The EDGE Conference 2009: Inspiration and Innovation in Teaching and Teacher Education was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland from October 14-16, 2009. I presented a selection of findings from my doctoral dissertation in a paper called Challenging the cultural routines of teaching and learning: Lessons from a physics methods course.

The abstract for the paper:

Teacher candidates know how to mimic the surface-level features of teaching they have witnessed over many years, yet it is unlikely that they have ever considered the complex pedagogical decisions made by teachers every day. The relevance of this extensive prior exposure of teacher behaviour to how teacher candidates learn to teach has received little consideration in efforts to improve preservice teacher education. The data provide considerable evidence that how a methods course is taught can be a significant catalyst that encourages teacher candidates to carefully examine, in deep rather than superficial ways, their prior assumptions about teaching as they construct professional knowledge from experiences in a preservice teacher education program.

Thanks to all those who attended the presentation.