| Project Summary | A major goal of teacher education programs is to prepare teachers for solving problems in complex and problem-laden contexts. Yet, a common challenge is to prepare teachers to apply knowledge learned during university-based classes to problems encountered in real classrooms. Beginning and practicing teachers often state that coursework teachers’ procedures, but not problem-solving strategies that help in the application of those procedures. In effect, education graduates often learn how to do things, but not when or why things must be done. Changes in the UBC Teacher Education Program, in general, and this proposed project, in particular, attempt to address these concerns. This project examines the question: How might we create learning environments which are more representative of the kind of complex problem-solving teachers will encounter in the field?
The project aims to:
- Develop multimedia materials to help prospective teachers learn new ways of thinking about teaching and learning mathematics, as well as new ways of learning about practice from practice. Multimedia cases (CD-ROM cases which may include digital video clips of teaching and learning, interviews with pupils and teachers, copies of students’ work, copies of teachers’ pedagogical deliberations, and commentary from experts in the field) can provide opportunities for students to learn content that is situated within the analysis of authentic classroom events. These multimedia representations will become intellectual springboards for mathematical and pedagogical inquiry into what is possible and practical in elementary and secondary classrooms.
- Involve teacher education students, graduate students, and faculty in creating these digital representations of teaching and learning. This is a unique aspect of this project. Calls for reform in teacher education (e.g. Report of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996) highlight the importance of exploring the potential of new technologies for providing students in classrooms with relevant learning experiences. This proposed project allows prospective teachers to learn more about these technologies so they in turn will be able to explore these possibilities with their own students.
- Provide teacher education students, graduate students, practicing teachers and faculty from a variety of curricular areas and disciplines with networked technologies and tools to share, investigate, and critique the created multimedia cases of teaching and learning.
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| Year 1: Team Members | Cynthia Nicol, Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education
Klaus Hoeschmann, Mathematics, Faculty of Science
Natasa Sirotic, Graduate Student, Mathematics, Faculty of Science
Samantha McLaren, Graduate Student, Mathematics and Science Education
Christian Dy, Graduate Student, Mathematics and Science Education
Kenroy Johnson, Graduate Student, Mathematics and Science Education
Luybov Byrne, Graduate Student, Mathematics and Science Education
Avinash Gupta, Teacher Education Student
Dan Constania, Teacher Education Student
André Laprade, Teacher Education Student
Teresa Dou, Teacher Education Student
Donna Palmer, Centre for Applied Academics
Ricki Goldman-Segall, Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education
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