Connections

Francisco Varela

Rowhea Elmesky

Penny J. Gilmer

Catherine Milne

 

TEACHER EDUCATION

Since my appointment at the Graduate Center involves only doctoral students I am not involved on a day-to-day basis with teacher education programs. However, the senior colleges of CUNY have very large urban science teacher education programs and many of my current and former doctoral students are involved with teacher education on a daily basis. Accordingly, I am involved in collaborations that extend and disseminate the research I have done on coteaching and cogenerative dialogue for the past 14 years. My recent research on emotions is also central to teacher preparation programs and I am involved in planning research and development with colleagues at the senior colleges. Notably,with Konstantinos Alexakos from Brooklyn College, I have applied to NSF for grants to examine teacher education in science and mathematics .

I have an adjunct appointment at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia. Steve Ritchie, a professor of science education at QUT, and I have a grant funded by the Australian Research Council to examine the role of emotions in the teaching and learning of science in Australian middle and high schools. The participants in the study are graduates from QUT in the early years of their careers. Accordingly, I am involved in research on science teaching of beginning teachers in schools in and around Brisbane.

My ongoing research in urban science, math, and technology classes in the United States involves emotions, physiological factors associated with teaching, cogenerative dialogue, coteaching, and collaborative roles of teachers and students. In all of my work in urban schools I have enacted collaborative research with teacher and student researchers based on theoretical and empirical evidence that transformations occur when participants engage in research on their own practices.

I am involved in research on my own teaching at the Graduate Center and I am co-authoring a book based on this research. The book will be published by Springer and is co-authored with Christina Siry, Gene Fellner, Belinda Amoako, and Nancy Lin. This research studies teacher and student roles at the doctoral level and includes research on laughter, emotions, and the physiological dimensions of teaching and learning.