19.

Studying Teacher Education A journal of self-study of teacher education

practices

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713727674~db=all

Volume 3
Issue 2 2007
Issue 1 2007

Issue 2 2007

Reconceptualizing Teacher Educator Knowledge as Tensions: Exploring the

tension between valuing and reconstructing experience

Author: Amanda Berry a

Affiliation: a Monash University, Australia
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 117 - 134
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
This paper reports my efforts as a teacher educator to improve our understanding of
the process of learning to teach. It illustrates how the nature of the knowledge
developed by teacher educators about their practice is often embedded in complexity
and ambiguity. This knowledge is explored as a source of tensions that teacher
educators can learn to recognize and manage within their work. By examining one of
these tensions within my practice, that of valuing and reconstructing experience, I
consider how conceptualizing knowledge as tensions can enhance teacher educators'
understandings of practice and contribute to the professional knowledge base of
teacher education.

Developing an Integrated Play-Based Pedagogy in Preservice Teacher Education:

A self-study

Author: Pauline Harris a

Affiliation: a University of Wollongong, Australia
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 135 - 154
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
This paper reports a self-study of developing an integrated play-based pedagogy in a
preservice early childhood teacher education subject about play. It is framed by
understandings of play in children's lives and adult learning. The self-study was
initially driven by a contradiction between teaching preservice teachers about play
through didactic means and learning about play through play. Other tensions
subsequently arose in this self-study and required me to reframe my thoughts and
actions so I could move forward. This paper documents the tensions and reframings as
the self-study proceeded over the course of a semester. It reveals that developing an
integrated play-based pedagogy not only involves play-based activities per se but also
the atmosphere in which experiences and interactions unfold and the play qualities
they embody. Ideally, students become major players in the process of the
development of pedagogy.

A Self-Study of Professional Development through Program Revision

Authors: Lori Olafson a; Cyndi Giorgis a; Linda F. Quinn a; Christy Falba

Affiliation: a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 155 - 172
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
This paper describes a university-school collaboration that resulted in the creation and
implementation of a field-based teacher education program. Key features of this
program included immersion in the field, integrated curriculum, supported reflection,
and technology integration. After describing the development and implementation of
the program, we discuss the results stemming from systematic reflection on the
significance of the experience.

Self-Study Research in a New School of Education: Moving between

vulnerability and community

Author: Marianne A. Larsen a

Affiliation: a University of Western, Ontario, Canada
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 173 - 187
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
This paper explores the dual and seemingly contradictory potential of self-study
research to illuminate our fears, anxieties, tensions and uncertainties as teacher
educators, whilst acting as a catalyst for community building. This self-study research
was conducted during the founding year of a new school of education, drawing data
from surveys and interviews with faculty about their own self-study research and
participation in one another's studies. Through these collective self-studies, faculty
members constructed and negotiated their identities as teacher educators and as a
school of education. As researchers and researched participants, the faculty of the new
school of education moved during that first year between vulnerability and
community, a process illuminated by their self-study research.

Professional Development Risks and Opportunities Embodied within Self-Study

Authors: Margaret Macintyre Latta a; Gayle Buck a

Affiliation: a University of Nebraska, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 189 - 205
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
This paper documents a self-study research group's development and its effects on 11
participants. Drawing on the scholarship of the self-study tradition within educational
research, we see teacher knowledge as an important and largely untapped source for
the improvement of teaching. Positioning participants to look at the sense and selves
being made on a continual basis is the task embraced by this self-study group. The
paper reveals professional development risks and opportunities confronted by
educators through vulnerably, accountably, integrally, and mindfully negotiating
teaching-learning lives. The findings suggest that our bodies are the reflexive ground
of comprehension, confronting vulnerability, seeking accountability to self,
negotiating theory as working notions, and experiencing the pull of teaching-learning
possibilities. Thus the role of embodiment within teaching-learning practices is
elucidated through educator professional development in action.

Slow Research Time and Fast Teaching Time: A collaborative self-study of a teacher
educator's unexamined assumptions

Authors: Deborah J. Trumbull a; Fluet b. Kimberly b

Affiliations: a a Cornell University, USA
b b
Illinois Institute of Technology, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 207 - 215
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
This paper examines the processes whereby two researchers developed their
knowledge in teaching a course for preservice teachers. We sought to explore the ways
in which class assignments encouraged preservice teachers to develop their abilities to
see classrooms from the point of view of nascent teachers rather than that of
successful students. After analyzing student work from 2 years in which the
assignments were used, the researchers taught together and continued their analyses
and their own development as teacher educators. We explore the interplay between
teaching and research and the role of the critical friend in self-study. Our research
generated several insights that inspired changes in assignments, and we document how
student work changed as a result. Our major realization involves the centrality of
ethical concerns in our work as teacher educators and the possibility of holding these
concerns tacitly rather than explicitly.

Beginning to Understand Teaching as a Discipline

Authors: John Loughran a; Tom Russell b

Affiliations: a Monash University, Australia
b
Queen's University, Canada
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 2 November 2007 ,
pages 217 - 227
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
We explore the possibility of understanding teaching as a discipline in its own right,
rather than as a domain that is ancillary to the many academic disciplines. While
teaching looks easy and is widely regarded as easy, the image of teaching as
transmission and the perspective of technical rationality mask the many ways in which
challenging and engaging teaching represents a highly disciplined view. When
extended to teacher education, the perspective of teaching as a discipline sheds
powerful light on longstanding frustrations reported by those learning to teach. We
argue for the conclusion that teaching is a discipline and that teacher education is the
home of that discipline, with self-study as one of the central methodologies for
making explicit the knowledge inherent in teaching seen as a discipline.

Issue 1 2007

Forging a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: The challenges of moving from

classroom teacher to teacher educator

Author: Jason K. Ritter a

Affiliation: a University of Georgia, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
5 - 22
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
This paper reports an investigation of the challenges a former classroom teacher
encountered when compelled by experiences as a supervisor of student teachers to
forge a distinct pedagogy of teacher education. A qualitative self-study methodology
was used to identify and examine the competing tensions that surfaced as the author
made the transition from classroom teacher to teacher educator. Unanticipated
challenges included establishing his professional identity as a teacher educator,
navigating the ambiguous role of teacher educator as both advocate and evaluator, and
dealing with external sources of resistance manifest in the belief systems of student
teachers and the norms of the public school system.

Learning to Think of Learning to Teach as Situated: A self-study

Author: Hafþór Guðjónsson a

Affiliation: a Iceland University of Education,
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
23 - 34
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
Teacher educators are expected to help their student teachers learn how to teach. How
teacher educators do this depends on their beliefs, particularly on how they think
about teacher learning. Earlier in my work as a teacher educator I thought of teacher
learning as a psychological process or phenomenon and this view guided my work
with my student teachers. Subsequently, I have been drawn to pragmatist and
sociocultural views that portray human thinking and acting as intimately linked to the
physical, social and cultural environment. Adopting such views helped me to see
teacher learning in a new light, less as a mental issue and more as a social and cultural
issue. Here I reconstruct my transformation of coming to see learning to teach as
situated.

Facilitating Self-Study of Professional Development: Researching the Dynamics

of Teacher Learning

Authors: Garry F. Hoban a; Sue Butler b; Loraine Lesslie b

Affiliations: a University of Wollongong, Australia
b
Hill Top Public School, Australia
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
35 - 51
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
In this study a teacher educator worked with two elementary teachers to facilitate a
self-study of their learning during a professional development programme. The
programme extended for 6 months and was underpinned by four learning processes -
reflection, sharing, action and feedback. The two teachers documented their learning
experiences and were interviewed several times during and after the study. At the end
of the 6-month period, the teachers sketched and shared models of their learning and
then collaborated to produce a joint model. Sue learned that she needed to start with a
small change in her teaching and that her learning involved multiple factors that
interacted to create change. Loraine learned that focusing on the teaching of science
reminded her of childhood experiences and that it was important for her to analyse
why she taught the way she did. Self-study helped the teachers to develop insights
about how they learned and enabled them to better understand and manage their own
professional development.

Supervision from the Student Teacher's Perspective: An Institutional Case Study

Author: Harriet R. Fayne a

Affiliation: a Otterbein College, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
53 - 66
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
Survey data from 222 student teachers at a small, liberal arts college were used to
address the following three questions: Do university supervisors add value to the
student teaching experience? Do student teachers distinguish between the roles played
by supervisors and those played by cooperating teachers? How do student teachers
characterise good supervision? Findings support the perspective that university
supervisors serve a distinct and important function. Supervisors managed the
experience, served as confidantes, and made evaluative judgments about performance.
Cooperating teachers were viewed as instructional coaches who gave student teachers
the physical and psychological space to try out strategies while supporting their efforts
with feedback, modelling, and materials. As a result of this self-study, the unit looked
for ways to elevate the role of supervisors and to engage supervisors in conversations
about programme improvement.

Students of Colour as Cultural Consultants: A Self-study of Race and Social

Justice Issues in a teacher Education Programme

Authors: Marilyn Johnston-Parsons a; Young Ah Lee a; Michael Thomas a

Affiliation: a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
67 - 84
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
This paper documents our learning over a 3-year period from students of colour in our
M.Ed. certification programme. Students of colour are always a minority (8% to 20%)
in our programmes. Despite a variety of efforts, these students continued to complain
that we were not meeting their needs or dealing adequately with diversity issues. The
students of colour became our cultural consultants as we talked about their perceptions
of our teaching and the programme. As two white middle-class professors and one
Asian doctoral student, we learned different things from this self-study. Our major
recommendation is that students of colour be given a separate space to talk with each
other and with those who are teaching them.

"We Are Multiculturalism": A Self-study of Faculty of Colour With Pre-service

Teachers of Colour

Authors: Patricia Prado-Olmos a; Francisco Ríos b; Lillian Vega Castañeda c

Affiliations: a California State University San Marcos, USA
b
University of Wyoming, USA
c
California State University Channel Islands, USA
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
85 - 102
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;

Abstract
This paper reports a self-study of three faculty of colour engaged in teaching a special
summer session geared to recruiting people of colour to teaching. Given our past
experiences in institutions of higher education, we recognised the unique situation and
potential of faculty of colour teaching a class made up almost exclusively of students
of colour. We analysed our own reflective writings constructed while teaching the
course. Using an emergent grounded research approach to data analysis, we identified
common themes, and reconciled ambiguous information until a synthesis was
achieved. Four themes rose to the surface: (1) creating connections; (2) the curriculum
remains the same mostly; (3) identity issues; and (4) a positive affective
environment. We detail these themes and provide samples to tell our story about
cultural identity, social justice and teaching.

You know what? Nobody in this class needs multiculturalism. I looked around this
class and I said, "We are multiculturalism." (Tyrone)

A Teacher Educator's Role in an Asia-derived Learning Study

Author: Elizabeth Walker a

Affiliation: a Hong Kong Institute of Education, China
Published in: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 3, Issue 1 May 2007 , pages
103 - 114
Subject: Teachers & Teacher Education;
Abstract
To what extent and in what ways should a teacher educator contribute to a type of
teaching development that has long functioned successfully without much
involvement of teacher educators? This self-study concerns my learning about my role
as teacher educator in a learning study, a Hong Kong adaptation of a teacher-driven
Japanese educational and cultural practice, Jugyou Kenkyu, credited with high quality
learning outcomes for both teachers and students. My first learning study case forms
the retrospective backdrop to the self-study. By describing and evaluating my personal
experience of interactions such as recorded meetings and teachers' reflections, I
attempt to discern a function for myself within the group. The self-study helped
uncover some misguided assumptions and responses in coping with the new context
and also provided some preliminary understandings of possible teacher educator
responsibilities in this type of initiative.