Gaalen Erickson

A study of tertiary physics students’ conceptualizations of sound

This report discusses university physics students’ conceptualizations of sound. The data for this study comes from ten Canadian physics graduates enrolled in a teacher education programme. They participated in clinical interviews that consisted of a variety of demonstrations and experiments based upon situations representing both ‘everyday’ as well as ‘school‐related’ examples of sound phenomena. The data analysis was framed in a phenomenographic tradition and the conceptualizations are illustrated with dialogue excerpts taken from the student interviews. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

The Nature of Teaching and Learning in Self-Study*

Understanding the relationship between teaching and learning is essential to an appreciation of self-study as a field of inquiry in its own right. The individual research trajectories in the fields of teaching and learning, particularly in recent years, illustrate su3cient common ground to support the contention that enhanced teaching practice is dependent upon teachers problematizing the ways and contexts in which they learn and make sense of that practice. While this shift, and its current recognition within the academy, is cause for celebration, we suggest that teachers’ problematizing their practice is a not new phenomenon. Indeed, we argue that Schwab was only partly correct when he characterized teaching as having four commonplaces. We contend that self-study is, and always has been, the fifth commonplace and, as such, is the cornerstone of professional practice. Without self-study teaching becomes repetitive not reflective – merely the duplication of models and strategies learned elsewhere and brought to bear unproblem-atically in one’s own classroom. Tracing the interconnectedness between teaching, learning, and self-study is instructive for appreciating how inquiry is construed, defined, and enacted within the profession.

Self-Study: The Fifth Commonplace.

This paper argues that there has been academic amnesia in the field of self-study with respect to the intellectual heritage underlying self-study as a way of understanding teaching practice. From Aristotle to Dewey, the concept of practical inquiry or deliberation has been a recurrent theme. However Schwabs exploration of the role of the ‘practical’ is the most significant in recent times in focusing attention on ‘the teacher as knowledge creator’ and interpreter of curriculum in classroom settings. This work is particularly important as it came at a time when educational research sought a place in the academy, and ‘technical rationality’ (Schön, 1983) was the vehicle for establishing that position. Schwabs characterisation of classroom practice, in terms of four commonplaces (the teacher, the student, the milieu, and the subject matter), highlighted the significance of the practical and paved the way for what we argue is the fifth commonplace: self-study.

Complexity Science and Cohorts in Teacher Education

In this paper we examine the nature of our self-study practices in an elementary teacher education cohort called CITE (Community and Inquiry in Teacher Education). We argue that self-study is not only important to our continued work in CITE but also a critical feature of professional practice in general. Two general questions frame our analysis: (1) What is significant about cohorts in teacher education? (2) How might complexity science inform our understanding of cohorts in particular and of teacher education programs in general? We argue in the paper that the use of a cohort-type structure in a teacher education program provided us with flexibility and potential for improvisation to address the perennial problems of program fragmentation. To better understand our own teaching and learning practices in this community setting, we sought an analytic framework that emphasized the importance of the learning potential of the collective as opposed to just the learning potential of the individual. We argue that complexity science, with its ecological emphasis on learning systems, is such an analytical framework. We generate six propositions about the role and value of cohorts in teacher education that arise from self-study of our own practice.

Perspectives on learning to teach science: insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project

In this article we discuss the theoretical and practical rationale for establishing a collaborative science practicum project and report on the findings of the first two years. The project was designed to strengthen the communication links among the school‐based educators, the pre‐service teachers, and the university‐based educators, in order to address the seemingly intractable problems associated with initiating new science teachers into the varied social practices of the teaching profession. Our findings are organized and discussed in the form of three dilemmas (Cuban 1992). These dilemmas are associated with the difficulties the pre‐service teachers had in connecting the propositional knowledge presented in the university setting with the procedural knowledge required in the school setting, and the lack of familiarity by the university and school‐based educators of each others practice setting. We describe results that resonate with similar issues reported in other collaborative projects, and propose...

Dimensions of Learning for Long-term Professional Development: comparing approaches from education, business and medical contexts

Abstract This article analyses the nature of learning in three long-term professional development approaches from different disciplines – teacher research as used in educational contexts, action learning as used in business contexts, and problem-based learning as used in medical contexts. The lens used for analysis focuses on three dimensions or influences on learning – the action setting, personal influences and sociocultural influences. Although the dimensions are present in each approach, they have a different emphasis. It is argued that planning for long-term professional development needs to consider all three dimensions in conjunction because the key for sustainability in professional development is the dynamic interplay between the dimensions

Constructing and Sustaining Communities of Inquiry in Teacher Education

Thi sc hapter explores the notion of missing links in teacher education by examining concepts of community an di nquiry as they pertai nt o t he socia ld i mensions of ‘learning to teach.’ We know that whil et hese are popular notions i ne ducationa ld i scourse we believe their philosophica li mport has been undervalue di n designing teacher preparation program. We have an expanded vision of community that includes school personnel, pre-service teachers, campus-base di nstructors, and graduates of our program. Similarly we have an expanded vision o fi nquiry that includes collaborative an di ndividua li nvestigations b ya ll members of the community. These investigations are focused on the program itself and give shape to its continual evolution. Hence, whil et he concepts of community an di nquiry remain constant, the program each year i sau nique reflection o fi ts participants and their particular concerns. In 1997, several colleagues with strong commitments to teacher education reform began to share visions for creating an ewinitiative withi nt he Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Conceptually speaking, we stood on a big patch of common ground with all of us believing that preparation for teaching should be considered a moral as well as intellectual and even aesthetic endeavor. We shared concerns that much of teacher preparation is regarded in our own institution, as well as others, as a technical enterprise. Programs are often focused on the mechanics of teaching, rather than on the development of dispositions, sensitivities and understandings that guide thoughtful judgments about what to believe or do in the complex world ¨ ¨

Re-conceptualizing the Teaching of Physics for Non-majors: Learning from Instructor-Driven Reform

At the University of British Columbia, as in many universities, the physics department offers courses to a wide variety of students, many of whom are not pursuing Physics as a major but are required to take Physics for their program of choice. So-called “service” courses targeted to this non-major population have historically been taught using the same topics, instructional sequences, and teaching techniques as those designed for Physics majors, even though there are significant differences in the background, motivation, needs, and goals of these two populations. In 2007, motivated by the desire to offer a course to their non-major students that would be more meaningful and relevant to them, the instructors of UBC’s introductory Physics course for non-majors initiated a series of ongoing changes to the course content, instructional sequence, and pedagogical tools. This chapter explores how the instructors’ motivations, goals, and pedagogical content knowledge have interacted with the logistical and cultural constraints of teaching in the context of a major research university to shape these course changes over the first two years of implementation. Results from ongoing research into the effects of these changes are described and specific examples of how curricular materials and pedagogical methods have evolved are presented.

“The Filter of Laws”: Teacher Education and the British Columbia College Of Teachers’ Teaching Standards

While the movement for more public standards has gained considerable strength in the United States, there has been little talk of teaching standards in Canada until quite recently. Beginning in the late 1990s there have been publicized reforms in teaching standards by conservative governments in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. In this chapter we examine how the Community and Inquiry in Teacher Education (CITE) cohort in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia—tried to interpret the teaching standards in light of program values and practices. Using a selfstudy approach cohort instructors asked: In what ways might the standards enable or hinder our effort to live the values of community and inquiry in teacher education? Ontario’s College of Teachers produced Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession in 1999 as a basis for assessing pre-service teachereducation programs. Beck et al., (2002) note the potential for this document, and standards in general, to increase the status and autonomy for teachers. They endorse teaching standards over curriculum standards