This Special Issues Brief from the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR Center) and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines essential features for providing high-quality, structured, and sequenced opportunities to practice within teacher preparation programs.

This brief is intended to support states, districts, and EPPs that are striving to prepare and support excellent teachers by:

• Showcasing several teacher preparation programs wherein faculty have enacted innovative strategies to embed practice-based opportunities into existing coursework and field experiences that more closely connect with the realistic demands of today’s classrooms.
• Strengthening understanding of several practice-based approaches, informed by the science of learning, which have been found to increase beginning teacher candidates’ capacity for teaching.
• Identifying potential action steps that EPPs, districts, and states can take to improve candidates’ opportunities to practice.

The brief is intended for use by EPPs, districts, and state education agencies (SEAs). The information and considerations presented will be especially useful for EPP faculty engaged in transforming programs and for state policymakers in rethinking program approval requirements.