Self-study of teacher education practices is not an end in itself but a means to the end of improving our teaching practices, both in schools and in teacher education programs. Changing our practices usually involves changing some of our assumptions about how teaching influences, encourages, and supports learning, and self-study of our current practices usually generates self-understanding that makes change easier. Increased self-understanding from self-study of teaching practices is a theme that runs through the articles in this issue of Studying Teacher Education.
At Montclair State University, USA, Monica Taylor, Emily J. Klein, and Linda Abrams are involved in an Urban Teacher Residency program. Their self-study describes and analyzes their experiences working with mentor teachers in a third space in which individuals with different roles could safely explore their work as teacher educators. Because an Urban Teacher Residency involves mentor teachers much more fully in the planning and teaching of the preservice program, it became important to support the mentor teachers as their role in teacher education became more complex and influential. Analysis of data identified three significant tensions that needed to be managed in their third space: (1) finding a balance between a professional and an authentic relationship; (2) finding a balance between the authority of an expert and the need for collaboration across roles; and (3) finding a balance between collaborative and individual agency. The authors also worked to build a sense of collective agency within a preservice program. Their conclusions will be of interest to all who seek to develop and enrich the traditional relationship between faculty and mentor teachers.
Katherine Ariemma Marin of Boston College, USA, describes for readers the self-study of her first offering of a mathematics methods course as a beginning teacher educator. Her research considers inquiry from three perspectives: teaching as inquiry, mathematical inquiry, and mathematical knowledge for teaching. She applies these perspectives to her teaching of the methods course and to her personal transition to the role of teacher educator. Her analysis of transitions, positionality (insider or outsider), and tensions in her data invites all teacher educators to revisit how they teach a methods course and how they themselves taught their earliest courses as teacher educators. In her conclusions, Marin poses questions about what is required if teacher education is to show new teachers how to approach their teaching reflectively, responsively, and flexibly.
The experiences of a new teacher educator are also the focus of a self-study reported by Joseph McAnulty and Alexander Cuenca at Saint Louis University, USA. In this instance, the developing professional identity of a teacher educator is studied in the context of an elementary social studies methods course. With Cuenca serving as a critical friend to McAnulty, the study also considers issues of mentoring a new teacher educator. Data included recordings of six biweekly conversations, McAnulty's weekly journal entries, and a collection of relevant documents associated with the methods course. Careful analysis of identity development in this study, using four different senses of identity, leads the authors to highlight the significance of insecurities in the new role and the need to understand what the role of teacher educator entails. Particularly valuable are the separate perspectives on identity development from a new teacher educator and his mentor.
Elizabeth Coleman and Megan Leider write from Loyola University, USA, about professional growth achieved in a self-study of curriculum design in the secondary science classroom. They set out to challenge the status quo of existing practices by designing and teaching a course that involved moving away from teaching as telling, accepting personal responsibility when students do not succeed, and situating themselves with their students as learners in the science classroom. Unique features of the curriculum included students choosing their own research topics and then developing their own questions for an action-research approach to learning, with a goal of having students take as much control as possible over their personal projects. As data analysis reveals, their prior views of effective science teaching were challenged by their experiences with the new curriculum content and teaching approach. Ultimately, they conclude that becoming more aware of how they learn from experience increased their confidence in confronting the challenges associated with becoming better science teachers.
The teaching of an elementary science methods course is the focus of a self-study by Nicole Beeman-Cadwallader of Indiana University, USA; Gayle Buck (also of Indiana University) and Amy Trauth-Nare of Towson University served as critical friends, who are referred to as reflective partners. The focus is on a tension between a teacher educator's roles as facilitator or as expert and on the influence of a teacher educator's self-study on encouraging teacher candidates to take more control of their own learning. Data collected over a period of three months include Nicole's journal about the roles she and her students played in each class and her struggles to be a facilitator, her field notes about student learning during activities, students' sense of the goals of each class written at the end of class, and student assignments reviewed for ways in which they took control over their own learning. Four classes are described in detail to illustrate analysis of the four types of data. The authors reveal that the study has helped them to understand that teaching as an expert does not necessarily reduce students' control over their learning.
Writing from their work as teacher educators in the Netherlands, Bob Koster and Bas van den Berg report how six teachers studying for a master's degree used self-study methods to explore dilemmas in which they felt that their professional values were being challenged. They asked which dilemmas initiated productive professional self-study and then documented the effects on the participants' understanding of their professional practice. Thus this is an analysis of the impact of self-study methods on a small group of experienced teachers. Three methods were used: narrative inquiry, core reflection, and Socratic dialogue. Their findings emphasize the importance of dialogue and interaction with others in the process of studying personal professional identity. The dilemmas studied by the participants will be familiar to teachers and teacher educators alike.