The Influence of a Collaborative Doctoral Seminar on Emerging Teacher Educator-Researchers

Abstract

Over a 7-year period, graduate teaching assistants participated in a teacher education doctoral seminar designed to develop emergent scholarship and practice in teacher education. Six former students in the seminar, all now assistant professors, joined Dinkelman in an open-ended, far-ranging, month-long conversation captured in a threaded, online discussion forum. The study unfolded as a collaborative self-study that made use of this forum and subsequent analyses to address two central research questions: (1) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as an emerging scholar? and (2) What influence might our seminar have had on your development as a teacher educator? In this article, we reflect on how participation in the seminar shaped the emergence of new scholars and teacher educators, as doctoral students and also as new faculty members. Findings suggested the seminar facilitated emergent scholarship by helping participants map the terrain of teacher education research, prompting actual research, and blurring the knower and known in studying teacher education. The seminar also helped develop emergent teacher educators practice through helping participants learn a language for teacher education, develop a sense of program, value collaboration, and define purpose and care for the practice of teacher education. The concluding discussion emphasizes the need for additional inquiry into the ways early-career teacher educators develop commitments to teacher education research and practice.