Contact Information

Research Information

Research Description

My research interests divide into three main areas:

E-potfolios and teacher education program renewal
Socialization in physical education teacher education
School Integrated Teacher Education
Teaching Games for Understanding

Interdisciplinary Research

School Integrated Teacher Education (SITE) refers to the systematic incorporation of school experiences into the teaching and learning of core concepts within university courses.
I have pursued this line of inquiry through a SSHRC funded project entitled "Contextualizing Learning to Teach: Integrating campus with field experiences", in which I am co-applicant with Dr. Kathy Sanford. In addition, this project is also supported by a “Learning and Teaching” grant from the University of Victoria. This research program has examined the influence of pre-service teachers learning course content in relation to shared experiences in a school where children are taught using concepts taught in a university course. Essentially, this research examines how SITE courses develop within a university program; how they influence teacher education within a course and the type of impact they have upon a school culture. This line of inquiry has given me great satisfaction because it afforded me the opportunity to teach children PE in school settings with my student teachers observing, participating then gradually over time, taking over as the teacher. In addition, the project draws on expertise from colleagues in wellness, language arts, PE and teacher education.

Health Related Research

Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) represents a fascination with game play and teaching others how to gain the satisfaction of a well played game. TGfU has been an area of interest I have pursued to connect the situated learning of game play with the understanding of tactical play and skill development. I have experimented with how to break down tactical understanding and connect this to skill progression across all PE games. Recently, I have been focused on making assessment in games lessons an integral part of learning how to play a game with students developing the ability to see and interpret game play cues. My research in this area has focused on experimentation in instructional lessons with examples used to write theoretical and practitioner papers on this approach.

Socialization in PE teacher education has been a recurring focus of research from my dissertation research at the University of Alberta. Drawing on two internal research grants from the University of Victoria I have pursued this line of inquiry using the repertory grid technique from personal construct psychology. This research program examines the relationship between PE pre-service teachers experience of being coached and taught and their constructions of effective teaching in PE. In particular, this research investigates how reflective approaches in teacher education programs can be developed to help pre-service teachers understand their own development as effective teachers of physical education for every child, not just the sport elite.

Research Keywords

Community Interaction

Community Projects

I am involved in local schools in a project called School Integrated Teacher Education. In this research program we examine how pre-service teachers' learning to be teachers is influenced by engaging in university courses that are integrated into local schools' PE and classroom lessons.
Two key concepts of this research project are situated learning and communities of practice.

Community Collaborations

I am involved with the Troubadour Foundation and local schools to develop a project known as the Children's Global Arts project. In this project we are connecting children in Victoria with children in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are using this connection to develop curriculum resources, make learning more connected to world events and help foster a sense of democracy within global citizenship.

International Involvement

International Research

SITE project. See link below.
http://www.educ.uvic.ca/site/siteindex.htm
CIDA grant to develop Children's Global Arts project in schools in Victoria and in Iraq.

General International Activities

The global arts project has been funded by the Canadian International Development Agency to help develop cultural links with Afghanistan and Iraq.
Website: http://www.childrensglobalarts.ca

Countries lived/worked in

The United Kingdom

Software Development

Developed an e-portfolio program using a Php MySQL database software. This has created a fully interrogatable that allows students to enter selected evidence of learning (from courses, field experiences or professional commitments) to reflect their growth as teachers and to address cerrtification standards to be qualified as a teacher. In addition, the siiftware allows instructors to view previous artifacts entered by students to assist them building learning experiences based of previous learnings.