Abstract
Science education research has examined the benefits of coteaching for learning to teach in elementary and secondary school contexts where coteachers bring variable levels of experience to the work of coteaching. Coteaching as a pedagogical strategy is being implemented at the university level but with limited research. Drawing from the field of activity theory and our emic experience as coteachers, we examine the enactment of coteaching in university science education courses. One of the tools central to our examination of coteaching included the analysis of disturbances in the work and object of preparing science teachers. This analysis highlighted the role, during discursive interactions, of problem posing and problem solving for addressing observed disturbances. The presence of an extra instructor provided increased opportunities in the system for recognizing and valuing disturbances as indicators of underlying contradictions or tensions in elements of the activity system of the learning and teaching of science teachers. Our analysis suggests that coteaching offers expanded opportunities for the evolution of the activity system of preparing science teachers.
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Notes
We have selected this term for college-level coteaching to distinguish from coteachers at the K-12 level.
We selected this term as a generic term for all student participants in the science methods courses otherwise we would have had to refer to in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and interns. Also we wanted to restrict the term “student” to K-12 contexts.
We selected this term as a generic term for all student participants in the science methods courses otherwise we would have had to refer to in-service teachers, pre-service teachers, and interns. Also we wanted to restrict the term “student” to K-12 contexts.
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Milne, C., Scantlebury, K., Blonstein, J. et al. Coteaching and Disturbances: Building a Better System for Learning to Teach Science. Res Sci Educ 41, 413–440 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-010-9172-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-010-9172-7