TEACHER EDUCATION

I began as a teacher educator in science and mathematics education in 1974 in an Australian college which is now part of Edith Cowan University. Until 1984 when I moved to the Western Australian Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) my focus was on science and mathematics teacher education for prospective and practicing elementary and middle school teachers. In 1984 my focus shifted both in my research and substantively in my activities. As part of a large graduate center for science and mathematics education I worked mainly with practicing teachers who were engaged in research on the teaching and learning of mathematics and science in high schools. Thus the swing was toward graduate studies, research as a part of professional development of high school teachers, and within a K-12 set of interests a clearer specialization on the high school.

When I commenced at Florida State University in 1987 my foci tended to cycle as priorities changed. For much of the time I was at FSU I was involved in leadership of the science education program and also served a term as head of the curriculum and instruction department. There I continued to develop different approaches to teacher preparation and also was active in a variety of statewide efforts involving “reform” of science and mathematics in Florida. At times I was most involved in doctoral level education, at other times graduate degrees for practicing teachers, and at other times I initiated and enacted major changes in the programs we offered for prospective teachers. Throughout my decade at FSU I was involved in elementary, middle and high school teacher education and at times this necessitated not only close collaboration with colleagues in Arts & Sciences but also research on teaching and learning at the college level.

Since I began to focus my activities on teaching and learning in urban high schools I initiated two major professional development programs in large urban school districts (the nations fourth and fifth largest respectively). In Dade County, Florida I planned and initiated a master’s degree (or specialist degree) for elementary and middle school teachers in urban schools in Miami. More than 250 teachers entered an initial cohort and in collaboration with colleagues in the College of Arts & Sciences we enacted a seven semester degree program that involved seven semesters of focused study – face to face in three intensive summer semesters and mainly using the Internet in the four intervening fall/spring semesters. Before I left Florida State University to join the faculty at Penn I had the honor to attend the graduation ceremony for all but a handful of those we initially admitted to the program.

At Penn I have collaborated with faculty from the Chemistry Department to obtain funding for a master’s degree in chemistry education. This degree is fully funded with support from the National Science Foundation, Penn, and various private companies. The degree is modeled on the successful Dade county project and spans 7 semesters. We admit 20 practicing high school science teachers a year and they study a program that consists of 8 courses in chemistry (especially designed to prepare teachers to teach chemistry at high school grades) all taught by faculty in the chemistry department and two courses in chemistry education. Like the Dade county degree we use three intensive summer semesters and the instruction in the intervening fall/spring semesters is on Saturday mornings, thereby increasing access of the degree to teachers. In the past summer we admitted our third cohort of 20 teachers to the program and to this point in time the attrition is limited to a handful of students.

I am involved in research on this project in an ongoing basis and we hired a post doc (Catherine Milne) and several graduate students (notably Matt Corcoran and Eugenia Koo) to undertake extensive research and evaluation under my supervision and in collaboration with me. Among the many interesting questions we are exploring is the extent to which teachers teach the way they are taught. With the use of video analyses we are examining the college professors’ strategies of action and we are comparing them to the practices of teachers when they teach their high school science classes (especially chemistry). Also, we are looking at the strategies of action used by teachers as learners and examine their classrooms to ascertain the extent to which these same strategies are emphasized/encouraged in the high school classes taught by the teacher (to what extent do teachers promote learner strategies that reflect their own approaches to learning science?). In addition we have adopted a design that is consistent with Guba and Lincoln’s fourth generation evaluation and ensure that all stakeholders have a voice in the design and outcomes of the evaluation. We pay close attention to Guba and Lincoln’s authenticity criteria, particularly catalytic and educative authenticity.