Shawn Michael Bullock

Exploring the Transition into Academia through Collaborative Self-Study.

An emerging body of self-study of teacher education practices research considers whether classroom teaching experience and doctoral study constitute sufficient preparation for engaging in the work of teacher education. As new academics who explored this issue as graduate students, we turned to one another in this collaborative self-study to examine our transition from doctoral students to assistant professors. Although we set out to explore our pedagogies for teacher education, we found our posted messages quickly became a way for us to query issues about how our identities were emerging as we enacted our new roles as academics. Data revealed three major turning points and indicated that a focus on pedagogy can be pushed aside by the pressures of initial socialization. We conclude that self-study methodology helped us to understand this tension and also provided support for professional development for new academics.

Creating a Space for the Development of Professional Knowledge: A self-study of supervising teacher candidates during practicum placements

This article reports a self-study that analyzes my developing pedagogy as a beginning teacher educator and supervisor of practicum field placements. The data consist of my journal entries describing experiences teaching and supervising a group of teacher candidates both at the university and in their host schools. Qualitative techniques of content analysis and coding were applied to examine the data and identify themes and patterns relevant to my professional development as a teacher educator. Engaging in self-study as a new teacher educator is shown to be a productive way to confront my assumptions about how teacher candidates learn to teach. The quality of my relationships with teacher candidates has a direct impact on how I enact my principles of practice. Finally, this article highlights tensions between my developing principles of practice and my assumptions about teaching and learning.

Self-studies of science teacher education practices

Exploring the Intersections of Self-Study, Science Teaching, and Science Teacher Education, Shawn Michael Bullock.- A Collaborative Self-Study of a Physics Teachers First Two Years of Teaching, Liam Brown, Tom Russell.- The Transformation from Expert Science Teacher to Science Teacher Educator, Dawn Garbett.- Bridging the Gap between a Science Laboratory Past and a Science Teacher Educator Present: Re-thinking the Doctoral Program in Science Education, Alexandra O. Santau.- Articulating our Values to Develop our Pedagogy of Science Teacher Education, Stephen Keast, Rebecca Cooper.- Using Self-Study to Develop a Pedagogy of Elementary Teacher Education: Addressing the Specialist-Generalist Issue, Tim Fletcher.- Learning to Teach Physics Teachers: Developing a Distinct Pedagogy of Teacher Education, Shawn Michael Bullock.- Developing and Assessing Professional Knowledge as a Science Teacher Educator: Learning about Teaching from Student Teachers, Pernilla Nilsson, John Loughran.- Following a Student into her Science Classroom to Better Understand the Tensions of Science Education, Deborah Trumbull.- Helping Preservice Science Teachers Analyze their Practices as We Study our Own, Patricia Morrell, Adele Schepige.- Developing a Model for a Self-study Professional Learning Community, Garry Hoban et al.- Science Teacher Education, Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, and the Reflective Turn, Tom Russell.

The Culture of Schools

Teaching is a part of our culture. Nearly every adult has been to school and consequently has a set of images and ideas about what teaching should look and feel like from a student’s perspective (Lortie, 1975). As Knowles, Cole, and Presswood (1994, p. 121) noted, “schools, regardless of location, tend to look more similar than different.” In this chapter I review relevant literature pertaining to the dominant culture of schools in North America and the associated problems of change and education reform. The chapter begins by developing the argument that education and education reform are cultural processes from both anthropological and sociological perspectives. The cultural routines associated with teaching and learning tend to be replicated by new teachers because of the unexamined yet powerful effects of the “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975, p. 62). The chapter concludes by suggesting that prior assumptions about teaching and learning, created by cultural socialization through the education system, play a significant role in learning to teach.

Enacting Literacy Pedagogies: A collaborative self-study by teacher educators in physical education and science

As beginning teacher educators we aimed to examine our pedagogical approaches for engaging teacher candidates in thinking about physical literacy and scientific literacy, respectively. We employed self-study research methodologies to explore our literacy practices and developing pedagogies of teacher education, the similarities and differences in our approaches and practices, and the utility of collaborating in two different subject areas. Data were collected and analyzed over one academic year using a collaborative blog and bi-weekly meetings. The self-study helped us understand several conceptual similarities between the concepts of physical literacy and scientific literacy. By discussing our thoughts about teaching and learning, we began to craft a shared vision for our pedagogies of teacher education with literacy as the central piece of that vision. The collaborative nature of this self-study provided both support and encouragement from a trusted colleague and a safe space to explore and reframe problematic aspects of practice.

Teaching 2.0: (Re)Learning to Teach Online

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to document and analyse the authors first two years of developing a pedagogy that meaningfully incorporates the content creation and social collaboration functions of digital technologies.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses self‐study methodology to describe, interpret, and challenge excerpts from the authors teaching journal to develop warranted assertions for how and why digital technologies are used in particular ways during undergraduate and graduate level courses.Findings – One finding of the paper is the relative ease with which the author slipped into a comfort zone of using digital technologies in rather superficial ways, since the major hurdle of ubiquitous access that he had previously encountered was removed due to the fact he was now teaching at a mobile‐enabled institution. The paper also reports on the relative success the author experienced using blogging tools to further develop relationships with undergraduate and graduate students and en...

Exploring the Intersections of Self-Study, Science Teaching, and Science Teacher Education

The challenges associated with teaching science and teaching about teaching science might initially seem linked to problems of creating technical knowledge. After all, science is often associated with concepts such as truth, rigour, and objective knowledge. Self-study of teacher education practices, by contrast, might initially bring to mind the epistemological challenges of knowledge that is constructed from personal experience. Of what relevance, then, is self-study methodology to issues of science teaching and science teacher education? Part of the answer, of course, lies in the fact that the disciplines of science are about far more than knowledge production. The discipline of teaching, similarly, is about far more than applying particular strategies to everyday classroom situations. Science teaching and science teacher education are complex endeavours that demand far more than the assumptions underpinning what Schon called technical rationality (1983, p. 21). Self-study methodology offers one way to move beyond technical rationality toward a more productive understanding of professional knowledge, one that is inextricably grounded in socially constructed understandings. Historically, the disciplines of science have also made use of socially mediated ways of knowing. In this introductory chapter, I develop a perspective from the history of science that helps to understand how self-study methodology relates to science education.

Learning to Teach Physics Teachers: Developing a Distinct Pedagogy of Teacher Education

Although my prior experiences as a doctoral candidate included significant opportunities to teach preservice teacher candidates and to engage in self-study research, the realities of being an assistant professor in a different teacher education program provided new problems of practice that continue to challenge how I think about teaching teachers. The purpose of this chapter is to name, interpret, and analyse how my pedagogy of teacher education has been shaped by my first 2 years as an assistant professor. I trace the development of my initial principles of teacher education before presenting several turning points that shed light on how my experiences have encouraged me to think about my pedagogy in different ways. I conclude the chapter by suggesting that part of becoming a teacher educator is to develop a distinct pedagogy of teacher education, where the term distinct is taken to refer to the impressions made by the interactions that occur between my guiding principles and the problems of practice I encounter in my science education classroom.

Becoming a Teacher

How does one become a teacher? Some may argue that one is born to teach; indeed many of the teacher candidates that I have met over the years are quick to tell me that they have dreamed of becoming teachers ever since they were small children. A few candidates have even described moments in their childhood when they “played school” with friends, family, or perhaps stuffed toys. Other candidates have mentioned a critical moment later in life when they realized teaching is a career they would like to pursue. Perhaps they enjoy explaining their subject matter to others. Perhaps they had a meaningful experience as a camp counsellor that cemented an interest in working with young people. Perhaps, like me, they had an experience in secondary school as a teaching assistant for younger students, and decided that they would like to be the one at the front of the classroom.

The Development of Teachers’ Professional Knowledge

This chapter develops the premise that, although teacher candidates can and do learn from propositional forms of knowledge, understanding the ways in which teacher candidates learn from experience offers a more productive way of thinking about learning to teach. In particular, the narrative inquiry perspective (Clandinin & Connelley, 1995) and the reflection-in-action perspective (Munby & Russell, 1990) are explored with a view to challenging the epistemological assumptions advocated by purely propositional views of learning to teach. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of attending closely to the development of teachers’ professional knowledge from teaching and learning experiences that occur during both coursework and practicum experiences.