Negotiating a Space to Teach Science: Stories of Community Conversation and Personal Process in a School Reform Effort
Barker, Heidi Bulmahn
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/80446
Description
Title
Negotiating a Space to Teach Science: Stories of Community Conversation and Personal Process in a School Reform Effort
Author(s)
Barker, Heidi Bulmahn
Issue Date
2001
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Margery D. Osborne
Department of Study
Education
Discipline
Education
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Education, Sciences
Language
eng
Abstract
I conclude that people interested in school reform should consider the following ideas as they work with teachers to implement pedagogical and curricular changes. (1) Teaching is a personal/individual process that takes place within a larger community. This leads to a complex context for working and making decisions. (2) Despite feeling that changes were imposed, teachers make the curriculum work for the needs in their own classroom. (3) Change is a process that teachers view as part of their work. Teachers expect that they will adapt curriculum and make it work for the children in their classes and for themselves. I suggest that those who advocate various reform efforts in teaching and curriculum should consider the spaces that teachers create as they become a part of the change process including intellectual, physical, and emotional ones. In my stories I assert: teachers create their own spaces for making changes in pedagogy and curriculum and they do this as a complex negotiation of external demands (such as their community, relationships with colleagues, and state standards) and their own values and interpretations. The ways that teachers implement the change process is a personal one, and because it is a personal process, school reform efforts largely depend on the teachers making these efforts a part of their own thinking, teaching, and learning.
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