Keith R Skamp

Teacher Candidates Talk Listen to the Unsteady Beat of Learning to Teach

If we are to change the pedagogy of teacher education, then teacher educators need to listen carefully to the students they teach. Drawing on a longitudinal study where prospective teachers talk about their learning across a 2-year teacher education program, this article seeks to illustrate and to interpret interview comments from five prospective teachers about their learning experiences. Data analysis highlights the diversity of needs expressed by prospective teachers and how a teacher educator adapts his or her teaching practices in response to their comments. The relationship between student-teacher voices and the reflecting practitioner’s voice is at the center of this article. Ahermeneutic stance is used to examine the circular nature of learning to teach and the role of a teacher educator in it. Teacher education is continuous, and to change it, teacher educators need to change the ways in which they guide new professionals as they begin to feel and adapt to the unsteady beat of learning to teach.

The Impact of Teachers and Their Science Teaching on Students’ ‘Science Interest’: A four-year study

There is a crisis in school science in Australia and this may be related to insufficient students developing an interest in science. This extended study looked at changes in 14 students’ interest in science as they moved through junior secondary school into Year 10. Although the majority of these students still had an interest in science in Year 10, it had fluctuated for most students from year to year. The presence or absence of simple, but effective, teaching practices, identified by these students, seems to suggest one way to retain or improve situational and, it would appear, in several cases, personal interest.

Student teachers' entry perceptions about teaching primary science: Does a first degree make a difference?

It is problematic whether primary teachers benefit by completing a first degree especially when the teaching of specific subjects, here science, is the focus of attention. This study reports the comparative results of interviewing thirteen Canadian and ten Australian student teachers, both about to commence their Bachelor of Education. The Canadian students had completed an initial degree while nine of the Australian students were school leavers. The interviews, which explored views about teaching primary science, were analysed with this factor in mind. Student teacher perceptions reported include: how to recognise a “good” primary science teacher; perceptions of self as a “good” primary science teacher; expectations of how the teacher education program could assist their science teaching; and whether (for the Canadian students) the initial degree will help in becoming a primary science teacher. Analysis of the interviews suggests possible influences a first degree (among other factors) may have on perceptions related to primary science teaching and raises questions about what is the best general approach for preparing primary teachers to teach science effectivly.

Understanding teachers’ ‘levels of use’ of learnscapes

All eight teachers and their principal, at an Australian regional primary school in New South Wales (NSW) accredited for its ongoing ‘learnscape’ developments, were interviewed. This was to ascertain their perceptions about the role of learnscapes and their self‐reported use of such outdoor areas to assist in the achievement of their State’s syllabus and environmental education learning outcomes. Teachers at the school (6) and their principal were (re)interviewed a year later to determine if changes in perceptions and practice had occurred and why. This paper interprets narratives derived from the combined interviews of these latter teachers and their principal from an educational change perspective in order to gain insight into their level of use of learnscapes. Teachers’ learnscape and environmental education content and pedagogical knowledge, their focus on the consequences of learnscape use for student learning, and awareness of multiple learning outcomes, including social learning, when using learnscapes, were among interdependent change factors identified which may assist in understanding why teachers embraced learnscapes to different degrees. Consequent avenues for increasing the future use of learnscapes for syllabus and environmental purposes are suggested.

An international study of the propensity of students to limit their use of private transport in light of their understanding of the causes of global warming

Previous studies have shown that there is what has been called a ‘gap’ between environmental knowledge and a willingness to act in a pro-environmental manner. For the individual, this gap is probably the result of the huge complexity of factors that affect behaviour. The way in which this ‘gap’ is sometimes identified in the literature, however, is also partly a function of the fact that much of the research in this area has compared environmental attitudes in general with a willingness to take actions that are specific. In the present study, we have circumvented this latter issue by exploring links between a declared willingness to undertake specific actions and the level of belief in the efficacy of those particular actions in reducing global warming. Here we report findings on actions concerning personal transport. Because the questionnaire was designed to provide quantitative measures, novel indices could be constructed that indicate, for example, the extent to which persuading people that an action is effective might increase their willingness to undertake it. Responses were obtained from students in 11 countries with different cultural mores. This enabled us to explore possible associations between a readiness to undertake specific actions and previously published socio-cultural indices. The implications for education about these issues are explored.

Education and Climate Change: Living and Learning in Interesting Times . Edited by F. Kagawa & D. Selby (Eds.). (2010). Publisher: Routledge, London. ISBN10: 0415805856 (hbk); ISBN10: 0203866398 (ebk), pp. 259.

Review(s) of: Education and climate change: Living and learning in interesting times, Edited by Kagawa, F. and Selby, D, (Eds.), (2010), Publisher Routledge, London, ISBN10 0415805856 (hbk), ISBN10 0203866398 (ebk), pp.259.

Preservice teachers: Process skill entry behaviour and opinions about teaching primary science

ConclusionsThis group of preservice teachers entered their education programme with conceptions about teaching primary science which are biased towards science content and preparation for secondary science. However, although process skills are not mentioned specifically by the vast majority of students, about a third of the intake considered “problem solving/discovering” things to be a purpose for teaching primary science. There would appear to be a ‘base’ for change towards a balanced process-product so favourably to the structured questionnaire on choice of teaching strategies tends to support this opinion.Process skill competency and orientation must be addressed in the preservice science units but with an appropriate emphasis on their interdependence with concept development. Some input ensuring an understanding of the processes within the overall scientific framework would seem to be required.The next stage of this study will be to compare the pre- and post-unit data to determine a measure of the changes (if any) that have occurred. As the unit focusses on student led discussions related to the interdependence of science process skill and concept development [Harlen (1985), Chapters 1 to 7]; includes practical investigations which emphasise learner preconceptions and investigation planning, data collecting and processing; and requires students to prepare lesson sequences revolving around Harlens “shapes”, e.g. hypothesis generation (p.p. 166–172), then significant changes are anticipated.