This issue brings together seven research articles on a range of themes from self-studies by teacher educators in six countries: Australia, Canada, Malta, Scotland, Sweden, and the USA. From Australia comes an illustration of the use of the core reflection model in the examination of a teacher educator's practice. Judy Williams and Kerith Power collaborated at Monash University to examine Kerith's teaching; both were new to the work of a teacher educator. Having attended a workshop on the core reflection model, they shared an interest in exploring its potential for helping them understand and develop their teaching. They conclude that their conversations were particularly relevant to understanding their identities as teacher educators and they report considerable value in identifying the core qualities driving their practices and identities.
From Malta comes a teacher educator's self-study of her experiences returning to the secondary school English classroom. Doreen Spiteri of the University of Malta returned to the classroom to test her assumptions and teacher education practices against the realities of teaching English using the strategies and approaches that she encourages student teachers to use in their practicum placements and future teaching. She discusses implications for both practice and policy.
From rural New York State in the USA comes a self-study by three teacher educators who worked with two colleagues acting as critical friends. Dennis Conrad, Deborah Conrad, and John Youngblood are people of colour studying the influence of identity on their pedagogical approaches. Working with them at the State University of New York, Potsdam were two critical friends, Anjali Misra and Michele Pinard. This article provides a moving account of the development of a sense of community through collaborative self-study.
From Scotland comes a larger collegial self-study of nine teacher educators, as reported by three members of the group, Tony Gemmell, Morwenna Griffiths, and Bob Kibble. Set at Moray House School of Education in the University of Edinburgh, this article tells the fascinating story of how a group who focused on their teaching came to see how their research could focus on their practices as teacher educators. In discussions over an extended period, they discovered considerable common ground as they explored the tensions between teaching and research.
From Canada comes a self-study of a teacher educator's efforts to address her pre-service teachers' fears associated with teaching mathematics at the Kindergarten-to-Grade-3 level. Monica McGlynn-Stewart, now at OISE/University of Toronto, analyzes her two years spent teaching a methods course and supervising practicum experiences for those learning to teach primary mathematics in a one-year teacher education program. Her students' fears about their lack of mathematical understanding and the challenges of teaching primary mathematics were paralleled by her own fears about whether she could be successful as a teacher educator. With a focus on listening to her students and with the support and advice of a critical friend, the results proved to be quite positive for all concerned.
From Sweden comes a self-study of what a teacher educator learned when working for two years with six engineering professors. Pernilla Nilsson's duties at Halmstad University included an assignment in the centre for learning and she found herself as the pedagogical advisor to six engineering professors from three different universities who participated in a nationally funded pedagogical project. This article describes the challenges of working in another discipline with individuals who approached teaching quite differently, but the payoff came in the insights gained into her own teaching of education students.
To complete this issue, a second article from Australia reports a teacher educator's use of design-based methodology to analyze student teachers' development of reflective skills when using innovative teaching strategies in their practicum experiences. Peter Aubusson, working with colleagues Janette Griffin and Frances Steele at the University of Technology, Sydney, used design-based methodology to collect a variety of data for understanding how the quality of his students' reflections was affected by analysis of their use of novel teaching strategies during school-based experience. The results will be of interest to all who work to develop reflective practice by pre-service students.