Supporting Understanding Using Representations

Deliberate practice is increasingly recognised as necessary for professional development. This paper sets out to explore in what ways student teachers’ learning activities in a teacher education programme can be characterised as deliberate practice. Based on an in-depth exploration of 574 learning activities, our results highlight the different ways in which activities in teacher education programmes can be designed, the different motivations students have to engage in them repetitively, and different ways in which feedback can be organised, within contextual constraints posed by all professional environments. Results also indicate that self-improvement is not the only motivation for engaging in deliberate practice for student teachers, as pupil improvement is also considered important. These results support a context-specific operationalisation of deliberate practice and provide starting points for teacher education programmes to promote deliberate practice in their curriculum.

Aim of WorkshopTo introduce the concept of deliberate practice (DP) and mastery learning (ML) and how it can be used in simulation teaching to optimise effective learning.BackgroundExperts use deliberate practice...

This study employed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design to examine the contextualization of core values among teachers and learners. The study involved 82 teachers, using complete enumeration to ensure comprehensive representation, and a purposive sample of 12 learners to provide qualitative insights. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Chi-square test of independence to determine the relationship between teachers’ demographic variables—age, sex, educational attainment, years of teaching experience, and attendance in values-based seminars—and the integration of core values, with significance set at α = 0.05. Qualitative data from open-ended responses and interviews were analyzed thematically through transcription, coding, clustering, and theme development. Findings revealed that demographic variables had no significant correlation with core values integration. In contrast, participation in values-based seminars showed a highly significant association (p = 0.001), highlighting the importance of professional development. Thematic analysis identified key themes, including the display of ethical and moral values, fostering respect and empathy, and promoting collaboration and responsibility. Institutional factors also emerged, such as policy-driven value integration, cultural relevance and inclusivity in the curriculum, community collaboration, and deliberate teacher practices modeling ethical behavior. Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative findings demonstrated convergence: while demographic traits were non-determinative, structured training, supportive policies, and culturally responsive practices were critical for effective values integration. These results underscore that fostering a values-driven educational environment relies on deliberate professional development and institutional support rather than innate characteristics, providing a holistic understanding of how ethical, empathetic, and responsible practices can be cultivated in educational settings.

Background:Communication skills are foundational to the practice of medicine and training to build them is recommended. Serious illness communication skills (SICSs) teaching is inconsistently and sparsely taught in postgraduate training and residents report feeling inadequately trained to have difficult conversations. The authors developed an e-module demonstrating high-yield communication skills from a known evidence-based training program to standardize core SICS teaching and questioned how using it before skills practice impacted comfort and preparedness for residents to complete advance care planning (ACP).Methods:Family medicine residents at an academic hospital in Toronto, Canada, completed a novel e-module that replaced a typical didactic-lecture introducing core SICS relevant to ACP conversations. Residents then discussed the skills, followed by practicing them deliberately in a structured role-play simulation with feedback by trained facilitators. Residents completed pre- and post-intervention attitudinal surveys.Results:Residents preferred a combination of learning modalities and welcomed online and virtual teaching methods for learning SICS. Residents reported higher levels of preparedness for engaging in ACP, delivering serious news, and discussing goals of care post-intervention. Residents showed more interest in discussing ACP post-intervention but questioned feasibility for doing so in busy ambulatory clinics.Conclusion:Scalable time-efficient teaching strategies are needed to fill a known education gap. This study demonstrated benefits of incorporating brief e-module learning into residents’ preparation for SICS training using deliberate practice simulation training. The online, interactive virtual training improved resident readiness and comfort for ACP, an area often overlooked in medical education. Moreover, it provides an evidence-informed standardized tool for clinician teachers to seamlessly incorporate into their teaching practices.

Findings from a meta-analysis of meta-analyses of 14 different types of preservice student and beginning teacher preparation practices are described. The research synthesis included 118 meta-analyses and 12 other research studies of preservice practices-preservice student and beginning teacher outcomes. The research reports included between 5000 and 6000 studies and an estimated 2.5 to 3 million study participants. The outcomes included two different teacher quality measures and two different preservice student and beginning teacher measures. Mean difference effect sizes, confidence intervals for the average effect sizes, and generalized patterns of results were used to identify very high impact, high impact, medium impact, low impact, and no impact preservice practices. Results showed that clinically rich field experiences (extended and limited student teaching), learning experiences that included multiple opportunities for deliberate practice, faculty and school-based coaching, clinical supervision and performance feedback, different types of experiences and opportunities to learn to teach, course-based experiential learning experiences, and cooperative learning opportunities stood out as especially important practices that were related to optimal preservice and beginning teacher outcomes. The patterns of results are consistent with a practice-based approach to teacher preparation where the focus of preservice and beginning teacher education is the learning experiences and opportunities to learn and use optimal effective teaching practices.

This exploratory study investigates the dynamics of frame shifting in teacher noticing, examining how structured pedagogical interventions support the development of strength-based noticing practices. The research offers theoretical insights by exploring mechanisms of professional transformation through an integrated framework synthesising professional noticing, transformative learning theory, and frame analysis. During an intensive two-week teacher education course, twenty-six prospective secondary mathematics teachers engaged with a structured coding scheme designed as both an analytical tool and pedagogical scaffold. Analysis of written responses to a standardised noticing task revealed decreases in deficit-based orientations and increases in strength-based orientations. These findings suggest that structured frame shifting—the deliberate practice of changing interpretive frameworks—supports teachers in developing more sophisticated ways of recognising and building upon student thinking. This study contributes evidence for mechanisms through which teachers develop new ways of attending, interpreting, and responding to students’ mathematical thinking, with implications for designing teacher education programs that promote equity-oriented teaching practices.