CPC’s conceptions on teacher education

The movement focused on the study of core practices was born as an “attempt to weave together novices’ development of meaningful knowledge for teaching with their capacity to actually enact ambitious teaching in particular disciplines in the classroom” (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}, p. 379). Based on socio-cultural theories that underlie both the educators’ formative practices regarding the educational perspective that should be in the k-12 classroom, the movement aims to overcome the long-standing divide between what future teachers learn at the university and what they are able to accomplish when they arrive at schools (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}).

The teacher conception underlying the production and practices of the CPC group consists of a professional who, through a specialized and intentional activity - teaching - increases the probability of students achieving the proposed learning objectives. This means that, in addition to being able to learn, teachers must be able to identify what are the mechanisms that facilitate the learning development by other individuals - that is, the students. In this sense, they need to identify the different ways through which students think about a certain content or problem, strategically plan teaching actions and learning experiences, and be able to map students' progress and productively interfere during the process (^{BALL; FORZANI, 2009}).

Comparing the conceptions of teacher and teaching present in the CPC research, ^{Forzani (2014}) identifies three core ideas. The first is that teaching should be geared towards learning goals based on high expectations: all students are expected to develop high levels of comprehension, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. The second is that the type of teaching that will help students achieve these expectations is partially improvised, depending on ideas and contributions that emerge in the classroom, and student teachers must be prepared to deal with the uncertainty resulting from this dynamic. The third is that this teaching approach requires placing the specific content to be taught as a critical component of the goals and activities that constitute the pre-service program’s curriculum.

In this sense, the group of CPC-associated researchers advocates radical reform in teacher education curriculums, suggesting that it must be entirely centered on teacher preparation for classroom practice. This involves turning the focus to the teachers’ work in a thorough and detailed manner, that is, to the main tasks that teachers must put into action to support the learning of all students. Therefore, for the CPC, what makes a teachers’ education programs "practice-based" is their systematic focus on developing future teachers' knowledge and skills to successfully implement teaching core practices in k-12 education (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}).

Focusing the entire pre-service teacher education curriculum on practice would even mean a work reorientation with the historical, cultural, political, economic, and social foundations of education contained in the courses. From the perspective of CPC researchers’ group, the teacher preparation in this type of curricular component needs to answer questions regarding teaching work reality through examples using cases and practices’ records, making a connection between them and theoretical and empirical research (^{BALL; FORZANI, 2009}).

At the time of CPC creation, ^{Zeichner (2012}) pointed out that none of the existing PBTE initiatives to date had been able to detail what this reorientation of the education foundations to become more compatible with practice meant. Moreover, when discussing the range of existing PBTE initiatives, the author highlighted the need to expand the scope of what is considered central or essential in teacher education so that teachers are not seen as "technicians who are able to implement a particular set of teaching strategies" (p. 379). This is because previous efforts ignored the need to "ground teachers' technical ability to understand the historical, cultural, political, economic, and social contexts in which their work is embedded" (^{GREENE, 1978} apud ^{ZEICHNER, 2012} p. 380).

Considering the group's perspective on the teaching professional, the research developed by the academics participating in CPC focused on the identification of two aspects complementing each other and, to some extent, answering to Zeichner's questions: identification of core practices for teaching - that is, what future teachers should learn in their programs - and pedagogies that should be adopted by educators to better prepare such professionals. It is noteworthy that the experiences of identifying teaching practices and pedagogies are still focused on teaching methodologies courses and internship, not reaching the disciplines related to the education foundations, in a similar way.

Core Practices

Core practices⁶ consists in

identifiable components (fundamental to teaching and grounded in disciplinary goals) that teachers enact to support learning. Core practices consists of strategies, routines, and moves that can be unpacked and learned by teachers (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}, p. 4).

These practices are a set of selected teaching practices - limited in quantity, but central to teaching activities - that enable the preparation of beginner teachers for the main classroom challenges, so they can learn from their experiences and build more knowledge, ensuring students to develop a high-level curriculum. Therefore, core practices are selected teaching aspects aimed to develop a teaching professional able to articulate theoretical knowledge of his teaching field with what he needs to do in the classroom with his future students (^{BALL; FORZANI, 2009}; ^{BALL; SLEEP; BOERST; BASS, 2009}; ^{GROSSMAN; MCDONALD, 2008}; ^{KNIGHT; LLOYD; ARBAUGH; GAMSON; MCDONALD; NOLAN, 2014}; ^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}; ^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}).

Teacher education programs designed around core practices aim for making those practices a strong teaching foundation. In this sense, these practices mobilize, and are articulated with, other central aspects of teaching: curriculum planning, assessment strategies and use of teaching materials (^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}). Thus, they are categorized as an organizational conceptual framework within which other teaching components are articulated and integrated (^{WINDSCHITL; THOMPSON; BRAATEN; STROUPE, 2012}). Such practices are selected considering their ability to provide future teachers with conceptual and practical tools to promote an ambitious, equity-focused education. As a result of this guiding framework, core practices demand the student-teacher to be imbued with the certainty that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic, cultural, gender, or racial-ethnic conditions, can achieve, in depth, what is proposed in the curriculum. To this end, they constitute conceptual and practical tools so that student teacher, once in the classroom, can support students so that they can learn complex and central ideas in the different disciplines, helping them to participate in discussions proper to the different fields of knowledge, and to solve authentic problems in different fields (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}).

Placing core practices at the center of pre-service teacher education curriculum requires defining what these practices should be, as well as defining how they should be presented to student teachers, that is, which pedagogies teacher educators must adopt. ^{Grossman, Hammerness, and McDonald (2009}) suggest there are three broader core practices groups that may support the development of future teachers' capacity to teach different subjects. The first group encompasses the classroom culture development, including several specific practices such as organizing productive group work, establishing coexistence norms, and time management, among other aspects. A second practices group regards the ability to stimulate and make visible students' thinking, anticipate their answers and stimulate the thinking that follows. Finally, the third group of general practices that can be learned by teachers and that are central to ambitious education comprises the organization of productive classroom discussions. As part of this practice, future teachers should be able to ask questions and propose problems, monitor participation, and respond to students' ideas.

Although these common practices can be applied across subjects, the researchers recognize that specific fields require particular learning practices (^{BALL; FORZIANI, 2009}; ^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}). As an example of subject-specific practices, ^{Windschitl, Thompson, Braaten, and Stroupe (2012}) identify a group of four "high-leverage practices" related to the science investigative model, which supports students to develop evidence-based explanations for natural phenomena. The first practice, "Building the Big Idea", concerns planning. The others are action practices, that is, practices directly related to interactive work with students: stimulating students' thinking to adapt instruction, helping them make sense of materials and activities, and prompting them to provide evidence-based explanations. Some of these practices are related to the general ones proposed by ^{Grossman, Hammerness, and McDonald (2009}), but are in line with the needs of science teachers, associated with specific content and focused on scientific processes, such as providing evidence-based explanations.

In the field of mathematics, two sets of core practices discussed by CPC are common in teacher education. The first set consists of practices related to stimulation and response to students' thinking, for example, ways to access students' mathematical thinking, to guide students to notice their peers' ideas, and to respond constructively to students' mistakes (^{CAMPBELL; ELLIOT, 2015}; ^{GHOUSSEINI; BEASLEY; LORD, 2015}). The second set includes practices related to organizing and conducting productive mathematics discussions, such as anticipating the potential students' answers to the presented problems, monitoring the answers given to the problems during discussion, selecting specific students to present their thinking during the lesson, sequencing the answers in a logical order related to the learning objectives, and connecting the different ideas presented by students (^{SMITH; STEIN, 2011}; ^{STEIN; ENGLE; SMITH; HUGHES, 2008}). These practices comprise a material produced by the National Council of Mathematics Teachers in the United States and provide a foundation for mathematics teaching methodology courses focused on the use of core practices (^{BIEN; CARLSON; KAZEMI; REISMAN; SCHEVE; WELLS, 2018}; ^{GHOUSSEINI; HERBST, 2016}; ^{TYMINSKI; ZAMBAK; DRAKE; LAND, 2014}).

However, CPC researchers emphasize their purpose is not to identify a single set of practices for the field as a whole or for each field of knowledge (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}), neither to define a list of skills or techniques separated from principles and theories (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}). The idea is that each set of educators⁷, in their context, becomes able to identify core practices with which they can develop their professional preparation work (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}). The movement, thus, understands that the field benefits if trainers are also able to agree on a set of criteria for identifying, naming, and selecting core practices and that, from the gathering of diverse educators engaged in the same way, a community of practices is created around this vision (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}). CPC is a concrete representation of this community.

A significant number of experts have been engaged with the identification of a set of high-quality teaching practices - or core practices - to be the focus of their initial teacher education courses (^{FRANKE; GROSSMAN; HATCH; RICHERT; SCHULTZ, 2006}; ^{KAZEMI; HINTZ, 2008}; ^{KAZEMI; LAMPERT; GHOUSSEINI, 2007}; ^{SLEEP; BOERST; BALL, 2007}). ^{Grossman, Hammerness, McDonald (2009}) indicate that although definitions vary widely among these authors, all definitions of core practices share the following characteristics:

For McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013), this list represents a good starting point for proposing an agreement for the field around common ideas for identifying, naming, and selecting core practices. The authors underscore that what is important is not a consensus on a final set of teaching practices, but rather an ongoing dialogue with the field and among researchers about how to conceptualize practices’ features that support the learning of high-quality education by teaching professionals.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that, when focusing on core practices, trainers should address both conceptual and practical aspects associated with any teaching practice. The idea is for trainers to focus on the theoretical principles around the reason - why - to use that type of practice, so that student teachers understand when and under which conditions it should be adopted, but also provide opportunities for them to learn how to use the routines involved in that teaching practice (^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}).

A central aspect of these practices is their capacity to be transferred. In an initial teacher education course, it is impossible to cover all the content and all the practices teachers need to know to be successful in their profession. The curriculum for pre-service teacher education, thus, needs to be carefully designed to support the future professionals’ development of knowledge and skills that will enable them to continue learning from their classroom experience (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}). This design implies not only a focus on specific practices, but also the use of pedagogical strategies specific to teacher education - here named pedagogies - which break down such specific practices in such a way they can be learned step by step by future teachers, making up a strengthened and structured foundation so that the future teachers are able to put them into action when the time comes (^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}).

Teaching practices for core practices teaching

In addition to identifying core practices that constitute the central content of future teachers’ education, CPC researchers highlight the importance of pedagogies - that is, the methodologies - adopted by teacher educators. McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013) suggests a structure for teaching core practices that educators can adopt based on a cycle of teaching practices so that the core practice is learned by the student teacher in a structured and grounded way. The idea is that prospective teachers are trained to take ownership of a given core practice, e.g., organizing productive discussions, in a progressive way, so that they can learn it in a safe and controlled environment to, then, apply it in a classroom, ensuring the opportunity for reflection after implementation.

The steps that make up the cycle and guide the teaching methodology around core practices are based on sociocultural and situated learning principles (^{LAVE; WENGER, 1991}; ^{WENGER, 2010}). Two premises of the collective learning cycle highlight the following aspects: the first concerns the student teachers’ appropriation of practices through legitimate peripheral participation strategies. In this model, the teacher educator initially conducts the learning activity, and gradually the student teacher takes ownership of it and starts executing small parts of the task in controlled environments, until he or she is ready to conduct the learning activity autonomously. The second refers the student teachers’ learning within an effective learning community, incorporating the principle that human learning has an inherently social nature. This cycle is represented bellow in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Cycle for collectively learning to engage in an authentic and ambitious instructional activity (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}, p. 382). 

In the cycle’s initial stage, McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013) suggest trainers to introduce an activity through the use of modeling - when the teacher educator performs the activity with student teachers as it would occur with k-12 student, through the analysis of classroom videos or reading case studies in which a teacher would apply the activity in question. These three formative practices are all representations of practices, which includes all the means by which practice work is made visible to future teachers during their preparation (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}), so as to help them develop a picture of the activity and the practices involved in it (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}).

Two examples on the use of practice representations for conducting productive discussions in mathematics illustrate this idea. ^{Ghousseini and Herbst (2016}) reported that student teachers experienced discussion from the students' perspectives by first performing a challenging mathematical activity and then participating in a discussion mediated by the course’s professor. In another program, based on the use of Five Practices for Conducting Productive Discussions (^{TYMINSKI; ZAMBAK; DRAKE; LAND, 2014}), student teachers analyzed videos of productive classroom discussions and experienced them. In both cases, the authors highlight the importance of this pedagogical strategy in teacher education, as it helps to compose a conceptual framework that expands the mere practice description through reading. Whether through video analysis or modelling experience, future teachers have the opportunity to fully experience the practice in case. Such moves corroborate the learning process of this practice, the understanding of its different components, and the future application in real classrooms.

Already in this first cycle stage, teacher educators can make use of a pedagogical strategy first proposed by ^{Grossman, Hammerness and McDonald (2009}): decomposition, which aims to "break" the core practice into small elements that can be discussed and learned by future teachers. The underlying principle of decomposition is the idea that simply experiencing an interesting activity does not make the future teacher able to reproduce it, and even less able to create different and appropriate activities for the contexts in which he will teach. The student teacher must have the opportunity to understand what is happening "behind the scene", that is, which decisions were made by the educator, the reasoning that guided their choices, why the activity was conducted in a certain way and not another, and what are the pedagogical implications of these actions (^{DANIELSON; SHAUGHNESSY; JAY, 2018}).

In the case presented by ^{Ghousseini and Herbst (2016}), for example, student teachers had to analyze and categorize different elements of the work experienced from a rubric. This strategy, according to the authors, was essential for student teachers to make sense not only of the different core practices elements, but also to perceive different levels of performance, thereby creating a parameter with which they could compare their future work and continue to learn. In ^{Tyminski, Zambak, Drake, and Land's (2014}) study, the detailed decomposition of practice occurred only at the end of the process, after the practice was approached and applied in the classroom context. By working with Five Practices for Organizing and Conducting Productive Discussions (^{SMITH; STEIN, 2011}), the authors formally introduced the terminologies and different practices aspects. Based on ^{Grossman, Hammerness, and McDonald (2009}), they highlight the centrality of a language and a framework for describing the practice. Such element supports the provision of specific feedback to student teachers, highlighting their efforts to put into action each of the elements that make up the practice (^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}).

Once student teachers have an image of the studied practices from a representation, approximation of practice is important, i.e., an experience that approximates the real thing, but performed in a controlled environment (^{GROSSMAN; KAVANAGH; DEAN, 2018}). ^{McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013)} suggest planning and rehearsing the studied practice as the first stage of approximation. Approximations of practice enable student teachers to understand specific aspects of the core practice in question, including opportunities to separately rehearse and apply components of complex practices in settings of reduced complexity (^{GROSSMAN; HAMMERNESS; MCDONALD, 2009}). The idea is to provide more opportunities for student teachers to apply several pedagogical actions central to core practices, but in controlled environments-especially in the university classroom, among peers and trainers rather than with real students.

Rehearsal is a formative practice often adopted by several experiments with core practices in teacher education (^{GHOUSSEINI; HERBST, 2016}; ^{KAZEMI; GHOUSSEINI; CUNARD; TURROU, 2016}; ^{LAMPERT; FRANKE; KAZEMI; GHOUSSEINI; TURROU; BEASLEY; CUNARD; CROWE, 2013}; ^{TYMINSKI; ZAMBAK; DRAKE; LAND, 2014}). It begins when student teachers, after understanding and breaking down the practice, prepare a short activity segment, anticipating their actions with students, the questions they might ask, how they will handle common misconceptions, and how they will ask questions to stimulate students' reflection. Then, student teachers rehearse this segment with their peers, who play the role of learners. At the end of the rehearsal, both the classmates and the teacher educator give feedback so that the student teacher can reflect on and adjust this practice for future application.

The following moment is the application of the activity with real students in the school classroom where they do their internship. Usually, they work with small groups of students identified by the classes' regular teacher and focus the work on a specific practice aspect. The practice application with this small group of students is monitored by the classroom regular teacher, who gives feedback to the student teachers and helps them to reflect on what went well and which difficulties are related to the applied practice. The regular teacher`s presence helps the student teachers to reflect on why certain strategies are adopted, and consequently favors the reflective process and the learning continuity (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}). From a legitimate peripheral participation perspective, we notice that the learner already has a concrete or authentic task, but still in a controlled environment and under the supervision of the partner teacher.

An important aspect to be highlighted in this phase is the classroom teacher’s central role in the student teacher preparation during internship. More than simply opening his classroom to the students, the regent teacher offers direct feedback on the practice application, practices modeling, and assists the selection of students with whom the student teacher will apply the practice. He helps the student teacher to understand why he made a certain move, as well as to reflect on how he should deal with specific issues that appear in class from lived experience (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}).

Finally, in possession of the records of the practice application, whether these are videos or written experience reports, the student teachers return to the university classroom and collectively reflect on the experiences they had with k-12 students, in a process of investigation of their practice. This reflection leads to the incorporation of new practice elements, and the cycle repeats. This phase of analysis is focused on supporting future teachers to learn from their own experience - a skill that will help with their professional performance development (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}).

Such an example of this cycle’s application occurs in Boston Teaching Residency, where we observe the four stages of the learning cycle proposed by ^{McDonald, Kazemi, and Kavanagh (2013)}. In this experience, student teachers learned the practice of facilitating a whole-class discussion during the internship discipline. To begin, the teacher educators modeled whole-class discussion in classes on disciplinary content at the university. The student teachers planned the discussions for classes in which they interned with extensive support, during teaching methods classes, in small group planning sessions and with individual mentoring. In teaching methods classes, the student teachers rehearsed the discussions they would later facilitate with k-12 students. Then, when they conducted the discussions with the classes of students in schools, they received real-time mentoring from the internship teacher and the classes' regent teacher. Afterwards, with both the internship teacher and regent teacher present, the group collaboratively reviewed notes they made about the facilitation, student assignments, and/or videos to study what the students seemed to have understood and planned next steps for intern’s and student’s learning (^{BIEN; CARLSON; KAZEMI; REISMAN; SCHEVE; WELLS, 2018}).

Another example involves the strategies adopted by the English Language Teaching at Secondary Education course from University of Washington to conduct discussions about literary works and systematize student learning (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}). The teacher educators in this course begin the cycle by modeling conceptual tools that are tied to more routine practices, so that student teachers can understand the required lesson structure in which this practice is developed. They use some materials to anchor the discussion, named "mentor texts", such as Harper Lee's book To Kill a Mockingbird. The modeled routines are both relational and procedural, such as welcoming students to the door, presenting the schedule and learning goals, and discussing the meaning of these goals with students. While exploring the text elements, teachers model the type of language that should be used, as well as questioning strategies. This modeling offers student teachers an idea of how they can propose deeper, guiding questions to discuss the aspects of the mentor text they want to explore. All modeling is then broken down and explored through extensive reflection (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}). Aligning this approach with the idea of legitimate peripheral participation, we see here the moment in which the apprentice merely observes the master's practice.

In the next step of this example, the student teachers have to plan and rehearse a similar activity. Given that at the modeling time they were asked to reflect on the learning objectives of this activity and could observe its centrality in students, they become capable to structure their planning starting from clear and student-centered learning goals. Once the goals are established, student teachers plan a sequence of exploration of the mentor text they are working with and rehearse its application with their peers in the classroom. At this point, they receive feedbacks from both peers and trainers, and the activity culminates with a reflection on how they can improve their practice for it to be implemented in their internship schools (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KELLEY-PETERSEN; MIKOLASY; THOMPSON; VALENCIA; WINDSCHITL, 2014}). It is observed at this point how the learner begins to take ownership in a controlled manner and with intensive support from the teacher educator and their peers.

Finally, with the practice application records, whether these are videos or written reports about the experience, the student teachers return to the university classrooms and, through the analysis of their practice, reflect collectively on their experiences with real students. This reflection process leads to the incorporation of new elements into their practice and the cycle repeats.

When describing a more structured proposal of formative practices for teacher education, these CPC researchers aim to promote the exchange of ideas between: (a) different places where initial preparation occurs, such as the university and the schools where student teachers intern; (b) different fields of knowledge; and (c) different types of curriculum components, such as the disciplines of foundations, teaching methods, and supervised internship (^{MCDONALD; KAZEMI; KAVANAGH, 2013}). In other words, they propose the core practices and the use of this cycle of pedagogies as a common language that permeates the pre-service curriculum as a whole. ^{Grossman, Hammerness, and McDonald (2009}) go further, proposing the programs’ curriculum to be designed around the core practices. As a consequence, all disciplines - including the fundamental ones - would have a clear link to core practices. Such an approach would represent a deep paradigmatic shift in the way teacher education courses are structured.