Research Thinking for Responsive Teaching Research Skill Development with In-service and Preservice Educators

Dr John Willison is a National Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Adelaide, Australia. John taught high school science for ten years, and his teaching and PhD (2002) focused on the scientific literacy of Year 8 students engaging in laboratory experiments. From 2004 to 2014, he coordinated a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education for academics from all disciplines. Since 2019, John has been Program Director of the Bachelor of Teaching, and coordinates several large Preservice Teacher Education courses. From the fusion of teaching, empirical research, and literature comprising competing epistemologies (positivism, personal constructivism, social constructivism), John formed the underlying theory for the practice-oriented 'Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching' (MELT). He has been researching academics’ adaptations and implementations of MELT since 2005, and teachers’ use with primary school and high school students since 2017, which has created opportunities to forge connections across formal and informal education, and between disciplines, epistemologies and pedagogies. John has presented the MELT initiative in 20 nations and Chaired the International MELT Conference, enabling international partnerships to blossom. In 2020, he published the open-access SpringerBrief 'The Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching'. He continues to look for opportunities to forge connections in education.