Self-Study As Reflective Practice and Active Engagement

Practitioners, including teachers and teacher educators, have long reflected on themselves and their practice. Dewey (1938), building on a long philosophical tradition, identified the ‘organic connection between education and personal experience’ (p. 25) as critical to meaningful education. Schön (1983) delved more deeply into the reflective practice of professionals, notably reflection-in-action (Schön, 1983). Schwab’s (1970) four commonplaces offer insight into the complex interplay between the learner, teacher, subject and milieu in education. Self-study of teacher education practices, as Martin and Russell (2020) wrote, ‘is a metacognitive and reflective practice conducted by teacher educators learning from experience’ (p, 1049). By adding scholarly and public dimensions, self-study pushes reflective practitioners to carefully balance their reflections with academic rigor through the ‘checking of data and interpretations’ (Loughran, 2004, p. 20) and ‘framing and reframing’ (p. 21) as they prepare to make public their knowledge The collaborative nature of self-study, particularly engagement in critical friendships (Schuck & Russell, 2005), deepens reflection and encourages active engagement.

Self-study as reflective practice and active engagement is evident in the six articles in this issue of Studying Teacher Education. In the first article, ‘Becoming a Feminist Educator: A Self-Study Exploring Possibilities of Feminist Pedagogy in Higher Education’, Sarah Wells Kaufman from DePaul University explores her process of incorporating feminist theory into her practice in a music history classroom. With the help of an experienced educator serving as a critical friend, Kaufman developed a rigorous research design that featured multiple data sources: research journals, class sessions, dialogues with a critical friend, and student feedback. The article is a model of clear research design for practitioners unfamiliar with self-study. More significantly, it illustrates deep reflective practice balanced with rigour from critical feminism and a critical friend who served as mirror, questioner and guide throughout. It is inspiring to read of the relationships Kaufman develops with students by sharing power and being willing to live with uncertainty.

As most self-studies focus on the university classroom, it is refreshing to encounter a self-study titled ‘Learned from a Semester Spent in Schools’ and focussed on what a teacher educator learned by spending a semester in a school. Mid-career educator Leslie Bradbury, with help from Appalachian State University colleague and critical friend Elizabeth Campbell, reflects upon and critically examines her experiences in embedded in a school supervising teacher candidates. The self-study process of reflecting on her experience while in school helped Bradbury develop ‘more nuanced understandings of the complex daily realities faced by elementary teachers, which led to changes in her instruction with the preservice teachers with whom she worked’. The study also makes a strong case for mid-career faculty renewal through spending time in these liminal spaces.

While most self-studies in this journal involve teachers and teacher educators, self-study has much to offer other professional contexts, as illustrated by ‘Teaching Analytics Online: A Self-Study of Professional Practice’ from Andrew Collins, Brandon Butler, James Leathrum, Jr., and Christopher Lynch of Old Dominion University. This self-study by three engineering professors, working with a critical friend in education, examines an effort to effectively deliver a highly technical curriculum in data analytics on-line during COVID. The instructors used self-study of professional practice to identify issues and, with their critical friend, gained a deeper understanding of three challenging dimensions: course adaption to the online environment, personnel considerations, and technological considerations. Five main implications are identified for transitioning short courses online especially those that are technology related: adaptability, pedagogical action, personal conflicts, technology access, and an effective Learning Management System. This study exemplifies how self-study research methods might be employed as reflective tools to improve the delivery of teaching technology-based subjects.

Improving professional practice during the COVID crisis is also the starting point for ‘Evoking Challenges Associated with the Newness of Teaching: A Collaborative Self-Study of Teacher Educators Forced Online during the Pandemic’ by a team from Duquesne University. Rachel Ayieko, Jason Ritter, Felix Mwawasi, Laura Mahalingappa and Julia Williams engage in a collaborative self-study of their ‘abrupt transitions in teaching over one year through journal entries and individual interviews about our experiences’ using a state tool used to assess teacher education programs as their evaluation instrument. More important than the instrument, however, is the level of reflective practice generated as the collaborative team explored how they ‘struggled to plan for instruction, manage the classroom, deliver instruction, and embody professionalism in our new teaching context’. While the four teacher educators, with support from a graduate student initially focussed on the ‘abrupt move to online instruction’, their reflections and discourse increasingly focussed on professional development, particularly how each of them conducted themselves as teacher educators. Collaborative reflection on practice thus led to active engagement in re-imagining professional development as both self-directed and responsive to the teacher candidate needs identified using the framework.

‘Place as Teacher: Community-Based Experiences, Third Spaces, & Teacher Education’ by Alison Leonard (Clemson University), Amu Burns (University of Calgary), Erica Hamilton (Grand Valley State University), Linda Taylor (Ball State University), and Hilary Tanck (Utah State University) extends the conversation to colleagues in other universities. Together, the place as teacher and share with each other how ‘honoring place allows preservice teachers to locate teaching and learning within the tangible world around them, as compared to a theoretical world that exists outside school walls’. They make a strong case for treating schools as third spaces where teaching and learning occurring within the broader context of the school community. The strength of this study is the consolidation of their ideas and discoveries through focus group interviews, combined with deep reflection on patterns in their raw data, field notes and conference presentations. Collective reflection becomes a self-study method and a path to more active engagement.

Active engagement in improving professional practice needs to be supported by effective and reflective leadership, Yet, as Brandon Butler (Old Dominion University) and Diane Yendol-Hoppey (University of North Florida) observe, ‘the transition into academic leadership often lacks training and support, leaving leaders isolated and learning as they lead’. In ‘Facing Fears and Finding Fit: A Self-Study of Teacher Education Leadership’, they employ self-study methods, particularly reciprocal mentoring, to explore how reform-minded teacher education leaders might be better prepared and supported in their work. Implications of this study include ‘a need for teacher education leadership training and mentoring, as well as providing space for leaders to support one another across institutions and ranks’. Butler and Yendol-Hoppey draw on Amanda Berry’s (2007) tensions, applying them to the learning and enactment of teacher education leadership. This article and its second part, ‘Exhibiting Care While Re/Constructing Teacher Education’ (Butler & Yendol-Hoppey, 2025) are further examples of self-study as powerful approach for reflecting on practice to actively engage in meaningful education reform.