Looking across and within: studying ourselves as teacher educators

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the ongoing self-study of a community of physical education teacher educators (PETE) striving to enhance their research capacity and program effectiveness. The underpinnings of the project reside within professional development/professional learning and self-study. Engaging in self-study projects ‘allows teacher educators to focus on their own practice and students’ learning while meeting the research expectations of life as an academic’ [Tannehill, D. (2014). My journey to become a teacher educator. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 19. doi: 10.1080/17408989.2014.898745]. While often beginning with individuals looking at their own work, self-study does not need to confine itself to individuals and can involve collaboration among varying numbers across a variety of participants [Loughran, J. J., & Russell, T. (Eds.). (2002). Improving teacher education practices through self-study. London: Routledge Farmer]. This paper reflects one PETE program's attempts to examine the early findings of our programmatic self-study research into the development of a PETE learning community. It describes our initial findings reported through three themes reflecting our self-study work and experiences: dialogue, memory, and becoming, which link directly to Ovens and Fletcher's [Ovens, A., & Fletcher, T. (Eds.). (2014). Self-study in teacher education: Exploring the interplay of practice and scholarship. London: Springer] self-study characteristics of community, stance, and desire. While still a work-in-progress, this project has allowed our group to address tensions, dilemmas, and practices of interest, providing for the acquisition of knowledge to move forward both programmatically and individually. Our intent in sharing this work is to provide a platform for discussion as to the potential programmatic use of self-study to enhance PETE programs and the research capacities of PETE.

Keywords:

• physical education teacher education
• communities of practice
• self-study

Notes on contributors

Deborah Tannehill is Emeritus Faculty in the Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the University of Limerick. She is a member of the Physical Education, Physical Activity and Youth Sport (PEPAYS-Ireland) Research Centre. Her research is focused on teaching and teacher education specifically addressing professional development and communities of practice in addition to the alignment between curriculum, assessment and instruction. More recently she has engaged in self-study research at an individual and program level.

Melissa Parker is a Lecturer in the Physical Education in the Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department at the University of Limerick. Her scholarly areas of interest include accessing teacher and student voice, the professional learning of teachers and teacher educators, the study of constructivist learning, and the pedagogies that support that learning. Missy has experience working with teacher education, children's physical education, underserved kids, and alternative programs for youth, including school physical education and outdoor settings.

Daniel Tindall is a Lecturer in the Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department at the University of Limerick. He earned both a BA degree in Social Science with a minor in Physical Education and a MA degree in Physical Education at California State University – Chico. His PhD in Sport Pedagogy with a minor emphasis in Movement Studies in Disability from Oregon State University. Currently, Daniel co-directs the i-PLAY program, a physical activity program for youth with disabilities as part of the physical education teacher education program.

Brigitte Moody is Programme Director for the BSc in Physical Education at the University of Limerick. She gained her Bachelor of Education from University College Worcester and her Masters in Dance from Trinity Laban. Her teaching interests revolve around dance pedagogy, philosophy, choreography, dance analysis, and her research interests focus on self-study. She is the co-director of the i-PLAY program, a physical activity program for youth with disabilities, both the youth and physical education teacher education pre-service teachers.

Ann MacPhail is the Head of the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Ann's main teaching and research interests revolve around physical education teacher education, curriculum development in physical education and teaching, learning, and assessment issues within school physical education. Ann has recently co-authored Research and Practice in Physical Education (Routledge) and Building Effective Physical Education Programs (Jones and Bartlett).