This conceptual article reframes trauma in education as a cognitive interface shift rather than a disorder to treat. Drawing on Eco-Centered Psychological Facilitation (ECPF) and a REHI (Rhythmical, Emergent, Hybrid, Irreversible/Innovative) lens, it critiques deficit-based approaches in trauma-informed education and argues that stagnation can prepare new learning interfaces. Trauma-Responsive pedagogy becomes facilitation of transition through redesigning tasks from deficit to surplus, attending to teachers' secondary exposure, and using AI-assisted reflection. Six micro-practices and research bridges are proposed.
Two potent metaphors emerged within discourses produced by seven teachers in a professional learning community (PLC) focused on negotiating trauma-informed practices within a low-income urban middle school. Teachers themselves come to school with past traumas and in turn experience secondary trauma, which participants talked about as "triggers," or ghosts, and contagions. This study considers the possibility of reflection in teacher PLCs to rewrite metaphors of harm to produce generative agency among teachers.
This paper examines how culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and trauma-informed practice (TIP) can be jointly enacted through rigorous classroom instruction. Using qualitative analysis of a 12th-grade humanities lesson, the study shows that ambitious, equity-centered teaching simultaneously fosters academic success, critical consciousness, and conditions associated with trauma-informed care. Findings suggest that predictability, flexibility, connection, and empowerment emerge through disciplinary learning, demonstrating that rigor and care are mutually reinforcing rather than competing priorities.
Teacher residencies have gained national attention for strengthening preparation through extended clinical practice and district/university partnerships centered on equity and workforce needs. However, traditional teacher education programs remain the primary route, offering research grounding and scalability. Guided by Goodlad's concept of simultaneous renewal, the authors explore reciprocal lessons models can learn from each other, moving beyond comparisons toward collective learning, advancing humanizing practice, continuous improvement, and sustainable partnerships that better prepare and retain teachers.
This paper locates the impact and influence of teacher residency models within "new Graduate Schools of Education" (nGSEs), first identified by Cochran-Smith and colleagues in 2016, and explores lessons they offer traditional university teacher preparation within the rapidly changing landscape of U.S. teacher preparation. Traditional university-based teacher preparation programs may benefit from nGSEs' residency approach to teacher preparation in terms of their fast-track speed, equity-centered and context specific instruction, significant emphasis on practice, and affordable tuition models.
Teachers often enter the classroom unprepared to work with children who have experienced trauma. This convergent mixed-methods study examined whether intentional coursework could transform 14 graduate students' (12 pursuing alternative certification) trauma-responsive attitudes. Using the ARTIC-35 and reflective journals, results showed significant gains across all attitude domains with large effect sizes, indicating meaningful disposition change. Qualitative findings revealed a shift in understanding children's behavior as defiance to recognizing it as communication of unmet needs.
Trauma-Responsive initiatives in education often center students while overlooking teachers' experiences of harm. This qualitative study examines how novice teachers made sense of fear and ongoing threat through participation in an alumni Care Circle. Findings show that collective dialogue and ethical witnessing supported shared interpretations of trauma as structurally produced rather than individual failure. Care Circles functioned as a healing-centered, non-clinical infrastructure, offering a collective alternative to individualized trauma-responsive supports for teachers.
This conceptual article advances understanding of teacher residency partnerships between educator preparation programs and local education agencies. Drawing on established educational partnership frameworks and emerging research on residency partnerships, we propose a structural-relational model highlighting purposeful planning, shared values and goals, leadership, trust, communication, and commitment. Using two residency partnerships as illustrative cases, we demonstrate how structures and relational dynamics interact over time, revealing tensions, adaptations, and conditions that may contribute to long-term sustainability.
This vignette-based qualitative study examined Teacher Residency Rotations (TRRs) whereby novice teachers observe expert teachers in P12 classrooms, modeling medical residencies while operationalizing cognitive apprenticeship theory. Analysis of 22 residents' reflection vignettes across four cohorts revealed five themes: classroom management, building relationships, student engagement, differentiated instruction, and monitoring instruction. Findings demonstrate that structured novice-expert observations enrich access to tacit pedagogical knowledge, address gaps in early field experiences, and allow development of professional vision and adaptive expertise.
Teacher residencies strengthen teacher preparation, retention, and work-force diversity. Central to high-quality programs are reciprocal LeA-epppartnerships that collaboratively design and sustain clinically rich prepa-ration experiences. Drawing on multi-state case studies, this study exam-ined how strong partnerships enable practice-based learning, coordinated program design, and sustainability. Findings highlight how partnerships support full-year clinical placements, co-teaching with expert mentors, coursework-practice alignment, shared governance, and innovative fund-ing approaches, underscoring the importance of LeA-epp partnerships in educator workforce development.
This paper explores the motivation of teacher residents in joining a teacher residency situated in the U.S. Southeast. The research examined the question: what motivates aspiring teachers to join a teacher residency and what factors appear to support their persistence in the profession? Twenty-nine teacher residents participated in this interview study. Findings illustrated that motivations began as pragmatic (financial and professional supports), but persistence in the field became more relational and ideological.
Rural schools have difficulty attracting and retaining teachers. To explore whether residencies might provide novel solutions, a case study of 16 teacher candidates in one rural residency program was conducted. The research focused on their motivations to teach in a rural area and the resources they identified as supporting their teaching. Findings suggest that teacher candidates identify rural familialism, defined as the inter-generational wisdom and resources passed down to new teachers, as a key resource.
This essay explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can support situated learning by connecting education to authentic, real-world contexts. Accompanied by examples from school design models and AI-integrated tools, the analysis highlights how technology can enhance teacher agency, contextual relevance, and experiential pedagogy. Rather than replacing human interaction, AI is framed as a strategic catalyst for deeper engagement, authentic assessment, and inclusive practices, requiring for an ethically grounded, equity-oriented integration of AI within contemporary educational ecosystems.
This article introduces ecological grading, a sustainable feedback framework for writing instruction that balances student learning with instructor workload. Alongside a three-step model for designing and validating ecological practices, we present the Diagnostic Feedback Draft, a low-stakes intervention combining rapid instructor review with automated tools to identify high-impact issues early. Drawing on classroom application and literature, we illustrate how minimalist feedback, rubrics, and automated systems can improve revision quality, enhance autonomy, and reduce grading burnout.
This study examines how the legal arguments in United States v. South Carolina (1978) established a "rational relationship" between teaching and validated teacher licensure exams. Findings reveal that these arguments promoted racial objectivity, masked arbitrary decisions as rigorous, and reframed teacher education programs as workforce development. These precedents have perpetuated the commonsense that licensure exams are essential for ensuring teacher quality, despite ongoing concerns about their predictive validity and disparate impact on teachers of color.
This mixed methods study explored the influence a constructivist approach to teaching and learning had on 34 teacher participants' beliefs and perceived practices. Two mathematics methods courses were redesigned to follow a constructivist approach of teaching, giving participants an opportunity to experience this type of pedagogy as learners and teachers. Pre- and post-surveys and an open-ended questionnaire were used to collect data. Results suggested a shift in teachers' beliefs toward constructivism.
Extending emerging scholarship that emphasizes asset-based and collaborative approaches to parental engagement, this qualitative case study examines how teachers at Jackson High School, serving a predominantly refugee-background student population, engage with students' families. The study challenges long-standing deficit-oriented and assimilationist practices that have marginalized refugee-background families and reimagines schools as equitable, reciprocal, and empowering spaces, where all families are welcomed, affirmed, and their lived experiences and knowledge are harnessed within and beyond the classroom walls.
Investing in school leaders' continued learning is paramount, yet studies have provided limited clarity on the structures and systems that can enhance instructional leadership capacity. Drawing on interviews with 21 school leaders, this study explores how a community of practice that was designed to improve instructional leadership supported leaders' growth by reinforcing a focus on teaching and learning, encouraging a sense of agency, and offering a cooperative environment that allowed for closeness and resource sharing.
