Chapter 6: Fostering Simulation Teaching Cultures and Capacities Through Professional Learning Communities

Brandon was frustrated; his cooperating teacher had every lesson planned for his entire middle school student teaching placement. He was concerned that he needed to create eight new, authentic lessons(Newmann, King, & Carmichael, 2007) as part of his university requirements, with little room to insert them into the curriculum. He also felt uncomfortable implementing his cooperating teacher’s lessons because he was convinced that his students experienced them as unchallenging, disengaging, and demotivating. Brandon asked for his university supervisor to come observe his teaching and then to talk with his cooperating teacher about the predicament. When Brandon, his cooperating teacher, and supervisor debriefed the lesson, Brandon’s cooperating teacher said there was little to no flexibility in the prescribed lesson plans to allow him to create in-class activities. When asked why, the cooperating teacher replied that they were members of a “high-functioning Professional Learning Community” (PLC) and that all eighth grade teachers needed to be in lock-step, teaching the same materials, on the same day, and in the same way. By this point, Brandon was not the only one who was frustrated; his university supervisor was as well. The norms by which the PLC had operated created a narrowed definition of collaboration that was hindering Brandon (and likely others on the team) from developing innovative, authentic lessons (Bordwell & Clark, 2017). When Brandon asked about doing additional or alternative activities, his cooperating teacher was sympathetic and said her hands were tied too because there was no time within the eighth grade curriculum to add anything.