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

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.