Teacher Education in Environmental Education: The ‘Grip of Print’ & Other Lessons from Distance Education

Abstract

This paper focuses on teacher education in environmental education. In seeking alternatives and improvements in EE teacher education, it is instructive to see what lessons might be learnt from efforts at distance education in this field. The paper will outline the structure and context of a teacher education course in environmental education -- a course that is part of an off-campus (distance education) Bachelor of Education program -- and then consider a number of curriculum issues that have arisen in the history of this course.The course itself is located in a Bachelor of Education program at Deakin University and is available for practising teachers throughout Australia who are interested in upgrading their education qualifications without having to travel physically to the host institution offering the degree. The B.Ed, program comprises a number of ‘generic’ curriculum courses in such areas as curriculum design and development, educational enquiry and action research, and a number of ‘specialist’ curriculum courses in such areas as mathematics education, language education and art and music education. The environmental education course takes its place among the ‘specialist’ curriculum courses.