Dive Brief:
- While simulations do exist to give teachers-in-training a chance to lead fake classrooms, Stephanie Hull, executive vice president and COO of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, argues there are several reasons why they still can’t stack up to clinical experience in real classrooms.
- Writing for The Hechinger Report, Hull says simulation technology is not complex enough to accurately reflect real students’ behaviors and reactions, and it can’t replicate the formation of personal relationships between teachers and students.
- Simulations also do not create the high-stakes environment that forces clinical supervisors to step in and offer interventions or corrections when things go wrong, and Hull says they don’t create a sense of responsibility among teachers for real students they’re assigned to teach.
Dive Insight:
Teacher preparation programs have been in the line of fire for years as people lay blame for the problems in public schools on teachers and the programs that trained them. New regulations from the U.S. Department of Education require states to report annually on characteristics of all teacher preparation programs, including the presence of quality clinical preparation.
A range of alternative programs have popped up to give teachers faster pathways to the classroom or more flexible learning opportunities along the way. Still, there are programs with extended residencies that offer teachers a full year in a classroom with a master teacher to hone their craft. Research has shown that teachers who go through these programs have better classroom management skills when they assume their own classrooms, they are better at planning lessons, and they develop long-term curricular visions.