In the material which follows, we will provide further details about the levels of
evidence clinical teachers collect, synthesise, interrogate and negotiate. We will
draw attention to how clinical teachers use evidence to inform practice, and also
acknowledge the challenges of using and understanding evidence in this way.
10.3.3 Classroom-Based Evidence
Classroom-based evidence can take a variety of forms, from the work samples
collected by teachers, to the answers given during class discussions. Following
Griffin’s insights, classroom evidence can be understood as anything students‘do,
say, make or write’(Griffin 2007 ). In response to definitions of data and evidence
that focus primarily on external high-stakes assessment evidence, we argue that
importantly teachers can gather data that surrounds them in classroom contexts. The
paradigm through which clinical teachers synthesise data is also important, and
teacher knowledge of students and the possibilities of learning are paramount. Just
as surgeons must understand anatomy and physiology, so too teachers must
understand how students learn and how approaches to learning and teaching can
vary to meet the needs of individuals. This knowledge provides the context and
focus of the ways in which evidence is gathered and understood in the classroom,
and thus points to the need for clinical teachers to have both sound pedagogical
content knowledge, but also a knowledge of student learning that is regularly
updated, tested and developed.
10.3.4 Para-Classroom Evidence
The importance of knowing students’beyond classroom experiences, in order to
best target learning is a well-established teaching practice. Indeed, para-classroom
evidence about what learning experiences they have had in life provides the teacher
with stronger evidence of what they know. Moreover the student’s immediate
domestic circumstances—family composition, recent arrival to a country or family
member illness—can assist clinical teachers to appropriately adjust and target
learning instruction. An understanding of the challenges students may be facing in
the classroom context as a result of family experiences of education, socioeconomic
status, ethnicity, language learning or special needs, for example, can also assist
clinical teachers to design suitable learning interventions, and improve the educa-
tional outcomes for all students.
Clinical teachers must be mindful, though, of the need to use this evidence in
order to enhance student learning and enable them to grow and progress along a
learning continuum. As has been documented, teachers’ conscientious and
well-intentioned efforts to modify learning according to para-classroom evidence
10 Clinical Practice in Education: Towards a Conceptual Framework 159