Chapter 12: Practicing What we Preach: Knowing and Learning in Preservice Teacher Education

The purpose of this chapter is to describe how I “practice what I preach” in a preservice teacher education course on knowing and learning. By practicing what I preach, I mean teaching in ways that I profess preservice teachers should teach in their future classrooms. This philosophy of teaching how to teach is particularly important in education courses focused on theories of knowing and learning. For example, if we as teacher educators advocate for the use of social constructivist learning theory in K-12 classrooms, then we should model social constructivism in our own design of teacher education course activities and learning experiences. To support preservice teachers in understanding how and why I teach the way I do, I use metacognition and reflection to share and make explicit my own thinking processes (Berry & Van Driel, 2012) and encourage preservice teachers to make connections between course content and their own thoughts, beliefs, and values. As a teacher educator, I take seriously my responsibility to “create cycles of opportunity” (Windschitl & Stroupe, 2017, p. 253) for preservice teachers to develop a professional vision of teaching that is informed by research-based theories of learning and aligns with current educational reforms such as Common Core State Standards (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013).