Education Week - February 7, 2018 - 26

LETTERS to the EDITOR

www.edweek.org/go/letters

Teachers Are Already 'Reinventing' Themselves
To the Editor:
In his Dec. 11, 2017, Commentary, "Students Must Be
Prepared to Reinvent Themselves," Christopher Dede
describes an increasing demand for education to better align
itself with the growing realities of careers and the workplace.
Contained within this call is a need for teachers to rethink
and retool their own learning, as well as the learning of their
students in response to the press of these realities.
I readily agree with Dede, but assert the work of responding
to these new realities is now underway. Acknowledging this
progress is critical. Seeds of change in teacher learning are
being sown and nourished by designers of new and innovative
models of professional development. Some models, such as the
Next Generation Science Exemplar System for Professional
Development in which I am a co-designer, have taken
advantage of blended or virtual professional-development
environments to bring about change. These are researchbased, multi-faceted environments in which teachers engage
with new genres of instructional materials and pedagogical
tools, motivating shifts in their own learning and the learning
of their students.
With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards,
Next Generation Science Standards, or the National Research
Council's Framework for K-12 Science Education, many
schools and districts are already moving forward to engage
teachers with innovative professional-learning opportunities.
The reform visions made explicit in these standards focus
on the foundational skills and abilities Dede references:
establishing classrooms as collaborative learning spaces,
developing students' abilities for problem-posing and problemsolving, learning to use evidence-based reasoning, and a muchneeded focus on questions generated by students, not only by
teachers.
A number of new professional development models include
video-based classroom cases of teachers and students as they
make teaching and learning shifts in classrooms. These video
cases are an educative tool for teacher learning, supporting
teachers and even administrators as they study and analyze
classrooms at various stages of change. Video cases can be
made available to teachers 24/7 to support their ongoing
learning. Video is becoming an essential tool in helping
the field to motivate new and critical intellectual work by
teachers.
All to say, changes in how teachers are learning-the
tools they are using within the new, more accessible and
multi-faceted learning environments made possible through
technology-are already progressing to align teaching
practices and new student learning goals with new societal
realities. Is there a need to accelerate this work? Absolutely.
Support on many levels is needed to help PD designers,
researchers, and instructional-materials developers work

in partnership with teachers across districts and states,
ultimately taking this work to scale.
Jean Moon
President
Tidemark Institute
Damariscotta, Maine

The Critical Need for Critical Instruction
To the Editor:
On January 17, Education Week covered a recent report
released by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher
Education's Clinical Practice Commission (Teacher Beat
blog, edweek.org, "Teacher Ed. Group Calls for More HighQuality Student Teaching"). The report, "A Pivot Toward
Clinical Practice, Its Lexicon, and the Renewal of Educator
Preparation," addressed the preparation of teacher-candidates
but omits the instructional preparation of teacher-educators
who teach teacher-candidates. The tenets outlined in this
report do not challenge conventional classroom pedagogy of
rote instruction and learning. To claim, as the AACTE report
does, that conventional pedagogy represents a "science" of
professional knowledge is to lose the meaning of the term
science. The AACTE tenets do not address the need to replace
rote instruction with a core body of knowledge for critical
instruction and learning. The most important core principle
of educator preparation is to practice subject matter critically
based on critical reasoning, reading, and writing processes.
This is not reflected in the AACTE report. No clinical
program that remains rooted in rote instructional practice can
be the basis of improving systematically teacher education,
teacher effectiveness, and student achievement. Nor can
it serve as the basis for teacher preparation, assessment,
certification, license, and accreditation. The essential problem
with educator preparation is the lack of a core body of
conceptual, developmental, and procedural knowledge for
critical instruction and learning. (For more on this core issue,
see my Commentary essay "You're Teaching Subject Matter
Wrong," published in Education Week on Jan. 2, 2018.)

WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
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Send to: ewletter@epe.org
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with a maximum length of 300 words.

WANT MORE COMMENTARY?
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Victor P. Maiorana
Deer Park, N.Y.

COMMENTARY POLICY
Education Week takes no editorial positions, but publishes opinion
essays and letters from outside contributors in its Commentary
section. For information about submitting an essay or letter for
review, visit
www.edweek.org/go/guidelines.

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READERS REACT on edweek.org

10
BIG
Ideas
K-12 Big Ideas

For its recent special report,"10 Big Ideas in
Education," Education Week invited advocates
and entrepreneurs to discuss how their work is
transforming schooling. Readers took to Twitter
to respond to the big ideas, as well as share some
of their own.
To read the full report and more reader responses,
please visit:

www.edweek.org/go/K12BigIdeas

"One really big idea that is missing from the #K12BigIdeas is
developing global thinking in students. Being tech-savvy and globalsavvy are keys to success." -@ANUPARMAR
"Here are five big ideas I would identify as currently driving innovation in the east coast charter
world: special education, student empowerment,
alumni outreach, the liberal arts, and discipline."
-@MRMACKERT

"It's about the mastery and being able to show
that the knowledge is being applied, not just regurgitated on an assessment. This also dovetails
with the quality and effectiveness of the teacher

26 | EDUCATION WEEK | February 7, 2018 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary

and what they bring to the learning environment."
-@ANDREWSDAHL

"Another game-changing idea in education: Connecting with students has to come first. When we
connect, kids want to learn. And when kids want
something, try to stop them. #K12BigIdeas" -@PAMLENZ2
"It's not enough to teach new mindsets to students
alone-we also have to change the beliefs and behaviors among all the adults in the system, including researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and funders."
-@THECHARACTERLAB

-COMPILED BY HANNAH SARISOHN

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Education Week - February 7, 2018

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