Brian Lewthwaite

Professor - Promotional Chair

College of Arts & Society & Education

Centre for Research & Innovation in Sustainability and Education

Brian Lewthwaite is a Professor in Education. His educational career started at as a mathematics, chemistry and biology teacher in northern Canada followed by twelve years of science and mathematics teaching and administration in New Zealand. He started his work in teacher education in 1993 as a Senior Lecturer and adminstrator at Palmerston North College of Education followed by Massey University College of Education. From 2002-2012 he worked as an Associate Professor and Professor at the University of Manitoba where he also served as the Co-Director for the University of Manitoba's Centre for Research, Youth, Science Teaching and Learning.

Brian's primary research focus has been in the area of science education with specific focus on pre-service and in-service teacher development. Of particular concern for Brian has been the attention given to ensuring the educational experience provided for Indigenous students is located consistent with local community and self-determining priorities for education rather than being mandated by nationalistic goals.

He has written in excess of 80 refereed scholarly papers, 15 book chapters, secured, with collaborators, in excess of $6,000,000 in research funding and consistently works in collaboration with teachers in supporting changes in practice to support student learning.

Research

Learning Environment Research: My PhD was in Learning Environment Research focusing on teaching practice and classroom learning.
Indigenous Education: The only context I wanted to teach in was the Indigenous context, primarily motivated by early experiences that exposed me to the richness of opportunity for teaching and learning in such contexts. MEd focused on understanding influences on culturally relevant science education delivery in northern Canadian, Alaskan, New Zealand and Australian contexts. Since then I have been committed through research to support Indigenous communities in moving towards locally defined priorities, especially in the classroom actions that influence student learning.
Community-Based Education: The work in Indigenous settings focuses on determining community-based aspirations for education, especially in terms of classroom-based practice. This focus is now being extended in my current ARC-funded research in northern Australia to augment similar ongoing activity in NZ and Canada.
Science Education: My professional origins are in science education. I continue to carry out research on teacher development, both in in-service and pre-service education. Much of the science work involves the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire whcih was developed in my doctoral study. To date the SCIQ has assisted hundreds of schools, school divisions, states and provinces and nations in their school science evaluations. More information on the SCIQ is available through: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~lewthwai/usingSCIQ.html