Teachers make decisions by employing clinical reasoning in which they seek
and use evidence to guide their practice by asking and integrating these questions
into their thinking processes:
- What does the student already know and what can they do?
- What does each individual student need to advance their learning?
- What are effective practices according to the evidence base from research?
- What evidence of learning can be gathered during and after the teaching
intervention? - What happened and how can this be interpreted, or what does it show?
- What does this mean for future interventions?
Clinical teachers view their practice from an inquiring stance (Cochran-Smith
and The Boston College Evidence Team 2009 ) and use student evidence generated
by observing, questioning and formatively and summatively assessing student
performance. By giving emphasis to clinical reasoning this drives a
forward-thinking orientation to teaching in which each student’s development is
brought sharply into focus, which in turn drives powerful planning. It works hand in
hand with reflective practice that focuses on learning from teaching episodes.
Clinical reasoning puts learningfirst as it begins with a focus on individual
learning. This reorients teachers to examine learning and teaching through the lens
of learning.
10.5 Conclusion
Conceptualising clinical teaching as a clinical practice profession offers a powerful
means of reconceptualising practice in ways that better support teachers to under-
stand student learning and how to develop it. In contrast to clinical practice in the
medicalfield which normally addresses the clients’ illness, clinical practice in
education focuses on enhancing learning and growth of the whole student. Clinical
teachers seek and use a range of evidence employing clinical reasoning and
judgment to guide their practice by asking and integrating questions into their
thinking processes to arrive at best judged ethical responses. In adapting a medical
education model, it is through clinical reasoning that robust evidence-informed
interventions are developed that precisely build from what each student already
knows and can do in order to advance their learning.
In addition to providing a robust framework for conceptualising teachers’work
with students, the notion of clinical practice has important implications for teacher
preparation. Clinical models of teacher education are characterised by the
following:
- Close partnerships between schools and universities that inform practice in both
sites (Grossman 2010 ; Conroy et al. 2013 );
10 Clinical Practice in Education: Towards a Conceptual Framework 163