent vision of whole child development, learning, and teaching. In both their coursework and clinical work settings, new teachers should experience the very kinds of teaching strategies they are expected to develop for their pupils. In subject areas, this may focus on the modes of inquiry in the disciplines—for example, approaches to scientific inquiry, historical or social science research, mathematical modeling, literary analysis or close reading, writing processes, and so on. In more cross-cutting areas like classroom management, this may focus on strategies like community circles, design of classroom responsibilities, and restorative practices that are used in both coursework and clinical site contexts so that candidates experience and see how they can create a strong learning community that functions to create membership, shared norms, and positive supports for behavior.
To achieve these goals, EPPs should be designed to:
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Model a developmental approach to learning and development
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Unpack approaches they expect teacher candidates to use in practice
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Integrate theory and practice around SoLD-aligned principles
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Prepare educators who focus on whole child development and understand how to implement holistic models of learning into their teaching
↓ Download PDF: Principle 4
Principle 5: Supportive Developmental Relationships in Communities of Practice
Teacher candidates can benefit from professional learning communities within their university classrooms, within their clinical placement schools, and within disciplinary and professional groups. These communities can be designed and nurtured to provide supportive environments that allow candidates to productively engage with real problems of practice as they promote active, interactive, constructive, and iterative learning. In such settings, the social aspects of learning come to the fore, as does the active, and shared, construction of knowledge and understanding. Preparation programs should draw in particular upon research that describes learning in professional communities to consciously create, model, and help teacher candidates learn to engage productively in these communities; with experienced and expert leaders and colleagues so that they are surrounded with examples and supports for participation, problem-solving, and the work of teaching.
To achieve these goals, EPPs should be designed to:
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Attend to the social aspects of learning
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Give time and space to the development of professional communities of practice
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Have strong, reciprocal relationships with PreK–12 schools that hold a common vision for practice
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Model how to create authentic, trusting learning communities that are expansive and inclusive
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Create opportunities where educators observe one another, share practices, develop plans together, and solve problems collectively
↓ Download PDF: Principle 5
Design Principles for Teacher Preparation: Enacting the Science of Learning and Development by Linda Darling-Hammond, Maria E. Hyler, and Steve Wojcikiewicz, with Joy Rushing is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The EdPrepLab’s work on this project has been supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Skyline Foundation, Spencer Foundation, and W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation. Additional core operating support for LPI is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.