Reclaiming Public Scholarship in Teacher Education: Ecological Learning for Educators in the 21st Century

• In Event: Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Public Scholarship Toward Social Justice and Sustainability in Teacher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to make a case for the importance of creating, implementing, and maintaining curriculum and teaching strategies that support the application of an EcoJustice framework (Martusewicz et al., 2015; Authors, in press) within undergraduate courses in teacher education and professional learning with(in) school communities. We suggest that this theoretical and pedagogical framework allows for both formal and informal opportunities to foster the development of creativity, innovation, and ethics while also facilitating different ways of thinking, learning, and being. Specifically, this conceptual paper draws from the author’s conceptual research—as well as shares examples from case study research form work with(in) undergraduate teacher education, teacher professional development, and educational leadership studies programs—to illuminate how such an approach encourages pre-service teachers to critically examine cultural assumptions and patterns that contribute to teaching and learning which is supportive of social justice and sustainability. This presentation offers scholarly significance in its findings that detail how an eco-critical framework (Authors, in press) is influencing educational communities through public scholarship via teacher education that include examples that explore the complexities of intellectual and pedagogical eco-critical transformation

Authors

• John Joseph Lupinacci, Washington State University - Pullman

• Alison Happel, The University of Memphis