Exploring Self-Study to Improve My Practice as a Mathematics Teacher Educator

Abstract

While supervising a student teacher in school, an incident occurred that highlighted a contradiction between my practice and my beliefs and prompted me to question why I do not always live the values I profess. The aim of this article is to investigate how self-study can help me to understand the complex and context-based situations of my practice. I draw on the work of other teacher educators to examine the potential of self-study to improve my practice. Through this exploration I have begun to transform the way that I comprehend teaching and learning in teacher education. I identify several tensions and challenges in implementing the methodology within my professional context. I believe that self-study can help us in our roles as teacher educators to develop more reflexive self-awareness and to problematize taken-for-granted assumptions relevant to our contexts of practice.

Keywords:

• self-study methodology
• beliefs
• values
• teaching mathematics
• supervisor–student interactions