Inquiry in the Round? Education Rounds in an Teacher Residency Program

Abstract

In education, the Rounds model provides opportunities for engaging educators as communities of learners who examine instructional issues for purposes of understanding and improving them. Over the past 10 years, Rounds have been implemented in school-based experiences in teacher preparation programs across the nation. Yet despite recent interest, there is little description of the opportunities and challenges of implementing the Rounds in teacher preparation. The purpose of this article is to describe Education Rounds implemented in one urban teacher residency program. To do so, we explore the emerging literature on Rounds and the residency program’s process of implementing Rounds. We present examples of residents’ experiences with Rounds, and we discuss tensions that arise when implementing Rounds as an innovative pedagogical approach in teacher preparation.