Self-study of an elementary generalist physical education teacher educator: school-integrated teacher education and structural coupling

Abstract

This paper will focus on my last 8 years of teaching generalist pre-service teachers (GPTs) to teach elementary physical education (PE) within a school-integrated teacher education (SITE) course design. Self-study as a method of inquiry will be used to chart structural shifts in the course and my assumptions about teaching GPTs how to teach PE based on the (1) changes made to course structure, (2) aspects of the environment that afforded these opportunities to change, and (3) events that emerged that indicated the changes should become permanent aspects of the course. It is proposed that situating aspects of the course in a local school triggered these changes. Scholarly articles written on the SITE course, GPT comments and critical anecdotes on core experiences in the course are used to describe and reflect upon the evolution of the teacher education course to its present iteration, embracing complexity thinking as an organising construct. The paper concludes by describing how my learning to decentre my role as teacher, moving away from the rationalist insistence on pre-determined learning outcomes and focusing instead on creating an effect on learners. In essence, learning to create the conditions in my course for learning to emerge in different ways for GPTs within a collective consciousness of becoming a teacher.