Hickey, Ruth, Whitehouse, Hilary, and Evans, Snowy (2010) Preservice teachers' perceptions of sustainability as 'professional practice'. In: AAEE 2010 Conference Journal. pp. 58-67. From: 16th Biennial Australian Association for Environmental Education Conference – Leading Change: Living for One Planet, 26 - 30 September 2010, Canberra ACT, Australia.

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Abstract

Preservice teachers in the School of Education, James Cook University are provided with productive opportunities to develop beliefs, values and practices about sustainability at different points in their education program. Education for sustainability is core practice within the recently refreshed teacher education program at the university. Preservice teachers were asked about their conceptions of sustainability, and familiarity with a range of approaches to teach sustainability education. Data were collected through focus groups. in each year of a four-year (Bachelor of Education) and a one-year program (Graduate Diploma of Education). This paper reports on preservice teachers' familiarity with, and exposure to, a range of approaches that characterize sustainability education, during both oncampus studies and practicum. Their views on the importance of learning how to 'teach sustainability' within these approaches are described. Results from this study provide infonnation on preservice teachers' perceptions of what sustainability means; and the gap between seeing it as important and the extent of opportunities they recognize as contributing to their professional practice as sustainability educators. The paper also explores the confounding effect of preservice teachers' limited views of what constitutes sustainability education, which can result in the rejection of experiences, which program planners saw as explicitly developing environmentally attentive learning.

Item ID:	16452
Item Type:	Conference Item (Research - E1)
ISBN:	978-0-9578335-3-1
Keywords:	Pre-service, teacher, education, sustainability, professional, practice
Related URLs:	Organisation
Additional Information:	Dr Evans completed her PhD in December 2010 and now undertakes research project work with JCU and the School of Education
Date Deposited:	12 May 2011 07:19
FoR Codes:	13 EDUCATION > 1303 Specialist Studies in Education > 130313 Teacher Education and Professional Development of Educators @ 100%
SEO Codes:	93 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 9302 Teaching and Instruction > 930202 Teacher and Instructor Development @ 100%
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