This research represents an autobiographical case study of my practical knowledge and conceptual change as an environmental educator. My purpose for this work is to chronicle a personal evolution of metaphor in my teaching practice and to document the effect on the implemented curriculum. / My research is a story of my work as a cooperating teacher with two student interns whose experiences and questions served as catalysts for my change process. The interns provided a "mirror for reflection" on my practice thus promoting a "re-viewing" of my life history and a reevaluation of my beliefs on teaching and learning. The Reflective Cooperating Teacher Model is introduced in this work which facilitated my reconceptualization of previously unknown interests and beliefs through the construction and analysis of narrative in the research text. / A variety of strategies were utilized to collect and organize the field texts for this study including the use of journals, planning books, audio-tape transcripts, observational notes, and autobiographical texts. Document analysis was performed on Q. S. R. NUD$\cdot$IST 3.0.5 (1994) software. / Throughout this research, I was able to resolve many of my personal conflicts in teaching and learning by using constructivist theory to make sense of the way I had constructed myself as a learner while a teacher and a graduate student. Through the use of personal experience methods, several thematic patterns were explored including the evolution of metaphor in my practice, the influence of role models in my education, the importance of having a passion for one's discipline and work, and the influence of stress on the development of survival strategies in teaching and learning. The understanding and resolution of these issues and others through interpretive autobiography facilitated a reconstruction of my environmental education curriculum to one that is driven by authentic science practice in which the processes and spirit of science rather than the products become the curriculum. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4361. / Major Professor: Nancy T. Davis. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77602 |
| Contributors | Schaller, John Stanley, Jr., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 201 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds