Changing sites, changing practice

ashley casey
University of Bedfordshire
Tim Fletcher
Memorial University of Newfoundland

Saturday, 14 April 12

Experiences of the transition
from teacher to teacher educator


However...


We want to start
with a question?


In what capacity
would you employ this man?


In what capacity
would you employ this man?

(Michael Jordan)


Remember
your answer...


we’ll get back to
it at the end...


In a recent themed edition of...


Past, present, and future of
doctoral programs in physical
education in the United States were
considered…


“
- van der mars (2011)


“
Houston
we’ve had a problem”

- van der mars (2011)


as a metaphor for
D-PETE provision


apollo 13


refocus its priorities


NASA suggested


got everyone
home by adopting


“Do or Die”


“
- van der mars (2011, p. 189)


“ [DPETE must] use our expertise
and creativity to make
unprecedented adjustments and
decisions about Doctoral-PETE’s
future”

- van der mars (2011, p. 189)


using the same
metaphor


We suggest that while
many important
decisions were made
(and will be made)
from those in mission
control (i.e.
experienced PETE
Faculty)


others were made by
the apollo crew...


yet...


We have not heard from those
‘who ﬂew the shuttle’ (which in this
metaphor is D-PETE students and
junior faculty)


Becoming a
teacher educator


Becoming a
teacher educator

Self-study
Methodologies


learning about teaching teachers
Becoming a
teacher educator

Self-study
Methodologies


Becoming a
a) From high school
teacher educator

Self-study
Methodologies


Becoming a
a) From high school b) from d-pete
teacher educator

Self-study
Methodologies


Becoming a
a) From high school b) from d-pete
teacher educator

Self-study
conclusions
Methodologies


The purpose of this presentation is to...

explore our experiences as a)
high school physical education
teachers b) D-PETE students
and c) Junior faculty to
consider how we developed...


our pedagogies of
teacher education


“ many researchers
prepared through D-PETE
go on to assume the roles
of teacher educators”
- ward, parker,Sinclair & Sutherland, 2011


are we engaged in

the preparation of PETE
researchers rather than of
the teacher educators that
many go on to become?


So does D-PETE
recruitment occur at the
detriment of teacher
educations future?


especially when...

“
- Ward, PArker et al. 2011


especially when...

“ many [D-PETE faulty] reported
that the requirement of teaching
experience was often waived and
easily substituted for non school-
based experiences such as
coaching”
- Ward, PArker et al. 2011


especially...

“ when considering that pre-
service teachers are as much
inﬂuenced by who taught them
as they are by the content of the
teacher education curriculum”
- Murray & Kosnick, 2011


several papers in the themed edition

“ reported on the
desirability but not the
necessity of prior teaching
experience in PETE ”
- Ward, PArker et al. 2011; Woods, Goc KArp, & Judd, 2011


this is in stark contrast to general education

“ many faculty see the ability to
draw on prior teaching
experience as an almost
essential attribute of aspiring
teacher educators.”
- boyd, Harris, & Murray, 2007


indeed...

“ by exploring general
education it is evident that
many individuals who are
now teacher educators were
once classroom teachers”
- Murray & Male, 2005; Williams & Ritter, 2010


however, to date

there has been little
research on becoming
a PETE faculty member


with one exception...


Williamson (1993) undertook a study
with five female beginning Pete


“
- williamson, 1993, p. 199


“ what and how [they] learned
about becoming assistant
professors...was more
through a process of chance
than design”
- williamson, 1993, p. 199


this notion is supported generally where...

“ incidental and occasional
learning is characteristic
for beginning teacher
educators.”
- van valzen et al, 2010, p. 71


We aim to extend Williamson’s (1993) study
by exploring our experiences


ﬁrstly we acknowledge our position as
researchers who are personally interested and
invested in the self study of our own practices


“ Self-study is a ﬁeld that opens up
the complex world of teaching and
learning about teaching in ways
that can only be done by those who
are participants in the work of
teacher education”
- Loughran, 2008, p. 1179


The growth of self-study is such that is is now
recognised as one of the largest AERA SIGS


more than ten years ago...

“
- Zeichner, 1999
(AERA vice-presidential address)


more than ten years ago...

“ contrary to the frequent images of the
writings of teacher educators in the
wider education research community
as shallow, under-theorized, self-
promotional, and inconsequential,
much of this work has provided a deep
and critical look at practices and
structures in teacher education”
- Zeichner, 1999
(AERA vice-presidential address)


“ Self-study methodologies help
teacher educators...to develop
deeper awareness of how to
construct strong pedagogical
practice in the future”
- Samaras & Freese, 2006


“ Self-study should not only
document what worked well but
also, and more importantly, what
was problematic, unexpected, and
caused a shift in thinking and
practice”
- LaBoskey, 2004


Laboskey’s characteristics of self-study

“
- laboskey, 2004



“ a) self-initiated and focused
b) improvement aimed
c) interaction in terms of its process
and potential products
d) the use of multiple, primarily
qualitative methods
e) providing exemplar-based
validation - laboskey, 2004



c) interactive in terms of its process
qualitative methods



d) uses multiple, primarily qualitative
methods



qualitative methods
e) provides exemplar-based validation
- laboskey, 2004


“
- mooney, 1957, p. 154


“ any piece of research is accompanied
by an inner and an outer drama
where the researcher wrestles with his
or her intimate experiences and in the
traditions of science, tries to silence
them.”

- mooney, 1957, p. 154


in contrast to this traditional approach
we acknowledge that research is personal


context...


Both former PE teachers
Ash = 15yrs Tim = 5yrs
Both former D-PETE students
Ash = P/T Tim = F/T
Both junior faculty
Ash = <3 yrs Tim = ,1 yr


Both former PE teachers
Ash = 15yrs Tim = 5yrs
Both former D-PETE students
Ash = P/T Tim = F/T
Both junior faculty
Ash = <3 yrs Tim = <1 yr


I had more high school experience
but no PETE experience

Tim had less high school
experience but his pete experience
was more signiﬁcant


data gathering


two substantial
reflective accounts


250,000 words


>900 entries


daily reflections written since
september 2009

>80 post-teaching reflections
written since September 2008


these served as artifacts

“
- kelly, 2005, p. 112, our emphasis


these served as artifacts

“ re-establishing [of] contact with place
must therefore be part of the self-study
project. The means for doing this are to
be found in such textual artefacts as
church bells, personal memories, and
most importantly in the literature of
place”
- kelly, 2005, p. 112, our emphasis


Literature of place is text written as
close to the immediacy of the moment
as possible. The writer is subsequently
able to partially recall the intimacy of
these moments and reﬂect, again, on
the actions they took.


valid or trustworthy self-study?


endeavoured to engage with four criteria

“ 1. clear and detailed descriptions of data
gathering
2. clear descriptions of how we constructed
representations of our data
3. multiple ways of representing the same
self-study
4. evidence of the value of the changes to
our ways of being teacher educators.
- feldman, 2003, pp. 27-28


data analysis


grounded theory


“ draw out and
then fix a concept”


our high school experiences
provided some important ideas


yet fundamentally this still left
us frustrated and challenged


19th July 2010

- Ash’s reflective diary


19th July 2010

I need to take more
responsibility for my
teaching.

- Ash’s reflective diary


I assumed I could simply transfer
my practise from one setting to another


in hindsight the challenges of transition
should have been more obvious


I had assumed - as had
my employers - that my
experience and PhD
were enough to allow
me to excel in PETE.


yet I still had to consider, or understand,
what my pedagogy of teacher eduction was


Tim recalled that...

when I was teaching in schools,
there was a real emphasis on
quick transitions between activities,
having students being physical
active for as much of the class as
possible, and generally keeping the
class busy.
first couple of lessons in his primary PE pre-service program


he surmised that...

“
Placek, 1983


he surmised that...

“ busy, happy
and good”
Placek, 1983


because

...today we sat and we talked
for a long time. ..I am aware of
classes in school being active
places/situations, however, to
convey this, maybe I don’t
need to model this all the time.
first couple of lessons in his primary PE pre-service program


14th december 2009

I need to unlearn my
teaching pedagogy and
try and understand how
the new environment
works. Ash’s reflective diary


to unlearn my school teaching pedagogy
I had to manage the emerging, dominant and
residual processes of my teaching


I had to unlearn my
expectation that a teacher
educator modelled best
practice and had to learn
instead how to be an “asker
of questions”


26th january 2010

challenge the way in which
physical education was taught
at university...yet there’s a
considerable distance between
what I would like to be and
what I currently deliver.
Ash’s reflective diary


in a similar process of unlearning
tim was at times as frustrated as he had been
in his first year of high school teaching


like many beginning teachers his ﬁrst concern
was if his students liked him rather than whether and
to what extent they were learning about teaching PE.


...far too reliant on what
his students thought of
him as an indicator of
good PETE teaching...


...which in turn may have
limited how he helped his
students to challenge
their assumptions about
teaching PE.


alternative analysis


it could be suggested that as a high school teacher
tim was uncritical of his teaching


and only by considering the “literature of place”
has he come to reconsider his practices and form
the opinion that his previous pedagogy was flawed


also although I made a number of references to the
need to change
I chose not to


“
silverman, 2003


“ while the experienced teacher
might see and do things
diﬀerently or more intuitively
than someone with little or no
experience, these responses are
inherently context speciﬁc.”
silverman, 2003


therefore perhaps the context was just unfamiliar
and i continued to make judgements as a teacher
rather than seeking answers as a teacher educator.


two contrasting approaches...


one in PETE
full time


one supported by PETE
part-time


unsurprisingly...


two stories...


Tim suggested that...

I undertook a PhD in curriculum studies and
teacher development but apart from my thesis study,
had little focus on physical education.


I was left to my own devices to learn about
the ways that
Teacher education theory and practice applied
to PETE contexts.


in contrast...


I had no background in teacher
education from perspectives
related to either PETE or education generally.


My PhD program was never designed
to prepare me for a career in higher
education, as it was undertaken for
the sole purpose of helping me in my
ongoing aim of being a better high
school physical educator.


11th september 2009

ash’s reflective diary


11th september 2009

moments of doubt strike me
with regards to my complete
lack of experience in this
area [of teacher education].


11th september 2009

[I am conﬁdent] in terms of my
approach as a supervisor, my
knowledge of action research and
physical education, and my ability
to help these students develop and
learn. ash’s reflective diary


an apparent “disconnect” between research and practice
was a feature of my transition;
with one not necessarily informing the other.


4th october 2009



4th october 2009

what the most
important part the job
really is?


site expectations


in many respects I was left to
learn how to be A teacher of teachers


Tim was involved with


Tim was involved with

BTE
Becoming a Teacher Educator


voluntary, non scholarly group
that stood apart from formal learning


helped me to understand
what might be required to be
a new teacher educator


6th july 2010

Not only does [BTE] oﬀer a way to stay
connected socially with other students
interested in teacher education … but it
also gives me a place where I can report
back about my own successes and
challenges that I experience in my role
as a beginning teacher educator.
tim’s reflections


12th january 2012

I felt that my experiences with BTE
helped me really come to think of
myself as a teacher educator, and
with the communities that I am
engaging with (such as S-STEP
and PE SIGs at AERA and CSSE)
tim’s reflections


alternatively...


I felt that through my PhD I had learned how to
be an academic and an innovator
but not about PETE or what my PETE
pedagogy might look like or be


given the signiﬁcance of BTE it is important to question
how much of my “pedagogical reinterpretation”
has been shaped by this group


have the groups’ interpretations
become mine?


We may then consider whether the “silences” from my
doctoral program would have been as strong if my thesis
hadn’t explored pedagogical and curricular change
but had instead been investigating, for example, teaching
pre-service teachers about using models-based practice in
physical education?


“ Knowing teaching and schooling from
the perspective of a researcher is
fundamentally diﬀerent than
experiencing teaching and schooling
from the inside. If the trend is to admit
students without teaching experiences
should it be provided once a student is
admitted to a doctoral program?”
- ward, parker et al, 2011, p.150


however...


while teaching
experience is seen as
important...


experience teaching
teachers is not...


so we are left with a conundrum...


we question what
experience is important


Chicago employed him twice


Michael “Air” Jordan


was there an assumption


that he could transfer his skill set


does pete make assumptions?


that similar transition is
easy to make?


What skill set
do we value?


so we are faced


Houston


“Strike Out!”


Thank You


References
Boyd, P., Harris, K., & Murray, J. (2007). Becoming a teacher educator: guidelines
for the induction of newly appointed lecturers in initial teacher education.
Bristol: Higher Education Academy.

Feldman, A. (2003). Validity and quality in self-study. Educational Researcher,
32(3): 26-28.

Graham, R. J. (1989). Autobiography and education. Journal of Educational
Thought, 23(2): 92-105.

Kelly, T. (2005). Truth and fiction: seeing our rural selves. In. C. Mitchell, S.
Weber, & O’Reilly-Scanlon (eds.) Just who do we think we are?: Methodologies
for autobiography and self-study in teaching. (pp. 111-120). London:
RoutledgeFalmer.

Kemmis, S. & Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situating praxis in practice: Practice
architectures and the cultural, social and material conditions for practice. In
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Journal of Education for Teaching, 37(3): 243-246.

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field. Teaching & Teacher Education, 21(2): 125-142.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical
underpinnings. In J. Loughran, M.L. Hamilton, V. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (eds.),
International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education
practices (pp. 817-869). Dordrecht: Kluwer.


Loughran, J. J. (2008). Toward a better understanding of teaching and learning
about teaching. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. J. McIntyre & K. E. Demers
(Eds.). Handbook of research on teacher education. 3rd ed. (pp. 1177-1182) New
York: Routledge.

Mooney, R.L. (1957). The researcher himself. In Research for curriculum
improvement, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1957
yearbook (pp. 154-186). Washington, DC: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

Placek, J. (1983). Conceptions of success in teaching: Busy, happy, and good? In T. J.
Templin & J. Olson (Eds.). Teaching in physical education. (pp. 45-56). Champaign, IL:
Human Kinetics.


Samaras, A. P. & Freese, A. R. (2006). Self-study of teaching practices primer. New
York: Peter Lang.

Silverman, S. (2003). The role of teaching in the preparation of future faculty.
Quest, 55(1): 72-81.

van der Mars, H. (2011). Reflecting on the state of U.S. Doctoral PETE programs…
“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 30(2):
189-208.

Ward, P., Parker, M., Sutherland, S. & Sinclair, C. (2011). A critical examination of
the curriculum of physical education teacher education doctoral programs.
Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 30(4): 145-156.


van Velzen, C., van der Klink, M., Swennen, A., & Yaffe, E. (2010). The induction and
needs of beginning teacher educators, Professional Development in Education,
36(1-2): 61-75.

Williams, J. & Ritter, J. K. (2010). Constructing new professional identities through
self-study: From teacher to teacher educator. Professional Development in
Education, 36(1): 77-92.

Williamson, K. M. (1993). A qualitative study on the socialization of beginning
physical education teacher educators. Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport,
64(2): 188-201.


Woods, M. L., Goc Karp, G., & Judd, M. (2011). Search chair and physical education
teacher perceptions about filling PETE positions. Journal of Teaching in Physical
Education, 30(4): 129-144.

Zeichner, K. M. (1999). The new scholarship in teacher education. Educational
Researcher, 28(9): 4-15


Images
Slide Number
4, 5, 35, 164 – Michael Jordan from warezone.com
10 – JTPE image from Human kinetics
13, 173 – Apollo capsule image from universetoday.com
16, 17 – Apollo from space image from nasa
18, 19, 20, 174 – ground control 1 image from starling-fitness.com
23, 24, 25 – ground control 2 image from en.wikipedia.org
26, 27 – moon free image from computer
99, 100 – School by Jibby! on Flickr
166, 172 – basketball Jordan from shareyourwallpaper.com
167, 175 – Baseball Jordan from framework.latimes.com


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