Use of Occupational Expertise in Post-Secondary Automotive Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to understand the relationship between the social structure that Automotive Technology teachers work in and how they learn to teach. The study used Latour’s Circulatory System of Scientific Facts framework to surface how this learning happens through empirically tracing actors and things and the knowledge they move throughout a network as constructed by the instructors themselves. The results of this work provided rich descriptions of the ways that four different and experienced automotive instructors interact, and are interacted with, in their networks to produce their teaching practices. While the study identified much that is already known about Automotive Technology teaching practices, it also gave insights into practices that have not been previously identified, how these practices may have come about, and insights into how to shape these practices in the future. This study also provided examples of how teachers mobilize the knowledge they acquired in their field of expertise into the classroom through various methods of storytelling.