Exploring Teachers' Emotional Ecologies Through Socioscientific Issues: Using an Unconventional Pedagogy on Climate Change

• In Event: 16.060 - Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: 16.060-13 - Conceptions and Practices in Implementing Socioscientific Issues

Abstract

Research on science teaching has often focused on the cognitive side of teachers’ work overlooking how teaching is also an “emotional practice” (Hargreaves, 2005). In this study, we explore emotional experiences of three secondary science teachers as they implement an unconventional pedagogy related to climate change. “Emotional ecology” (Zembylas, 2007) is used to highlight how teachers’ practice is entangled with emotional experiences at micro, meso and macro levels. One main finding points to possible “tensions” between how teachers discussed aspects of the pedagogy in affective terms while de-emphasizing role of emotions in their practice. Some implications include allowing teachers to reflect on emotional aspects of teaching and learning to render visible “emotional sense-making” (Hufnagel, 2015) on socio-scientific issues.

Authors

• Sarah Halwany, University of Toronto

• Minja Milanovic, University of Toronto

• Mirjan Krstovic, Peel District School Board

• Majd Zouda, University of Toronto

• John Lawrence Bencze, OISE/University of Toronto