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A Brief
History of the Centre
Centre for the
Study of Teacher Education was founded in 1982 with the primary purpose
of nurturing the growth of research activities among faculty and graduate
students in the field of teacher education. Ian Housego was the first
Director of the Centre and he served in that capacity for four years.
During this time one of the primary mandates of the Centre was the
promotion of research on teacher education, which entailed the involvement
of both faculty members and graduate students. This was accomplished
through several types of activities. First, there were two invitational
conferences with participating speakers from all over North America
and England. The latter conference resulted in an edited book (Housego
& Grimmett, 1985). A second type of activity was the invitation
of high profile researchers in the field of teacher education to U.B.C.
to present seminars and workshops on research in teacher education.
(For example, Walter Doyle and Peter Mortimer presented seminars on
their work in the field and James Raths and Lillian Katz conducted
a two day workshop on conceptual problems and methods of conducting
research in the field of teacher education). A third type of activity
was the sponsoring of doctoral students through two to three research
fellowships per year.
Peter Grimmett became the second director of the Centre in 1986. The
financial resources available to the Centre were reduced at this point
in time resulting in a shift in the primary strategy of the Director.
Peter decided to focus on increasing the visibility of the Centre
nationally and to develop specific research projects in collaboration
with other faculty members for the purpose of obtaining outside research
funding through agencies such the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council. Hence he became an active member of the Canadian Association
of Teacher Educators and organized four mini-conferences on research
in teacher education that were held in conjunction with the annual
meeting of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education. He was
also successful in obtaining a major SSHRC grant with Patricia Crehan.
This project focussed on collaborative inquiry into classroom management
models. This grant supported a number of graduate students and resulted
in five graduate degrees and several research articles. Gaalen Erickson
was also a Centre Associate at this time and during this time period
he held two major SSHRC grants which focussed on inquiring into problems
associated with science teacher education. These were collaborative
projects involving both pre-service science teachers and experienced
science teachers. In addition, Peter and Gaalen worked together on
a research agenda aimed at understanding better the nature of reflective
practice as it was being developed at the time by Donald Schön.
This work resulted in an edited book called Reflection in Teacher
Education published in 1988.
Peter left U.B.C. in the Fall of 1991 and a decision was made by the
Dean in 1992 to search for a new director, external to the Faculty.
Gaalen agreed to be Acting Director while this search was taking place.
This search proved to be a more difficult task than expected, and
after a year and a half of searching for a suitable candidate, the
financial pressures on the Faculty were such that a decision was made
to cancel the external search. An internal search was initiated in
the Spring of 1994 and Gaalen Erickson was appointed as the third
Director in July, 1994.
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