233 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
P. Sengupta et al. (eds.), Critical, Transdisciplinary and Embodied Approaches
in STEM Education, Advances in STEM Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29489-2_13
Chapter 13
Facilitating Enactment in STEM Teacher
Education Within and Across Learning
Spaces
Janette Bobis
Abstract Prompted by the desire to improve initial teacher education to better
prepare novice teachers to support their future students to live and work in STEM
rich societies in which critical thinking and reason are paramount, mathematics
education has emphasized approaches focused on principles and practices of
inquiry, student-centered and problem-based learning. However, the visions and
practices of such approaches have consistently proven diffcult for beginning teach-
ers to translate into practice. In this chapter, I present fndings of a study aimed at
exploring prospective primary teachers’ enactment of targeted practices for teach-
ing mathematics in innovative ways when opportunities to approximate such prac-
tices were provided across university and school settings. Data were gathered from
54 prospective primary teachers as they undertook their frst mathematics methods
course and at the conclusion of their frst professional experience. Analysis of writ-
ten refections from all 54 novice teachers, teaching observations and semi-
structured interviews with four novice teachers, reveals that particular teacher
education pedagogies, namely, rehearsals, video, and teacher educator modeling of
practices and coaching during co-teaching opportunities in a range of designed set-
tings, were particularly effective in supporting the enactment of targeted practices.
I interpret the affordances of these pedagogies through an enactivist lens and, in so
doing, highlight the benefts of applying embodied perspectives to explore and help
develop a better understanding of learning to teach in STEM disciplines.
Keywords STEM teacher education · Practice-focused · Enactivism ·
Approximations of practice
J. Bobis (*)
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
e-mail: janette.bobis@sydney.edu.au