ABSTRACT
Learning the practice of teaching is a fundamental part of teacher preparation programs. Typically, however, it is only in their fi eld placements that preservice teachers have an active opportunity to improve their teaching skills. In those settings, their opportunities and experiences with practice vary widely and generally provide insuffi cient preparation in instructional strategies. Moreover, while some cooperating teachers off er extensive feedback to preservice teachers, many others off er only minimal feedback and this is oft en focused mainly on classroom management. As a result, preservice teachers generally need more opportunities to practice actual teaching than are provided by most teacher preparation programs. Complementing the call for more research on the instructional dynamic, which focuses on the multiple interactions among teachers, students, and the subject matter (Ball & Forzani, 2007), I think there is also a need for preservice teachers to simply spend more time with this instructional dynamic. Within teacher preparation programs, these future teachers would benefi t from more opportunities to try out and refi ne teaching strategies, to test and evaluate lessons, and to turn theory into practice.
