Anne O' Dwyer

Interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has gained momentum due to increasing calls for a more STEM-literate society. As teaching integrated STEM poses curricular and pedagogical challenges for most generalist primary teachers, professional development (PD) is essential to support them to develop appropriate knowledge and efficacy to teach STEM. This paper presents a qualitative study of 17 primary teachers, 2 school principals and the PD facilitator. It explores the perceived impact of a customised three-phase STEM PD program on teacher efficacy in STEM education using Bandura’s (1977) sources of efficacy as an analytic lens. The findings illustrate how particular features of the PD model were identified as contributing to the development of participating teachers’ performance accomplishment, emotional arousal, vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion. In particular, there was consensus that the developmental structure of the STEM PD program, in terms of teachers’ assuming increasing ownership for their STEM learning, incrementally enhanced teacher efficacy in STEM education. Implications of this study for STEM education and in particular STEM PD are discussed fully.

This paper explores the experiences and professional learning of a group of in-service primary school teachers, participating in a STEM education programme in Ireland. Four primary teachers from the same case school engaged in a two-year project to explore STEM teaching and learning. This STEM project was structured as a multi-tiered partnership involving these four in-service teachers collaborating with six STEM teacher educators and a group of pre-service primary teachers, working together to develop an effective school-university STEM collaboration. The project focused on developing and facilitating meaningful classroom-based STEM learning experiences for primary aged children in the school. This paper specifically explores the professional learning and experiences of the in-service teacher participants. The teachers engaged in co-creating and co-facilitating a series of STEM lessons over two years in partnership with, and supported by the university STEM Education faculty. The paper provides insight into the participating teachers’ professional learning in STEM education, as well as implications for school–university partnerships.

This article illustrates how simultaneous involvement in two self-studies with critical friends contributed to an early career teacher educator’s development as a relational teacher educator. Both self-studies took place within the university setting: teaching science to the undergraduate elementary teachers and coaching the intervarsity ladies football team. Learning at the intersection between curricular (science education) and co-curricular (football coaching) self studies supported the exploration of a number of binaries within the landscape of practice. Through both self-studies the early career teacher educator’s personal and professional learning evolved. Learning with and from two critical friends in two separate domains could have complicated an already challenging transition to teacher education. However, the brokering of learning at the intersection of both practices illuminated opportunities for new learning experiences. Participation in two self-studies within the university landscape supported development of practice as a relational teacher educator in three ways: enabling a better understanding of practice, developing empathy and dropping the façade to support learners. Although this article illustrates the affordances of self-study as a collaborative approach to support early career teacher educators, key implications are outlined with relevance to support teacher education practices in general.

A range of learning opportunities needs to be afforded to coaches to support the complexity of effective coaching. Coaches learn to coach in formal and informal settings. Much research has advocated collaborative coach learning, but there is a need to conduct research in order to evidence reliable ways to support collaborative coach learning. Self-study has been effective to support practitioners' learning in teacher education and physical education teacher education. To date, there has been a very limited application of self-study in coaching contexts. This Insights paper advocates the use of collaborative self-study as a reliable and valid approach to support meaningful coach learning. This paper documents the researchers' own experiences of learning to coach within a collaborative self-study. The coaches focused on developing an athlete-centred coaching approach. This paper illustrates how self-study supported collaboration, reflection, and pedagogical innovation over the course of a Gaelic football season. The authors outline implications for future research into coaching and coach education.

While being athlete-centred is identified as being integral to high quality coaching programmes, there has been a limited research focus on its practical implementation. In this study, two coach-researchers engaged in a collaborative self-study of their own coaching practices, as they facilitated athlete-centred principles during a university Gaelic football season. Collaborative self-study enabled them to discuss, critique and deepen their understanding of current practice through engagement in reflection and dialogue. The research findings suggest coaches’ and players’ previous experiences impacted their perceptions of, and engagement with, an athlete-centred approach. Maintaining a clear athlete-centred focus was challenging for the coaches within a competitive team environment. They incorporated pedagogical strategies such as questioning and discussion into their coaching practice, as they tried to facilitate learner-focused and empowering playing experiences. This research provides insights into the approaches taken by the coach-researchers as they worked towards creating an athlete-centred coaching environment based on a positive culture, affirmative pedagogies and shared learning.

This article outlines how a cyclic process of reflection and action was strengthened by the role of an external critical friend in a collaborative self-study. As three teacher education practitioners, two of us participated in the collaborative self-study, acting as internal critical friends to each other, while the third added an external layer of criticality. We both coached the university football team through one playing season: planning, coaching and reflecting collaboratively. Examination of the collaborative self-study identified two essential elements that supported our learning. The collaborative self-study was supported by a cyclic process of reflection, planning and action, and this foundational layer with review and deliberation to support the critical reflection contributed to learning and practices, both as coaches and as teacher education practitioners. A second layer of collaboration, in conjunction with an external critical friend, added to the depth of critique. While the role of critical friend is not new to self-study, analysis of data from both layers of critical friendships is useful in exploiting the structures and methods used throughout the study to contribute to individual and collaborative learning. This article presents the intricate details of the modus operandi – the repetitive cycle of action and reflection at the foundational layer, and the additional review and deliberation with an external critical friend in the second layer.

This article uses an existing evaluation framework to exemplify how an organic chemistry program for high school teachers facilitated their professional development. Chemistry teachers from 6 different high schools participated in the program. The professional development program was informed by a constructivist theoretical background in which teachers’ situated learning and sociocultural factors were central to supporting meaningful learning. To facilitate teachers’ professional development, the researcher worked, recurrently, with 6 high school chemistry teachers over 3.5 years. This article identifies the key elements of the professional development program that influenced change in the teachers’ practices. Analysis of qualitative data collected showed that the hybridisation of the professional learning and teaching space, the nonhierarchical role of the program facilitator, and a focus on student learning were characteristic factors that contributed to the change in teachers’ practices. The salient implications for teacher professional development and teacher learning are discussed.

Background: Previous research has identified areas of organic chemistry that learners find difficult and exploring the reasons why. This paper investigates teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of organic chemistry. Teachers’ understanding of their learners’ perspectives has a critical...

Graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory play an important role in establishing a positive learning environment. A host of various graduate teacher training programmes have been developed, implemented and evaluated accordingly in order to enhance their teaching capability. In addition research has also documented the varied or sometimes complex factors that influence graduate students' teaching capability. This present study set out to explore graduate students' sense of psychological empowerment as an influencing factor on their perceived teaching self-image and behaviours. The Teaching as a Chemistry Laboratory Graduate Teaching Assistant (TCL-GTA) programme was developed to enhance the sense of psychological empowerment experienced by seven chemistry graduate students at an Irish University as a means of enhancing their perceived teaching self-image and behaviours. The data collected throughout this study involved both qualitative and quantitative forms through conducting interviews and administering questionnaires. The findings of this research suggest that the level of psychological empowerment experienced by graduate students lends considerable and positive contributions to their perceived teaching self-image and behaviours which are influenced by a number of contextual, training and personal factors. This research should interest those involved in teaching chemistry in higher education as well as those interested in empowerment of either teachers or postgraduate students undertaking teaching duties.