Professional self‐understanding as expertise in teaching about teaching

Abstract

This paper explores an aspect of the knowledge of teaching required by teacher educators and how that knowledge might be developed if teaching (about teaching) is to be conceptualised as a distinct and important field in its own right – with its own forms of knowledge, ways of working and perspectives on the world. The paper focuses on self‐understanding as a component of teacher educators’ knowledge of practice and examines how the development of self‐understanding can be conceived as a form of teacher educator expertise. Few studies have explicitly considered teacher educators’ self‐understanding as a form of professional knowledge; hence, this article makes a contribution to explicating and documenting this aspect of teacher educators’ practice.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• learning about teaching
• discipline of teaching
• self‐study
• pedagogy of teacher education