Clinical Simulations as Signature Pedagogy explores the use of live-actor simulations as an engaging training tool to better prepare educational professionals for school-wide challenges. In this volume, editors Benjamin H. Dotger and Kelly Chandler-Olcott present a persuasive overview of this effective method of professional development and show how it resonates with other practice-based initiatives.

Through original case studies, the book's contributors demonstrate how live-actor simulations serve as valuable assets in the training of teachers, school counselors, and school leaders. They show how simulations provide a safe shared-learning environment that closely approximates authentic problems of practice while reducing the complexity of the instructional context in manageable ways. The contributors point out how the method standardizes training, ensuring that all candidates have comparable opportunities to practice and master key skills and habits of mind, among other advantages.

Each case study showcases a distinct way in which educational simulations have been used to address common issues confronting educators, such as educational equity, community building, and cultural responsiveness. In addition, the cases highlight subject-specific concerns, from fostering inclusivity in physical education to presenting differing approaches to mathematical problems, for which live-actor simulations provide a dynamic learning context.

Ultimately, this book illustrates why clinical simulations have emerged as a powerful pedagogical tool that holds promise for the professional preparation and continuing education of educators, counselors, and school leaders.
About the Author:

Benjamin Dotger, PhD, is a professor in the Teaching & Leadership Department at Syracuse University. He teaches education foundations courses to secondary and K-12 teacher candidates, coordinates the teaching and curriculum master's program, and directs clinical simulation design and implementation efforts between the School of Education and SUNY Upstate Medical University's Clinical Skills Center. His scholarship centers on the design and study of clinical simulations within and across educator preparation disciplines, with emphasis on identity formation, discipline-specific practices, and physiological responses. This work has been supported by numerous federal and private foundations, including the Spencer Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Educational Sciences.

Kelly Chandler-Olcott, EdD, is Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence in the Reading & Language Arts Department, and the interim dean of the School of Education, at Syracuse University. She teaches literacy methods courses to secondary and K-12 education majors and coordinates undergraduate and master's programs in English education. Her design-based research focuses on teaching literacy across the disciplines in diverse, inclusive classrooms, and she has coedited the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy since 2015. Her awareness of the potential for clinical simulations in teacher education was heightened by cofacilitating a faculty study group on that topic for several years with Benjamin Dotger.