Self-study of Practice as a Framework to Promote Growth in the Student Teaching Experience

Abstract

As teachers and teacher educators, we hope to model an inquiry stance. Our prior experiences suggested an educative value in collaborative self-study for graduate students who were also practicing teachers. To build on this, we invited social studies teacher candidates to learn about taking an inquiry stance through self-study. This collaborative self-study of teaching practice took place in varied school contexts and within a student teaching seminar course. Our goal was for the preservice teachers to engage in systematic inquiry into their practice. As teacher educators, we hoped to learn about our own practices and the ways we encourage an inquiry stance during student teaching. Learning outcomes for six of the preservice teachers and the three teacher educators are presented in this article.

Keywords:

• inquiry stance
• teacher candidates
• learning to teach
• knowledge workers
• preservice teachers
• teacher–student relationships