Speaker: Terry Laskowski

Date &Time: Saturday, 26 September 2015 – 6:30pm – 8:00pm

Abstract: What makes teachers professionals? One way to approach this question is to look at Shulman’s (1986) seminal article on teacher knowledge, in which he divided it into two areas: subject matter knowledge (what to teach), and pedagogical knowledge (how to teach it). In this talk, we will look at the value of professional knowledge informed by professional theories of teaching as a means to nourish the teacher’s pedagogical knowledge. Through ongoing development of professional knowledge, manifested in professional discourse, teachers are able to rename experiences and reconstruct practice so that they can form conceptualizations of their teaching to better inform practice, which hopefully can lead to teacher change as well. Practical examples of putting theory into practice and the professional discourse to describe why the teacher does what he or she does will be presented.

Location: Kochi University, Room TBA

Fees: free for JALT members & 1,000 yen for one-day members.