Guðjónsdóttir & Jónsdóttir. (2012) Preparing teachers for teaching a diverse group of learners...

9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON S-STEP EXTENDING INQUIRY COMMUNITIES 1

The Ninth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices

Extending Inquiry Communities: Illuminating Teacher Education Through Self-StudyAugust 15-19, 2012Herstmonceux CastleEast Sussex, England

CO-EDITORSJanet R. YoungLynnette B. EricksonStefinee Pinnegar

DESIGNERNathaniel JohnsonBrigham Young UniversityProvo, UT USA

ISBN10: 1-55339-384-8ISBN13: 978-1-55339-384-9EAN: 9781553393849

9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON S-STEP EXTENDING INQUIRY COMMUNITIES2

Contents 10 INTRODUCTION 11 FROM THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS 12 SCHEDULE

Selected Papers 15 PRESIDENTIAL SESSION: THE TRANSFORMATIVE NATURE OF SELF-STUDY Deborah Tidwell, Jill Farrell, Nancy Brown, Monica Taylor, Lesley Coia, Rabab Abihanna, Linda Abrams, Charity Dacey, Jackie Dauplaise, & Katie Strom

17 “I AM WHAT I AM NOT YET”: BECOMING TEACHER EDUCATORS AND CHANGE AGENTS Linda Whalen Abrams, Rebab Abi-Hanna, Nellista Bess, Melissa Collucci, Charity Dacey, Jacqueline Marie Dauplaise, Sara Mastellone, Kathryn Strom, & Monica Taylor

21 BULLYING AND THE ACADEMIC PLAYGROUND Donna Allender & Arlene Taylor

25 THE TEACHING OF ETHICS IN THE LIGHT OF SELF-STUDY Jerry Allender

28 STRIVING TO WALK THE TALK: ENGAGING IN SHARED LEARNING TASKS PERCEIVED AS DAUNTING Valerie Allison-Roan & Laurie A. Ramirez

32 RECONCILING TENSIONS AS A TEACHER EDUCATOR AND ADMINISTRATOR Sal Badali

36 CLINICAL SUPERVISION AS OPPORTUNITY FOR SELF-STUDY: DO WE PROMOTE OR HINDER TEACHER SELF-REFLECTION IN POST- OBSERVATION CONFERENCING? Laura Baecher & Bede McCormack

40 BEING IN THE BETWEEN: TEACHER EDUCATION AS A RELATIONAL TRANSITIONAL SPACE Judith Barak, Smadar Tuval, Ariela Gidron, & Bobbie Turniansky

44 EXTENDING INQUIRY COMMUNITIES THROUGH CROSS-EXPERIENCE SELF-STUDY Andrea Bartlett & Amanda Paige Vogel

48 THE NEVER-ENDING STORY: STUDYING AND FINE-TUNING MY TEACHER EDUCATION PRACTICE Clive Beck

52 LEARNING FROM USING THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED IN A STUDENT TEACHING SEMINAR: A SELF-STUDY Foram Bhukhanwala

56 CONSTRUCTING PEDAGOGICAL IDENTITIES: REVISITING OUR UNDERGRADUATE SELVES Nathan Brubaker & Dawn Garbett

60 IMPLEMENTING INDIVIDUALIZED GRADING CONTRACTS: PERSPECTIVES OF TWO TEACHER EDUCATORS Nathan Brubaker & Alan Ovens

64 DEVELOPING COHERENCE AT THE END OF A PRESERVICE METHODS COURSE Shawn Michael Bullock & Tom Russell

68 METAPHORS OF COMPLEXITY: THE ROLES OF UNIVERSITY SUPERVISORS Brandon M. Butler, Alexander Cuenca, & Charles Elfer

72 MODELING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE Maggie Chase & Bruce Robbins

75 THE FUN, THE FRUSTRATION, THE COLLABORATION: A COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDY OF AERA S-STEP PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS Renee T. Clift & Jim Muchmore

78 IN SEARCH OF EXPERTISE ACROSS THE CONTINUUM OF EXPERIENCE: A COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDY Alexander Cuenca & Todd Dinkelman

82 BRAIDED JOURNEYS: A SELF-STUDY OF SUSTAINED TEACHER COLLABORATION Gayle Curtis, Cheryl Craig, Donna Reid, Tim Martindell, MichaelAnn Kelley, Mari Glamser, & Paul Gray

86 ON FIRE FOR TEACHER EDUCATION: ENACTING ACTIVE SCHOLARSHIP Mary C. Dalmau & Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir

90 WALKING THE TALK WHILE STRUGGLING TO STAY UPRIGHT Ronnie Davey

94 STORIED COURSE OUTLINES: UNCOVERING AND UNDERSTANDING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT TEACHING ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING ABOUT TEACHING Susan E. Elliott-Johns & Mary Lynn Tessaro

98 A PROGRAMMATIC SELF-STUDY OF PRACTICE: EXPLORING TEACHER EDUCATOR KNOWLEDGE Lynnette B. Erickson, Stefinee E. Pinnegar, & Janet R. Young

102 AN INVESTIGATION INTO COLLABORATIVE MENTORING USING SELF-STUDY: OUR PROCESSES AND OUR LEARNING Tim Fletcher, Shawn M. Bullock, & Clare Kosnik 106 EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF BOAL’S “THE RAINBOW OF DESIRE” AS AN ENACTED REFLECTIVE PRACTICE: AN EMERGING SELF-STUDY Rachel Forgasz & Mandi Berry Iclon

110 A RETROSPECTIVE SELF-STUDY Charlotte Frambaugh-Kritzer

114 NEGOTIATING THE DIVERSE MULTICULTURAL LANDSCAPE THROUGH SELF-STUDY AND OUR STUDENTS’ VOICES Anne Reilley Freese & Amber Strong Makaiau

118 SELF-STUDY OF A DEAN’S PROFESSIONAL LEARNING-IN-ACTION WITH A CRITICAL FRIEND FROM ANOTHER CULTURE Rodrigo Fuentealba Jara & Tom Russell

122 PROMOTION VIA TEACHING DISTINCTION: DEVELOPING RESILIENCE FOR A TRACK LESS TRAVELLED Dawn Garbett

126 THE INNER WORLD OF DEAN OF STUDENTS Dvora Gesser & Zipi Zelkovitz

130 PRACTICING WHAT WE PREACH: EXPLORING HOW DISCURSIVE RESOURCES SHAPE THE TEACHING OF MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION Brian Girard & Laura Haniford

134 IMPROVING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ ADAPTIVE METACOGNITIVE PRACTICES THROUGH REFLECTIVE WRITING Joanne E. Goodell

138 THREE ETHICAL DILEMMAS IN SELF-STUDY RESEARCH: AMBIGUITIES OF CONFIDENTIALITY William L. Greene, Younghee M. Kim, Fred A.J. Korthagen, Geoff Mills, Robyn Brandenburg, & Ann Gervasoni

143 THE GREEN UKULELE: THE COMPLEXITIES OF ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING DURING AN INTERNATIONAL PRACTICUM Arlene Grierson & Nicole Taylor

147 TEACHING ONLINE TO AFFECT LEARNER CHANGE: ON THE CHALLENGES OF TEACHING TO FOSTER MULTICULTURAL AWARENESS Thomas A. Griggs & Deborah L. Tidwell

151 PREPARING TEACHERS TO TEACH A DIVERSE GROUP OF LEARNERS IN A CHANGING WORLD Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir & Svanborg Rannveig Jónsdóttir

155 PROMOTING PURPOSEFUL PRACTICE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDY OF PRACTICE Todd S. Hawley, Andrew L. Hostetler, Alicia R. Crowe, Yvonne Smith, & Kelly Ladd

159 CONTINUITY: DOES ONE’S USE OF A PERSONAL NARRATIVE LIVE ON PROFITABLY IN THE FUTURE? Michael Hayes & Valerie Allison-Roan

163 SELF-STUDY OF PRACTICE AS A FRAMEWORK TO PROMOTE GROWTH IN THE STUDENT TEACHING EXPERIENCE Andrew L. Hostetler, Amanda Janosko, Todd S. Hawley, Alicia R. Crowe, Lisa Ahlers, Lauryn Koppes, Adam Loudin, Erin Smith, & Trevor Sprague

167 BUILDING AN UNDERSTANDING OF LEARNING FROM TEACHING Signe Kastberg

171 BUILDING RAPPORT AND PEDAGOGY DURING TRANSPLANT-ENFORCED ISOLATION: WHEN EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER TAUGHT REGARDING HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TEACHING HAS TO BE DONE COMPLETELY ONLINE Cristy L. Kessler

175 NO LONGER DIGITAL NOVICES: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO OUR LITERACY METHODS COURSES Clare Kosnik, Lydia Menna, & Shawn Bullock

179 FAILING AT DEMOCRACY: THE PEDAGOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF SELF IN SELF-STUDY RESEARCH Jeff Kuzmic

183 ILLUMINATING MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATION THROUGH DECODING DISCIPLINARY THINKING: UNPACKING MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING LouAnn Lovin & Kyle Schultz

187 LEARNING ABOUT RESEARCH: ACTING AS A RESEARCHER -- EXPERIENCES FROM OUR SELF- STUDY COMMUNITY Mieke Lunenberg, Paul van den Bos, Janneke Geursen, Willem Hoekstra, Fred Korthagen, Yke Meindersma, Rosanne Zwart, Joke Morshuis, Joke Rentrop, & Peter Ruit 191 EXTENDING INQUIRY INTO LEARNING OVER TIME ACROSS PROFESSIONS: PROMOTING TEACHING AND LEARNING WITHIN A SELF-STUDY Nona Lyons, Carmel Halton, & Helen Friedus 195 THE KITE SYNDROME—THE TENSION BETWEEN “LETTING GO” AND “HOLDING ON”: TEACHER EDUCATORS’ PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING AND LEARNING IN AN OPEN SPACE Ruth Mansur & Dina Friling

199 A PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CRISIS: INQUIRY INTO PRACTICE THROUGH SELF-STUDY Andrea K. Martin & Angela M. Solar

204 FINDING THE FIT: RECONCILING PROFESSIONAL ROLES OF RESEARCHER AND TEACHER Susan D. Martin

208 “EXPERIENCES OF TUNNEL VISION”: LEARNING ABOUT TEACHER EDUCATOR IDENTITIES THROUGH STUDYING MENTOR ROLES Sharon McDonough & Robyn Brandenburg

212 STRIVING TO ENACT A LISTENING STANCE AS TEACHER EDUCATORS David McLaughlin, Valerie Allison-Roan, & Michael Hayes

216 A COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDY TO ASSIST STUDENTS EDUCATED OUTSIDE OF AMERICA Denise McLurkin

219 IS IT POSSIBLE TO MAINTAIN A FOCUS ON SCHOLARSHIP IN TEACHER EDUCATION WHILE BEING A DEAN? Geoff Mills, John Loughran, & Renee Clift

223 IS CONTEXT EVERYTHING? NUANCED VARIATIONS IN BEING AND BECOMING A MATHEMATICS EDUCATOR IN DIFFERING CULTURAL CONTEXTS Eula Ewing Monroe

227 USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENGAGE TEACHER CANDIDATES IN RELEVANT, TIMELY, AND RICH LEARNING EXPERIENCES Michael Nantais & Jacqueline Kirk

231 TRUST IN SELF-STUDY, TRUST IN THE CLASSROOM: LISTENING, VULNERABILITY, AND LEADERSHIP Kami M. Patrizio

235 WALKING THE WALK AS SERVANT? A SELF-STUDY OF LEARNING, TEACHING, AND LEADING Tamie Pratt-Fartro

239 UNPACKING MY GRADUATE LEARNING FOR IMPROVED TEACHER EDUCATION: A TASK OF POETICS Brian J. Rice 243 INTERNATIONAL TEACHER EDUCATORS LEARNING ABOUT REFLECTION FROM THE PROCESS Mary Rice, Stefinee Pinnegar, M. Shaun Murphy, Brian J. Rice, & Mary Lynn Hamilton

247 TEACHING A MARGINALIZED SUBJECT Anita Roychoudhury & Signe Kastberg

251 REFORMING IN THE FIRST PERSON PLURAL: EXPLORATIONS OF A FACULTY SELF-STUDY COLLABORATIVE Anastasia P. Samaras, Lesley Smith, Laurie Harmon, Ilham Nasser, Toni Smith, Kirk Borne, Seth Parsons, Louisa Woodville, Lynne Constantine, Esperanza Roman Mendoza, Jennifer Suh, Ryan Swanson, & Diana Karczmarczyk

256 EXTENDING MY COMMUNITY—CO-TEACHING A METHODS COURSE IN A PDS SETTING WITH A HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: WHOSE KNOWLEDGE COUNTS? Wendy Sanchez

260 INCORPORATING EXPLICIT REFLECTIVE PRACTICES THAT DEVELOP REFLECTIVE TEACHERS Joseph C. Senese

264 REFLECTION, RESPONSES, AND RELATIONSHIPS: EXAMINING MY PRACTICE THROUGH SELF-STUDY Melanie Shoffner

268 USING METAPHOR TO ASSESS PRACTICE: OUR JOURNEY FROM K-12 TEACHERS TO TEACHER EDUCATORS Mary Sowder, Thomas Smith, Teresa Leavitt, & Madalina Tanase

272 SHAPE SHIFTING OR BECOMING THIRD-SPACE TEACHER EDUCATORS?: A CO/AUTOETHNO- GRAPHIC SELF-STUDY OF MENTORS AND FACULTY Monica Taylor, Linda Abrams, Emily Klein, Susan Wray, Kathryn Strom, Emanuel Cordero, Jane Silva, Tracy Blazquez, Meshele Scipio, Kimberly Scott, Amy Panitch, William Romney, Chiffon Brown, Bryan Barzaga, Erin Mooney, Theresa Rozek, Luba Lidman, Isabel Abreu, Anna Monteiro, & Rosalis Rincon

276 WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE A FEMINIST?: A CO/AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC SELF-STUDY OF FEMINIST PEDAGOGY Monica Taylor & Lesley Coia

280 SHARING REFLECTIONS ON OUR TEACHING WITH PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OURSELVES: COLLABORATIVE SELF-STUDY ACROSS LANGUAGES AND CONTINENTS Lynn Thomas & Janneke Geursen

284 SELF-STUDY OF A TEACHER EDUCATOR’S SELF- EFFICACY USING A CRITICAL FRIEND NETWORK Jamelyn Tobery-Nystrom & Anastasia Samaras

289 GOING MOBILE: REFRAMING DISCUSSION GROUPS FOR 21ST CENTURY CLASSROOMS Lee Ann Dubert Tysseling & Meleah McCulley

293 EXPLORING THE THIRD SPACE BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR A TEACHER EDUCATOR’S IDENTITY AND PRACTICE Judy Williams

297 WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? FINDING OUR ROOTS AND FINDING OUR ROLES IN A POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH COHORT Rosamund Winter & Julie Harrington

301 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

304 FINDING MEETING ROOMS AND PLANNING YOUR CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

IntroductionWelcome to the Ninth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP), hosted

by the S-STEP special interest group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This biennial conference provides a unique venue for teacher education researchers to come together to share scholarly work, to connect with colleagues, to develop new networks in self-study, and to challenge and to expand ideas about research and practice.

The theme for this year’s Castle Conference, Extending Inquiry Communities: Illuminating Teacher Education Through Self-Study, reflects the collegial nature of self-study research. The development of communities of scholars through the self-study process has been a hallmark of self-study research and continues to foster the examination of practice that informs the field of education. It has been twenty years since the first AERA symposium addressed the complexity of issues in the professional lives of teacher educators and the value of self-study in researching teacher educators’ practice. Since then, self-study research and the S-STEP SIG have grown exponentially, spanning across international communities around the world. From that initial research session, the interest in and research on understanding teacher education practice through self-study has substantially changed the way in which effective teacher education research is defined.

A new addition at this year’s conference is the preconference workshop, Promoting Core Reflection in Coaching. This workshop brings together cognitive, emotional, motivational, and behavioral aspects of learning within a reflective process designed to engage participants in thinking about theory undergirding practice in concert with the engagement of practice within the field (Kim & Greene, 2011; Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005). This preconference experience promises to further the discussion of research on practice in ways that challenge meaning making. As is true in self-study research, such meaningful inquiry engages us as educators and researchers in examining the problems, issues and concerns that arise in teacher education, and through this process fosters our authentic conversations around the complexities of teaching within and for diverse communities (often within confined and construed contexts).

The beauty of this international conference is found in both the gathering of teacher educators/researchers within a forum that supports and facilitates discussions of research on practice, and in the actual surroundings of the Herstmonceux Castle grounds itself. The castle provides an ambiance conducive to large and small group discussions of research on practice and supports the collaboration and sense of community through its beauty within the castle walls and beyond in the castle gardens and pathways. Surrounded by such natural and manmade beauty, extended conversations happen easily as research sessions continue on into the courtyards, gardens, teashop, and pub. I hope you find this castle experience one that inspires your thinking about practice, challenges your understandings, and supports your research and academic life in ways that foster your future in self-study research.

The Castle Conference is truly a collaborative affair, with colleagues around the world participating in the development of proposals and papers, and serving as reviewers for two different review processes. However, all of this would not be possible without the editorial team of Janet Young, Lynnette Erickson, and Stefinee Pinnegar. Their tireless efforts in the creation of the call for proposals and papers, the orchestration of the reviews, the completion of the published proceedings, and the organization of the conference itself are greatly appreciated. In addition to the editorial team, a special thank you to Tom Russell and Queen’s University for making possible the nine Castle Conferences over the years. Tom’s leadership in coordinating the conference details has always been and continues to be nothing short of amazing. I want to thank all of you for your efforts in making possible the Castle Conference of 2012!

Deborah Tidwell, S-STEP Chair

From the Conference Program Co-ChairsThe Castle Conference continues to serve both experienced and novice scholars in self-study of teacher

education practice research. It provides a forum for sharing scholarship in teacher education in a setting where we have opportunity to develop our understanding and skills as scholars and our practice as teacher educators. Following the tradition of editors before us, we have sought again this year to improve the quality of Castle Conference papers while making participation in the conference as accessible as possible. We support and encourage the community to continue its effort to balance the goals of high quality scholarship with the goal of being an inclusive community that genuinely mentors newcomers into its fold.

This year, interest in participating in the Castle Conference has remained high. We received 92 proposals, of which 71 were accepted for publication in the proceedings for the Ninth Castle Conference. The final acceptance rate for proceedings papers was 77%, compared to 66% in 2010, 64% in 2008, and 79% in 2006.

As in past years, the editorial process for the proceedings of the Ninth International Conference of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices occurred in two stages. First, a double-blind review was used to assess short preliminary proposals, provide feedback to authors, and guide the selection of proposals for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the proceedings. A second double-blind review process was used to assess submitted papers, guide their development, and provide a basis for the selection of the final papers for inclusion in the proceedings.

As editors of the Castle Conference Proceedings, we express our deepest appreciation to Tom Russell who, as always, has worked tirelessly to organize this conference. From Queen’s College in Kingston, Canada, Tom has arranged meeting venues, conference events, accommodations, meals, and group tours; he has ably addressed all the complicated logistics of preparing for an international conference, all the while putting the needs of the conference participants first. He has promptly responded to our every question or request, and has provided practical and personal support throughout the process. Thank you, Tom.

We would also like to thank the members of the self-study community who generously offered their time and expertise in reviewing proposals and final papers for the conference. We acknowledge and thank the many reviewers who participated in the double-blind review process:

Linda Abrams, Lisa Ahlers, Donna Allender, Jerry Allender, Valerie Allison-Roan, Sal Badali, Laura Baecher, Judith Barak, Andrea Bartlett, Amanda Berry, Foram Bhukhanwala, Deanne Blackler, Robyn Brandenburg, Larike Bronkhorst, Nancy Brown, Nathan Brubaker, Shawn Bullock, Brandon Butler, Patricia Calderwood, Maggie Chase, Renee Clift, LesleyCoia, Cheryl Craig, Alicia Crowe, Gayle Curtis, Mary Dalmau Ronnie Davey, Ari de Heer, Rose Dolan, Charles Elfer, Susan Elliot-Johns, Lynnette Erickson, Jill Farrell, Tim Fletcher, Rachel Forgasz, Charlotte Frambaugh-Kriter, Anne Freese, Helen Friedus, Dawn Garbett, Brian Gerard, Ann Gervasoni, Devora Gesser, Janneke Geursen, Ariel Gidron, Joanne Goodell, Paul Gray, William Green, Arleen Grierson, Tom Griggs, Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Amy Hanson, Julie Harrington, Todd Hawley, Michael Hayes, Andrew Hostetler, Amanda Janosko, Signe Kastberg, Michaelann Kelley, Cristy Kessler, Younghee Kim, Jackie Kirk, Emily Kleine, Lauryn Koppes, Claire Kosnik, Teresa Leavitt, Adam Loudin, John Loughran, LouAnn Lovin, Mieke Lunenberg, Nona Lyons, Ruth Mansur, Andrea Martin, Susan Martin, Bede McCormack, Sharon McDonough, Denise McLurkin, Lydia Menna, Geoff Mills, Eula Monroe, James Muchmore, Shaun Murphy, Michael Nantais, Alan Ovens, Kami Patrizio, Stefinee Pinnegar, Tammie Pratt-Fartro, Laurie Ramirez, Joke Rentrop, Brian Rice, Mary Rice, Martine Rijswijk, Bruce Robbins, Anita Roychoudhury, Tom Russell, Anastasia Samaras, Wendy Sanchez, Kyle Schultz, Joseph Senese, Melanie Shoffner, Emily Smith, Erin Smith, Yvonne Smith, Angela Solar, Mary Sowder, Trevor Sprague, Monica Taylor, Mary LynnTessaro, Lynn Thomas, Deb Tidwell, Jamelyn Tobery-Nystrom, Hanneke Tuithof, Bobbie Turniansky, Smadar Tuval, Lee Ann Tysseling, Paul van den Bos, Judy Williams, Rosamond Winter, Janet Young, and Zipi Zelkovitz.

We appreciate the support we have received from Brigham Young University. In particular, we want to thank Jessica Varinec for her editorial assistance, Nathaniel Johnson for his design contribution, and our colleagues in the Department of Teacher Education for their encouragement and cooperation.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has participated in the 2012 Castle Conference process from the submission of proposals, through reviews, paper construction, critique, and final editing. As editors, we have learned much from our interactions with you. We extend our sincere thanks to you for allowing us this opportunity to learn more about self-study of teacher education practices research, you as our colleagues, and ourselves as members of this community.

Castle Conference 2012 Program Co-ChairsJanet YoungLynnette EricksonStefinee PinnegarBrigham Young University

Castle Conference 2012

Thursday, August 16

Time Dacre Room

Film &Video Room Conference Room Board

Room Seminar 1

Room 9:00-09:50

Presidential Session: The Transformative Nature of Self-Study (Conference Room) D. Tidwell, J. Farrell, N. Brown, M. Taylor, L. Coia, R. Abihanna, L Abrams. C. Dancey, J. Dauplaise, K. Strom

10:00-10:50

Reconciling Tensions as a Teacher Educator and Administrator S. Badali

Extending my Community-Co-Teaching a Methods Course in a Methods Course in a PDS… W. Sanchez

The Kite Syndrome-The Tension Between “Letting Go” and “Holding on”… R. Mansur D. Friling

Preparing Teachers to Teach a Diverse Group of Learners in a Changing World H. Guðjónsdóttir S. Jónsdóttir

Unpacking My Graduate Learnings for Improved Teacher Education: A Task of Poetics B. Rice

11:00-11:20 Tea & Coffee—Elizabethan Room

11:30-12:20

Three Ethical Dilemmas in Self-Study Research … W. Greene R. Brandenburg A. Gervasoni Y. Kim, et al.

Shape Shifting or Becoming Third-Space Teacher Educators? … M. Taylor L. Abrams E. Klein, et al.

Learning About Research; Acting as a Researcher… M. Lunenberg P. van den Bos J. Geursen W. Hoekstra, et. al.

Teaching Online to Affect Learner Change: On the Challenges of Teaching … T. Griggs D. Tidwell

Continuity: Does One’s Use of a Personal Narrative Live on Profitably in the Future? M. Hayes V. Allison-Roan

12:30-1:50 Lunch

2:00-2:50

Is it Possible to Maintain a Focus on Scholarship in Teacher Ed … G. Mills J. Loughran R. Clift

Reforming in the First Person Plural: Explorations of… A. Samaras L. Smith L. Harmon, et al.

International Teacher Educators Learning About Reflection… M. Rice S. Pinnegar M. S. Murphy, et al.

Exploring the Potential of Boal’s “The Rainbow of Desire” as an… R. Forgasz M. Berry

Developing Coherence at the End of a Preservice Methods Course S. Bullock T. Russell

3:00-3:50

Self-Study of a Dean’s Professional Learning-in-Action with a… R. Fuentealba T. Russell

Illuminating Mathematics Teacher Education Through Decoding… L. Lovin K. Schultz

A Programmatic Self-Study of Practice: Exploring… L. Erickson S. Pinnegar J. Young

Practicing What We Preach: Exploring How Discursive Resources… B. Girard L. Haniford

The Green Ukulele: The Complexities of Ethical Decision-Making During… A. Grierson N. Taylor

4:30-5:20

The Inner World of Dean of Students D. Gesser Z. Zelkovitz

Teaching a Marginalized Subject A. Roychoudhury S. Kastberg

An Investigation into Collaborative Mentoring Using Self-Study… T. Fletcher S. Bullock C. Kosnik

Negotiating the Diverse Multicultural Landscape Through… A. Freese A. Makaiau

A Professional Identity Crisis: Inquiry Into Practice Through Self-Study A. Martin A. Solar

5:30-7:00 Dinner

6:30-7:30 Letters from the Field: A Reader’s Theatre, Conference Room

7:30 Concert, Castle Ballroom

8:00-9:30 After Dinner Discussions, Pub

Friday, August 17

Saturday, August 18

Time Dacre Room

Room Seminar 1 Room

9:00-09:50

Being in the Between: Teacher Education as a… J. Barak S. Tuval A. Gidron B. Turniansky

Is Context Everything? Nuanced Variations in Being and Becoming a… E. Monroe

Learning from Using Theatre of the Oppressed in a Student Teaching Seminar: A… F. Bhukhanwala

Storied Course Outlines: Uncovering and Understanding Assumptions… S. Elliott-Johns M. Tessaro

Sharing Reflections on our Teaching with Pre-Service Teachers to… L. Thomas J. Geursen

10:00-10:50

Braided Journeys: A Self-Study of Sustained… G. Curtis C. Craig Donna Reid et al.

Extending Inquiry Into Learning Over Time Across… N. Lyons H. Friedus C. Halton

Implementing Individualized Grading Contracts: Perspectives of… N. Brubaker A. Ovens

Self-Study of a Teacher-Educator’s Self-Efficacy Using a Critical Friend… J. Tobery-Nystrom A. Samaras

Incorporating Explicit Reflective Practices that Develop Reflective… J. Senese

11:00- 11:20 Tea & Coffee—Elizabethan Room

Time Dacre Room

Room Seminar 1

Room 9:00- 9:50

On Fire for Teacher Education: Enacting Active Scholarship M. Dalmau H. Guðjónsdóttir

The Never-Ending Story: Studying and Fine-Tuning My Teacher Education… C. Beck

Striving to Walk the Talk: Engaging in Shared Learning Tasks… V. Allison-Roan L. Ramirez

Using Social Media to Engage Teacher Candidates in Relevant… M. Nantais J. Kirk

Going Mobile: Reframing Discussion Groups for 21st Century Classrooms L. Tysseling M. McCulley

10:00-10:50

“I Am What I Am Not Yet”: Becoming Teacher… L. Abrams M. Taylor K. Strom, et al.

Building Rapport and Pedagogy During Transplant-Enforced Isolation… C. Kessler

Constructing Pedagogical Identities: Revisiting our Undergraduate… N. Brubaker D. Garbett

Building an Understanding of Learning from Teaching S. Kastberg

A Retrospective Self-Study C. Frambaugh-Kritzer

11:30-12:20

No Longer Digital Novices: Integrating Technology… C. Kosnik L. Menna S. Bullock

Promotion via Teaching Distinction: Developing Resilience For a Track Less… D. Garbett

In Search of Expertise Across the Continuum of Experience… A. Cuenca T. Dinkelman

Failing at Democracy: The Pedagogy and Epistemology of Self in Self-Study Research J. Kuzmic

The Fun, the Frustration, the Collaboration: A collaborative Self-Study of… R. Clift J. Muchmore

12:30-1:15 Lunch

1:15- 6:00

Garden Tour departure from Bader Hall OR Conversations & exploration (for those not taking the Garden Tour)

7:00-9:00 Bardic Dinner: Conference Banquet

9:00 Discussions, Pub

Saturday, August 18 (continued)

Sunday, August 19

Time Dacre Room

Room Seminar 1 Room

11:30-12:20

Using Metaphor to Assess Practice: Our… M. Sowder T. Smith T. Leavitt M. Tanase

Who Do We Think We Are? Finding Our Roots and Finding Our… R. Winter J. Harrington

Striving to Enact a Listening Stance as Teacher… D. McLaughlin V. Allison-Roan M. Hayes

Extending Inquiry Communities Through Cross-Experience… A. Bartlett A. Vogel

Modeling Reflective Practice M. Chase B. Robbins

12:30-1:50 Lunch

2:00-2:50

Exploring the Third Space Between Schools and Universities: Implications for a Teacher… J. Williams

Walking the Walk as Servant?: A Self-Study of Learning, Teaching… T. Pratt-Fartro

Clinical Supervision as Opportunity for Self Study: Do We Promote or… L. Baecher B. McCormack

Promoting Purposeful Practice Through Collaborative Self-Study… T. Hawley, A. Hostetler, et. al.

Improving Pre-Service Teachers’ Adaptive Metacognitive Practices… J. Goodell

3:00-3:50

“Experiences of Tunnel Vision”: Learning About Teacher Educator… S. McDonough R. Brandenburg

Trust in Self-Study, Trust in the Classroom: Listening, Vulnerability, and Leadership K. Patrizio

The Teaching of Ethics in the Light of Self-Study J. Allender

Metaphors of Complexity: The Roles of University B. Butler A. Cuenca C. Elfer

Reflections, Responses, and Relationships: Examining My Practice Through Self-Study M. Shoffner

4:30-5:20

Finding the Fit: Reconciling Professional Roles of Researcher and Teacher S. Martin

What Do You Mean You’re a Feminist? A Co/ autoethnographic Self-Study of… M. Taylor L. Coia

A Collaborative Self-Study to Assist Students Educated Outside of America D. McLurkin

Self-Study of Practice as a Framework to Promote Growth in the Student… A. Hostetler T. Hawley, et al.

Bullying and the Academic Playground D. Allender A. Taylor

5:30-5:45 Photo Opportunity—Entire Group, Castle Courtyard

5:45 – 7:00 Dinner

7:00-8:30 After-Dinner Discussion, Pub

Time Conference Room

9:00-11:30

Conference Closing Session Session Leader: Deb Tidwell

11:30-1:00

Conference Debriefing S-STEP conference organizers, planners, and chairs (time adjusted as needed).

DEBORAH TIDWELL JILL FARRELL NANCY BROWN University of Northern Iowa Barry University Oakland University

MONICA TAYLOR LESLEY COIA Montclair State University Agnes Scott College

RABAB ABIHANNA, LINDA ABRAMS, CHARITY DACEY, JACKIE DAUPLAISE, & KATIE STROMMontclair State University

Presidential Session: The Transformative Nature of Self-Study

Self-study research as a transforming practice has been documented in studies from researchers new to self-study (examples: McDonough, 2004; Perry, 2011) as well as from researchers engaged in self-study over an extended period of time (examples: Tidwell & Heston, 1996; Tidwell, 1998; Tidwell, 2000; Tidwell, 2002; Tidwell & Fitzgerald, 2004; Tidwell, Manke, Allender, Pinnegar, Hamilton, 2006; Tidwell & Wymore, 2008; Tidwell & Manke, 2009; Tidwell & Heston, 2010; Tidwel & Heston, 2012). In fact, the transformative experiences found within self-study are common themes in summary discussions of the impact of self-study research on practice. The nature of self-study methodology positions the researcher to examine the self as an integral part of the context for learning, whereby the framing and reframing of lived experiences results in a cumulative and altered understanding of practice. The data chosen for self-study research to represent/reflect meaning within practice vary, from narratives of personal knowledge and practice (Kitchen, 2005), to co/autoethnographies (Coia & Taylor, 2009) to visual representations of meaning (Farrell, Rosenkrantz, & Schaffzin 2012; Griffith, Malcolm, & Williamson, 2009), to aural expressions of engagement (Allender & Manke, 2002), to dilemma-based content analysis (Brown, Wiggins, & Secord, 2008), and beyond. Yet across these varied contexts for research, transformation is realized through greater understanding of teacher education practice, through a deepening understanding of self-study research methodology, and through understanding self-study as a context for (reciprocal) learning, not only of practice but of the roles and complex dynamics emerging from practice.

Self-study can be seen as transformative also in how meaning from self-study becomes transformed and evolves to account for subsequent generations of self-study researchers. When considering the transformative nature of self-study research, it is vital not to overlook the complexities of representation of meaning as determined through the interpretation of self-study data. For example, data may be interpreted through a post-structural feminist lens (St. Pierre & Pillow, 2000), or data may be reviewed through analogical reflection (Aubusson, 2008), or self-study processes and data may be examined through the lens of rhizoactivity (Farrell, Rosenkrantz, & Schaffzin 2012). In each of these studies, the meaning derived from the self-study is incumbent upon the theoretical grounding used to make sense of data.

Through on-going inquiry, as we continue to ask how we improve our practice, the concept of educational influence continues to emerge. As reflective teacher-researchers, each at different points on our educational journeys, we acknowledge that our practice is ever evolving. In our attempts

to understand our respective experiences and actions, ideas related to our professional learning surface and form our living theories, which are tested and validated through on-going dialogue and critical feedback (Whitehead & McNiff, 2006). Among the many ways of examining this symbiotic learning relationship that will be explored is through the theory of rhizoactivity (Kang, 2007), which describes adult learning relationships through a botanical metaphor of growth and connection, which can then serve as a model to describe the educational learning and transformation that occurs within the complexity of our postmodern learning contexts.

As we examine the complexities of the teaching-learning process within our own self-study research, we ask ourselves what it means to be transformed in our practice and understandings. This session will examine more closely this notion of the transformative nature of self-study.

ReferencesAllender, J., & Manke, M. (2002). Reflecting and refracting

self-study artifacts: Jazz poetry. In C. Kosnik, A. Freese, A. P. Samaras (Eds.), Making a Difference in Teacher Education Through Self-Study. Proceedings for the Fourth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 15-19). Toronto: Queen’s University.

Aubusson, P. (2008). Columbus and crew: Making analogical reflection public. In P. Aubusson & S. Schuck (Eds.), Teacher learning and development: The mirror maze (pp. 99-115). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Brown, N., Wiggins, R., & Secord, D. (2008). “And God sits next to me”: The role of religion in teacher education programs. In M. L. Heston, D. L. Tidwell, K. K. East, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Pathways to Change in Teacher Education: Dialogue, Diversity and Self-Study. Proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 36-40). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Coia, L., & Taylor, M. (2009). Co/autoethnography: Exploring our teaching selves collaboratively. In D. L. Tidwell, M. L. Heston, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 3-16). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Farrell, J., Rosenkrantz, M., & Schaffzin, L. (2012, April). Professional learning through rhizoactivity: Creating collaborative spaces with self-study and arts-informed inquiry. Poster paper presentation at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada.

Griffiths, M., Malcolm, H., & Williamson, Z. (2009). Faces and spaces and doing research. In D. L. Tidwell, M. L. Heston, and L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 101-118). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Kang, D. (2007). Rihizoactivity: Toward a postmodern theory of lifelong learning. Adult Education Quarterly, 57(3), 205-220.

Kitchen, J. (2005). Looking backwards, moving forward: Understanding my narrative as a teacher educator. Studying Teacher Education, 1, 17-30.

McDonough, C. (2004, April). Learning with and from pupils: Transformative potentials of self-study research. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.

Perry, B., & Beed, P. (2011, April). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

St. Pierre, E. A. & Pillow, W. S. (2000). Working the ruins: Feminist poststructural theory and methods in

education. New York, NY: Routledge. Tidwell, D. L., & Heston, M. L. (1996). Self-reflection through

practical argument: Getting the hows and whys out of what. In J. Richards & T. Russell (Eds.), Empowering Our Future in Teacher Education. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 183-186). Kingston, Canada: Queen’s University.

Tidwell, D. L. (1998). Distance. In A. L. Cole & S. Finley (Eds.), Conversations in Community. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Self-study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 77-80). Kingston, Canada: Queen’s University.

Tidwell, D. L. (2000). A balancing act: Self-study in valuing the individual student. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Exploring Myths and Legends of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 238-242). Kingston, Canada: Queen’s University.

Tidwell, D. L. (2002). On stage: The efficacy and theatrics of large group instruction. In C. Kosnik, A. Freese, & A. P. Samaras (Eds.), Making a Difference in Teacher Education Through Self-Study. Proceedings for the Fourth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp 111-116). Toronto, Canada: OISE, University of Toronto.

Tidwell, D., & Fitzgerald, L. (2004). Self-study as teaching. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Part 1, pp. 69-102). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Tidwell, D., Manke, M., Allender, J., Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M. L. (2006). Contexts for using illustrative nodal moments in self-study. In L. M. Fitzgerald, M. L. Heston, & D. L. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 257-262). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Tidwell, D., & Wymore, L. (2008). Self-study in creating a professional learning community. In M. L. Heston, D. L. Tidwell, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Pathways to Change in Teacher Education: Dialogue, Diversity and Self-Study. Proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 303-307). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Tidwell, D., & Manke, M. P. (2009). Making meaning of practice through visual metaphor. In D. L. Tidwell, M. L. Heston, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 135-154). Berlin, Germany: Springer.

Tidwell, D. L., & Heston, M. L. (2010). Past as prologue: Recursive reflection using professional histories. In L. R. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 265-267). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Tidwell, D. L., & Heston, M. L. (2012, April). Writing as a process-based dynamic: Self-study in balancing the theoretical with the practical. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada.

Whitehead, J. & McNiff, J. (2006). Action research living theory. London, England: Sage.

LINDA WHALEN ABRAMS, RABAB ABI-HANNA, NELLISTA BESS, MELISSA COLLUCCI, CHARITY DACEY, JACQUELINE MARIE DAUPLAISE, SARA MASTELLONE, KATHRYN STROM, & MONICA TAYLORMontclair State University

“I Am What I Am Not Yet”: Becoming Teacher Educators and Change Agents

ContextWe are a group of doctoral students and a professor

embarking on a self-study journey sparked by our realization that we are and will continue to be unfinished as teacher educators and change agents. During a summer course together, Greene’s (Pinar, 1998) statement “I am what I am not yet” (p. 1) resonated for us as we articulated our developing identities. To construct a learning community where all voices were welcomed, students wrote a series of personal narratives and read and analyzed scholarly texts that revolved around race, class, gender, sexuality, the hidden curriculum, teachers as change agents, teacher leadership, and school change. As we problematized these concepts, we realized that our becoming teacher educators and change agents is a life-long endeavor that needs to be extended and explored outside of the course, in a democratic setting without time or format restrictions. A self-study group was born, one that began with the feminist notion that our identities are multiple, contradictory, and in process (Ellsworth, 1989; hooks, 2000). We explored the personal and social dimensions of our teaching practices as we developed as teacher educators and change agents.

Although our guiding framework is continually being constructed, our self-study group was grounded in the following key principles. We formed a self-study group because this methodology invites collaboration (LaBoskey, 2004) and a reliance “on interaction with close colleagues who can listen actively and constructively” (Russell, 2006, p. 5). This group was initiated based on a “sense of dissatisfaction” or “a sense of unease and discomfort” (Loughran, 2002, p. 242), a common impetus for self-study. The group members felt unease about their transition to their new understanding of being teacher educators. Our goal has been to reframe (Schön, 1983) our teaching perspectives through a collaborative self-study.

Through a feminist lens, understanding that identity is complex and always changing, we have made spaces to collectively understand issues of the Other, oppression, and change as teacher educators and change agents. We understood both that “no one is purely one thing” (Said, 1993, p. 336) and that our collaboration purposely invites the narratives of those whose voices often go unheard. We hoped to evolve and become more wide awake, or as Greene (Harper, 2008) states, “Without the ability to think about yourself, to reflect on your life, there’s really no awareness, no consciousness. Consciousness doesn’t come automatically; it comes through being alive, awake, curious, and often furious” (para. 8).

Our primary self-study methodology is co/autoethnography (Coia & Taylor, 2009; Taylor & Coia, 2009). It most closely matches our objectives of examining our becoming teacher educators and change agents. We understand that it “involves investigating our own selves and engaging in

self/other analysis based on the understanding that teaching is a profoundly personal and social activity and cannot be accomplished well without self-awareness in a social context” (Coia & Taylor, 2006, p. 26). We embrace that “co/autoethnography is about being critical: It invites teachers to approach one another by listening and recounting stories rather than acting as ‘all knowing’” (p. 31).

Aim The following research questions direct our self-study:• Who are we becoming as teacher educators and change agents?• What are the pedagogical beliefs that ground our practices in these new roles?• How do we evolve and continue to re-invent ourselves as teacher educators and change agents?

MethodWe are a group of nine women who are all at varying

stages of our careers as teacher educators. We represent a variety of transition perspectives including school administrators, classroom teachers, doctoral graduate assistants, and community college and university professors. We represent multiple races and classes, and we have expertise in various content areas including math, English, special education, literacy, social studies, and science.

Our data collection methods were tailored to the needs of the group. We wrote individual narratives as responses to shared texts and each other’s writing. We shared them via Dropbox and in person at our regularly scheduled meetings, held every three weeks. We took field notes during our meetings to record comments, critiques, and discussion, and reflected on our process. Additionally, we rotated responsibility selecting a shared reading for our group sessions. We valued meeting face to face and talking because “without our discussions, there would be little deep analysis” (Coia & Taylor, 2009, p. 14). Our conversations helped us to both generate data and engage in analysis.

Our data analysis was collaborative, reflective, and participatory. It was recursive in that we analyzed the data by means of constant comparison as they were collected (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), trying to determine emerging categories across the data of all group members (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). Because of our collaboration, we looked at the data from multiple lenses, “researcher/researched, subject/object and insider/outsider” (Coia & Taylor, 2009, p. 15), which led to trustworthiness.

OutcomesWe share our preliminary emerging themes in a style

that echoes our co/autoethnographic process, presenting our

findings using the individual and collective narratives of the group. In this section, we attempt to recapture our analysis meetings when, “as women, colleagues, friends we sat at the table and carefully without restraint wove. Intricately we laced, careful not to blend our fibers” (personal journal, January 27, 2012). Our findings encompass four main themes: becoming, the struggle, constructing complex feminist identities, and negotiating power as feminists. These findings represent commonalities that emerged from all our narratives. Although these themes overlapped in our writings, we found that some resonated with our individual stories more than others. The findings thus fell into four sub-narratives, written by groups of two or three members. In these smaller groups, we constructed our sub-narratives in distinct styles that we felt best represented the voices of our smaller group. Some of these narrative styles included interweaving narratives, crafting poetry, creating a found poem from three distinct narratives, writing individual autobiographical stories, and analyzing our experiences through reflection. Our final step involved weaving together the following sections to form our collective story.

Becoming. As we co-create we individually speak, write, and share moments of our past and current journey to trace how we are becoming who we are not yet. Professionally our goals mesh in that they relate to teaching and education. We texturize our journey with common feelings emanating from concern over identities in transition.

This is messy work—learning to be someone new and improved. I think it might be especially difficult when everyone expects you to be finished and indelible. I am a fully formed, older woman, who feels like there is more to explore in life.

With others—moms, friends, neighbors—it is almost a secret, the work I do. Would they understand me? The connections I have with so many dear to me rely on the co-created space of familiar identities. Yet, here I am creating an identity I cannot yet name myself and wonder...

Where am I now? Where am I going? Who am I and who am I becoming? I can’t answer any of these questions and at times that makes me feel untethered and floating above my life. Sometimes this feels like freedom and other times it feels like being lost.

Connecting with others has always been such an important part living for me…. When I feel incomplete, it often has to do with my lack of human connection…I struggle to maintain connections and feel complete as I continue to support the changes within me that have become necessary.

Reframing our stories through a feminist lens has deepened my passion, my commitment to allowing myself the space to become. I seek understanding and “name” experiences and realities I never was able to clarify. I allow my identity to morph with the trust of peers.

The members of our group pushed my thinking in ways that I couldn’t do alone (sort of like the difference between trying to tickle oneself and being tickled). My self-study will be uniquely mine but universal for understanding what women like me experience.

I often saw myself as a satellite circling teacher education, but never quite a part of the system. I value my time of self-study. I am endlessly thankful to have found a forum within which I will do so more thoughtfully, more powerfully.

Women like us will not be neutered.We will engage with the world as female.Women like us will not be silenced.We will speak our truth and change the narrative.Women like us will not be shamed.

We will protect our dignity and live with exuberance.We will be boldWe will be confidentWe will value our strengthto exalt in beingWomen like us. The struggle: A found poem. As a young child of three,

it was instilled in me that I was to never reveal my identity; it was a matter of safety.

At a young age, some family members sexually abused me.

When I was six, my mom left an abusive husband. The message was “be strong, be resilient, you are a woman.”

By the time I was six the whole country was in turmoil and in full-blown war. We were smuggled out of the country via sea. My dad looked at us and said, “Don’t say a word, don’t move, and don’t make any noise.”

I instinctively knew this wasn’t normal. I was sure that I would be okay, until around thirteen when someone asked me if I was a virgin, a term I wasn’t familiar with. I began to think of myself as what I was not.

And I struggled. I was a tiny in size, in a grade above my age, trying to make sense of the world. My real father cut all ties and I grappled with feelings of abandonment. I went into survival mode.

The walls I built so well around me were my only weapons of self-preservation. I’ve emotionally invested in too many relationships only to be ripped apart. No more!

I have found that, in my relationships with others, I have never given myself permission to have ownership of my power. I selflessly give it away, simply giving rather than having people earn my respect and love.

In college, I became friends with a group of women who were also trying to negotiate their identities as feminists in the patriarchy. We were looking for a way to find our own voices, to be authentic in the world.

The only refuge for me was school. I loved school. I excelled in school. Teachers liked me, but I learned to protect myself, I had no friends, even worse, I didn’t want them. I was fine, lost in books and schoolwork.

I have realized the narrow lens of fear, shame, guilt, inadequacy, and passivity through which I have come to know the world and myself. This experience has brought me a long way toward changing my personal narrative from that of a victim to someone that is self-aware and self-preserving.

I really began to find my voice becoming an urban teacher. Feminist pedagogical theories seemed to help me reimagine my teaching. Wanting something different for my students,

I tried to create safe spaces where they could make meaning for themselves and be vulnerable and honest but I always had a veil of guardedness.

My experience allows me to be empathetic with my students. I am a better teacher, even a better person because of it. Every one of us struggles to find where they fit in. For me it will always be a struggle.

Recognizing my own power is necessary for healing, moving past pain, and growing into a healthy mother, wife, lover, daughter, sister, and educator. I am both anxious and elated about how this new perspective will reshape my relationships in both my personal and professional life.

Doing this co/autoethnography with doctoral students while making sense of my mom’s illness and hospitalization has forced me to be vulnerable with others. Building caring relationships with students involves creating trust but it also

means trusting others. This means I am a part of the process—I need to share of myself too even when it is uncomfortable.

Constructing complex feminist identities. As a product of the 60s and 70s, “feminism” instilled a specific image. I remember my father referring to a woman at his work as tough, almost masculine. He used feminism negatively. As the years passed, he seemed to realize his responsibility to his three daughters and taught us that we were equal to men—we could do anything as well as any man. I interpreted that to mean that acting like a woman was a weakness, while acting as a man would give me strength and power.

Reflecting on feminism identified my internal conflict: I was trapped in the second wave of feminism. I wanted to prove that I was equal to men, so I concealed my nurturing side. I needed to reconcile my conflict and identify with feminism. I now see feminism from diverse perspectives—in my case, mother, teacher, student, upper-middle class, white, Westerner, self-sufficient, divorced, single, and heterosexual. I am not just one of these identities; as Griffiths (2006) indicated, our identities are “fluid and leaky and viscous” (p. 287), with each of our practices or personas blending into the next. With my identities reconciled, I needed to address my role in a patriarchal society.

I feel confident identifying myself as a feminist within a patriarchal society. I am a strong-willed person, yet as an educator I feel the need to address the diversity within the classroom in order to meet each child’s needs. I thought critical theory conflicted with feminism, but in actuality feminism is the empowerment needed to change the existing inequities that persist today.

Born nearly two decades later, I never gave much thought to feminism—although I admitted that sexism existed, I hierarchized it as less important than classism and racism, which I was confronted with on a daily basis growing up in southern Alabama. Quite simply, feminism was not part of my consciousness. But as I delved into feminist concepts with our group these past months, I began to see connections with my work: “as I began to ponder the issues at the heart of the critique of traditional teacher education, it became clear that it was not only a critique of perpetuation of social inequality, but also a critique of the patriarchal system that… has forced male ways of knowing on a feminized profession” (personal journal, January 7, 2012).

A new part of my identity began to emerge: “I have to consider what I have never considered, which is that I am acknowledging a feminist part of my identity…I am realizing that my entire life I have struggled against the male/female dichotomy, the weak/strong positioning of gender roles” (personal journal, November 27, 2011). I had never examined my own gendered experience, and in finally doing so I was able to write and talk about my decades-long struggle with bulimia, admitting to my colleagues, “I am ashamed of the way I have projected an image of a confident, capable woman…yet privately, I have allowed myself to be a victim of society’s ideal physical conception of a woman” (personal journal, November 27, 2011). In making sense of my world through a feminist framework, I have found new strength and meaning to see me through uncertain times.

Negotiating power as feminists. We have struggled with learning to operate effectively in hierarchically structured organizations. Daily there are choices to make amidst politically charged environments, often calling into question our ability to remain authentic. The struggle to be true to oneself, however, when reframed within a feminist lens helps contextualize events differently. Feminist ways of knowing offer new insights and the ability to craft new

approaches to this shared struggle. As we share, reflect and problematize together we have started to get a glimpse of the more actualized people starting to emerge from within us. Existing with integrity in the world, ultimately even within our similarly structured paternalistic work organizations, does not always mean making concessions to the beliefs of others. Sometimes it means re-imagining this challenge to be one of sharpening communication, enhancing and increasing collaboration, and trusting our intuition that there is another way. It means showing others that all voices are welcome and all opinions matter. We have seen that when we manage to have confidence and self-respect for our talents and abilities, it is easier to keep fear in check and bring new alternatives and perspectives to the table. Ultimately tough choices become less complicated when we have found new ways to express to ourselves and to others the nature of the possible solutions.

We are in the process of transformation that comes from our daily struggles. These struggles need to be problematized, and new approaches for handling them differently need to be developed. During this process, we have learned that who we thought we were is different from who we know we are today. We are what we are not yet. While we are continually in flux, we are finding the middle ground amongst extremes, negotiating new ways of being in the world.

ConclusionIn this self-study group, the personal and professional

were blended and embraced. We found our authentic voices rather than adapting the voices of the academy. To do so, some of us changed paradigms and learned to value our own knowledge and experiences. This process caused cognitive dissonance and was challenging and uncomfortable, yet the safe space within our diverse community supported the discomfort. We investigated our selves and the factors that shape who we are and who we are becoming. Through sharing our collective struggles and learning to trust one another, we have taken off our masks and can truly focus on how who we are becoming informs our practices as educators. Forming this self-study group has invited us to imagine new spaces in which teachers and teacher educators can construct meaning for themselves and continue to become.

Our next step, then, is to continue our self-study journey and examine how our multiple identities and our evolving beliefs shape our practices as teachers and change agents, inside and outside the classroom.

ReferencesBogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1998). Qualitative research

for education: An introduction to theory and methods. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Coia, L., & Taylor, M. (2006). From the inside out, and the outside in: Co/autoethnography as a means of professional renewal. In C. Kosnik, C. Beck, A. R. Freese, & A. P. Samaras (Eds.), Making a difference in teacher education through self-study: Studies of personal, professional, and program renewal (pp. 19–33). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Coia, L., & Taylor, M. (2009). Co/autoethnography: Exploring our teaching selves collaboratively. In D. Tidwell, L. Hamilton, & M. Heston (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 3–16). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Press.

Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297–324.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

Griffiths, M. (2006). The feminization of teaching and the practice of teaching: A threat or promise? Educational Theory, 56(4), 387–405.

Harper, D. (2008). Maxine Greene: The importance of personal reflection. Edutopia: The George Lucas Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/maxine-greene-daring-dozen-2008

Hooks, B. (2000). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Loughran, J. J. (2002). Understanding self-study of teacher education practices. In J. J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study (pp. 239–248). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Pinar, W. (1998). The passionate mind of Maxine Greene: I am…not yet. London, United Kingdom: Falmer Press.

Russell, T. (2006). How 20 years of self-study changed my teaching. In C. Kosnik, C. Beck, A. R. Freese, & A. P. Samaras (Eds.), Making a difference in teacher education through self-study: Studies of personal, professional, and program renewal (pp. 3–17). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Said, E. (1993). Culture and imperialism. New York, NY: Knopf.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Taylor, M., & Coia, L. (2009). Co/autoethnography: Investigating teachers in relation. In C. Lassonde, S. Gallman & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 169–186). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sensepublishers.

DONNA ALLENDER ARLENE TAYLORMt. Airy Counseling Center

Bullying and the Academic Playground

As teacher educators, we are familiar with the issues of bullying among children. The literature is replete with evidence of the causes, effects, and suggested remedies for this serious problem (Rigby, 2008). “Bullying is a cowardly act because it is done to cause hurt without fear of recrimination” (Sullivan, 2000, p. 9). Teasing, taunting, exclusion from a rightful place in the community, and threats of all kinds are fully integral to the problem of bullying. Anything meant to hurt or intimidate someone, by one person or many, counts.

This is also true for adult bullies, who look to exert power or to establish their place by putting someone down, and like children, underneath their seemingly assured behavior, there is often a poor sense of self-worth or fear of being shamed and humiliated. Keashly and Neuman (2010) highlight that while workplace bullying has been investigated, minimal research has examined bullying in academia. This paper illuminates incidents that provoked academic bullying and seeks to enhance the abilities of others to anticipate the ethical complexities of collaborative self-study.

Ethics and Academic BullyingBullying in the workplace is regularly offending,

harassing, or affecting someone’s work negatively (Einarsen, Hoel, Zapf, & Cooper, 2003). If unaddressed, workplace bullying escalates over time and negatively affects the workplace productivity of victims (Einarsen et al., 2003).

Keashly and Neuman (2010) note that little literature has addressed academic bullying. In exploring this problem, they identified circumstances that provoke academic bullying as “unjust situations that: (1) violate norms, (2) produce frustration and stress, and (3) induce negative affect” (p.55). Most frequently, they held that academic bullying involves behavior that makes it difficult for the victim to achieve important objectives or threatens their professional status. The teaching and research productivity of those who feel bullied in academia suffers, and victims usually withdraw from collaborative activities.

We may believe that bullying is done by “others” rather by than by members of our community. But bullying occurs among seemingly mature, educated adults in all arenas of life. This paper recounts ethical dilemmas that provoked academic bullying in a collaborative self-study group.

Adherence to ethics is a hallmark of all research, and when investigating the experiences of others, this includes protecting participants’ privacy (Creswell, 2002). However, requisite to rigorous self-study research is making public our lived experiences so they can be used to inform others (Loughran, 2007). Most commonly individuals or dyads engage in self-study with the intention of self-identifying when disseminating their findings (Russell & Loughran, 2007).

In collaborative self-study, ethical agreements should

detail rights and responsibilities as participants and as co-investigators, data access procedures, and the requirements for authorship (McGinn, Shields, Fenton, Manley-Casimir, & Grundy, 2005). The primary investigator holds responsibility for adherence to all ethical protocols including those related to authorship (Washburn, 2008). A common problem with collaborative authorship is not clarifying what constitutes a substantive contribution at the onset of the inquiry, which can provoke perceptions of injustice (Washburn, 2008). Treating colleagues unjustly can incite workplace bullying.

MethodologyCase study methods have been used to explore two

critical friends’ experiences, negotiating and restructuring ethical dilemmas that were encountered disseminating manuscripts detailing the findings of a collaborative self-study. In her initial year as a teacher educator at a small North American university, a new faculty member (the researcher) invited any interested faculty to take part in a collaborative self-study focused on exploring the teacher education literature. The faculty members who joined the group were all relatively novice academics. Prior to the collaborative self-study, only the researcher who initiated the group had self-study research experience, and participants did not know each other as teacher educator/researchers.

In developing the ethics protocol, the researcher included all participants as co-investigators. The group received ethics clearance with specified procedures to protect participants’ privacy, such as pseudonyms and general descriptors in reporting and the right to withdraw. While the group developed discussion norms, unaddressed at the study onset were collaborative research norms that defined their rights and responsibilities as co-investigators and co-authors.

Data sources were group-meeting transcripts, e-mail communication, and artifacts. Data analysis was conducted through identifying ethical dilemmas that emerged and then coding the antecedent and outcome of each (Creswell, 2002), with the findings presented chronologically. The first dilemma was determining authorship and the second was negotiating a participant’s withdrawal.

OutcomesIn disseminating the findings of the collaborative self-

study, the researcher was uncomfortable using her colleagues’ data without ensuring they received “academic credit” for their insights.

I know someone who left a self-study group after a paper was authored by members who facilitated the group, rather than by all whose insights contributed to the paper. That is why I think we need to try to give credit to everyone. (e-mail communication, August 17, 2009)

When the occasion to submit a paper for publication arose, a participant expressed reservations, and the researcher responded with understanding.

I think that it is much more important for us to have an open honest group than any paper. Our primary purpose is to provide opportunities for collegial discourse and support as we all navigate the uncertain terrain of teacher education. …If you want the paper not to be sent in, or us to revert to pseudonyms, I am fine with either of those options as I am sure the others will be also. Please don’t feel any pressure about this at all! (e-mail communication, August 21, 2009)The researcher opted to care for this person because she

believed collegial relationships and honesty were of utmost importance to protect the learning of the group. The hesitant participant reconsidered, asked that the paper proceed, and stated they would be proud to self-identify. If participants were to be identified, the ethics protocol required revision. The researcher articulated this issue during a group meeting.

It is autobiographical and we approached it with a standard research lens that needsadaptation…we signed those consent forms that followed standard protocol but obviously if I’m writing, I’m going to use my name if it’s a single thing, but we have to decide… When and how do we disclose who else is in the paper? What responsibilities do we have to one another? (meeting notes, November 17, 2009) Shortly thereafter, through discussion with colleagues

at another institution, the researcher learned attributing authorship to all participants was an unsustainable group norm, as it contravened ethical academic authorship principles. At this juncture she did not want to contravene the protocol or retract two blind submissions she had spent copious hours writing with the group’s approval. Having invested considerable time on this study, she also wanted to continue to share participants’ experiences. As shared authorship would not continue, her colleague from research services at another institution recommended a submission-specific agreement instead of a protocol modification. The researcher explained the dilemma to group members as follows:

None of the submissions have identified us so far, so we are not in violation of any ethical protocols at this point. However, in order to proceed with joint authorship of these papers (neither of which we know will be accepted), we need a signed ethical agreement that stipulates that you are agreeing to [the] use of your actual names in these papers...You each need to decide if you want to be an “unnamed” participant, or if you want to be a “named” participant/author in the two submissions under review... I have spent hundreds of hours on this work and would like to continue sharing our insights. From rereading McGinn’s article, their agreement provided assurance for acknowledgement of the contributions of all participants, rather than authorship. From speaking to others that is the “norm”. Of course, irrespective of whether you decide to be “named” you would retain the rights of all research participants to verify any subsequent interpretations of your data. (e-mail communication, January 20, 2010)

This was intended to protect the rights of all as participants and as co-investigators. As the protocol required member checking of interpretations, participants were assured their data could not be used without approval. The researcher believed this was a fair resolution and apologized for her oversight.

I had no idea there were ethical principles for authorship in the APA manual...I apologize for this mess, most of which was caused by my lack of knowledge of the complexities of collaborative authorship and self-identity! (e-mail communication, February 8, 2010)An agreement documenting the decision to self-

identify was signed by all participants and accepted by the institutional ethics review board (IRB). The agreement also acknowledged the non-standard authorship criteria. While all contributed enormously as participants, the data analysis and academic writing was completed by a subset of the group. The agreement clarified that authorship would be attributed to all group members.

We have agreed to attribute authorship of the submission to all who participated in the self-study research group…on the basis of their contribution to the project as a whole,

rather than on the basis of the APA criteria for substantive contributions as academic authors. (Agreement, February 12, 2010)

Unfortunately, the decision to self-identify diminished the authenticity of the ensuing group discussions, during which some expressed reluctance to share their experiences. Additionally, the researcher recognized a sense of entitlement had been created and further participation without shared authorship might be perceived as inequitable. For instance, participants who only attended meetings might feel their ideas contributed to findings documented by others. Consequently, the group discontinued amicably.

The following November, in the spirit of disclosure, the researcher informed participants she was working on an autobiographical self-study about her experiences in the group. No one expressed any concern whatsoever. She was surprised therefore when, two months later, the participant initially concerned about self-identifying withdrew via e-mail. When the researcher advised, “Our accepted paper has not yet been published and we may not be able to proceed with this as a shared publication” (e-mail communication, January 4, 2011), the participant stated their withdrawal stood, without explanation. As they had not made authorship contributions, this person was a participant. The researcher believed pressuring them would violate their rights and submitted the withdrawal to the IRB to determine whether the paper could proceed.

Most co-authors expressed immediate disappointment. When many met several weeks later, the researcher was shocked to learn two co-authors had known the withdrawal was forthcoming but did not advise the others, which precluded exploring alternative actions. The researcher felt this was a breach of trust, which led her to withdraw from further collaborative activities, providing this explanation:

I do not understand why you didn’t ask that they tell me about this or suggest that our entire group meet about this in December. I have never been so upset by anything that happened in the workplace throughout my life...I perceive your actions to be representative of conspiring against me, which is very hard to accept. (e-mail communication, February 2, 2011)

The person who withdrew then offered to allow the accepted paper to proceed only if no further presentations or publications based on the study would be undertaken. While some co-authors held this should be accepted, the researcher saw this as an attempt to bully and control others.

In the context of a discussion about ethics and bullying, the researcher was encouraged to share her dilemma.

There is so much fascination with the bully and the victim and so little attention to the community within which the problems arise…your sharing your personal ethical dilemma added depth to the discussion. It would seem enough to discuss the problems of adolescent bullying and the general focus on teaching ethics to young people, but truth is for self-study researchers that much more is gained by bringing in the dimension of self understanding as it informs our work with others… Your problem would not typically be typed as bullying, but there is a quality of this energy in your colleague’s behavior. They challenge your desire to be “squeaky clean.” But to be bullied into your response doesn’t serve them or you. (e-mail communication, April 14, 2011)The paper was next revised to exclude data of the

person who withdrew. Yet, as all participants had presented this study publicly, the researcher cautioned self-identifying in this version held the potential for harm; the person who withdrew might be deduced by exclusion. In July the IRB offered to mediate which version to publish with the person who withdrew.

Reviewing the revised paper with someone outside of our group with expertise in ethics may provide assurance that as it should be…it excludes their data, but includes unattributed comments made to them, and it is accurate in stating that one person elected not to share their experiences. (e-mail communication, July 3, 2011)

Reiteratively, the researcher regretted her unquestioned trust, as there was an early warning about one participant’s comfort self-identifying. Her critical friend wondered, “Perhaps, you did not heed this because you so badly wanted this to work” (e-mail communication, December 10, 2011).

It seemed unattainable to protect the withdrawal and the rights of all other participants to co-authorship. “The withdrawal has created a “no-win” situation—it is virtually impossible to protect the rights of one party without violating those of another” (e-mail communication, July 7, 2011).

Ironically, the IRB appeared to perceive the person who withdrew as the only vulnerable participant. This led the researcher to respond, “Each and every person could be a victim if anyone acted unethically” (e-mail communication, August 2, 2011).

It was also clear and distressing to the researcher that the IRB appeared to question whether she had acted ethically by allowing participants/co-investigators to self-identify. She responded, “I have not and will not violate the rights of anyone, and feel responsible for protecting the rights of everyone in this group” (e-mail communication, August 2, 2011).

Ultimately, the original paper was approved to proceed. With her critical friend’s assistance, the researcher realized authorship was an irresistible incentive that provoked academic participants to take risks. “This was intended to be inclusive and create shared ownership, but in hindsight it was equivalent to an incentive…not differentiating between contributions as participants and as co-authors is the cause of the problem” (e-mail communication, September 6, 2011).

While no one was prevented from doing so, not everyone was expected to make authorship contributions. The critical friend questioned how this occurred: “Was there a way you kept them from substantial contribution? Did you make poor choices when you chose these colleagues? Are they really not academic colleagues?” (e-mail communication, September 7, 2011).

Rather than carefully choosing colleagues to engage in collaborative self-study, the researcher acted inclusively, knowing what she committed to, and assumed those who chose to participate were aware of and accepted the risks and demands. She also assumed that all co-investigators recognized the ongoing value of the work. Moreover, collaborative research norms that may have mitigated the effects of inconsistent perceptions were unaddressed at the study onset.

With the help of her critical friend, the researcher uncovered her assumption that participants shared her understandings of research ethics. Arguably, the participant who withdrew might have felt vulnerable to being shamed or humiliated by future papers. Those who concealed the forthcoming withdrawal may not have initially understood how it would affect the accepted paper or their relationships with the researcher.

Your bullying literature and question about whether these were “academic” colleagues has caused me to wonder if they did not understand the golden rule of research “do no harm”…the person who withdrew may have believed they could be shamed or humiliated if the co-authored paper were cited when situations were revealed that reflected negatively on them. (e-mail communication, December 9, 2011)This dilemma provoked persistent, escalating conflict

and stress, which affected the researcher’s productivity. She was deeply hurt and completely disillusioned with academia, by feeling bullied.

It was frightening to see what a textbook case of this I have become over the past 8 months. Understanding my reactions are ‘normal’ may help me move on from this, whether I stay or resign. Perhaps academia is not the “fit” for me I thought it would be. (e-mail communication, Sept. 21, 2011)

Nonetheless, the person who withdrew may have felt bullied into proceeding with the accepted paper, and those with whom the researcher discontinued collaboration may have felt bullied. As participants can withdraw with impunity, the researcher believed reconstructing perspectives would require the person who withdrew to initiate this process. “The protocol outlined participants could withdraw without explanation…asking they engage in discussion to restructure this would defy their rights...we move along with a ‘dead buffalo’ in the room that no one acknowledges” (e-mail communication, September 16, 2011).

There was no fear of recrimination for withdrawing. However, from the researcher’s perspective, collegial relationships and trust were severely, and perhaps irreparably, damaged.

Conclusions and WonderingsConsistent with Keashly and Neuman’s (2010) assertion,

this self-study reveals how academic bullying was related to unjust situations that involved violating academic norms, which produced considerable frustration and stress. The researcher felt bullied and believed she had been consistently open and fair. Arguably, others involved may have felt they were bullied.

Many questions remain unanswered. How do faculty develop shared understandings of ethical academic behavior? What is a substantive contribution to a collaborative self-study? Do the ethical academic publishing principles apply to this genre of research? Of universal concern, does the “publish

or perish” climate of academia create victims and villains and foster the conditions for bullying to flourish?

Those who engage in collaborative self-study should heed the ethical considerations this entails. As outlined by McGinn et al. (2005), it is critical to develop research norms that define rights and responsibilities as co-investigators, co-authors, and participants. Without these norms, others in the academic playground are vulnerable to bullying.

Collaborative self-study research requires that participants take considerable time to explore what is meant by self-study, what is meant by collaboration, and what the agreements they make really mean in practice. Inconsistent perceptions of ethical behavior amongst students can foster a culture of bullying (Rigby, 2008). This paper reveals how the consequences can be similar for academic colleagues.

References Creswell, J. W. (2002). Qualitative inquiry and research

design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C. L. (2003). The concept of bullying at work: The European tradition. In S. Einarsen, H. Hoel, D. Zapf, & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace: International perspectives in research and practice (pp. 1–30). London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.

Keashly, L., & Neuman, J. H. (2010). Faculty experiences with bullying in higher education: Causes, consequences, and management. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 32(1), 48–70.

Loughran, J. (2007). Researching teacher education practices: Responding to the challenges, demands, and expectations of self-study. Journal of Teacher Education, 58(1), 12–20.

McGinn, M. K., Shields, C., Fenton, N.E., Manley-Casimir, M., & Grundy, A. (2005). Living ethics: A narrative of collaboration and belonging in a research team. Reflective Practice, 6, 551–567.

Rigby, K. (2008). Children and bullying: How parents and educators can reduce bullying at school. Victoria, Australia: Wiley-Blackwell.

Russell, T., & Loughran, J. (Eds.). (2007). Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships and practices. New York, NY: Routledge.

Sullivan, K. (2000). The anti-bullying handbook. Auckland, New Zealand: Oxford University Press.

Washburn, J. J. (2008). Encouraging research collaboration through ethical and fair authorship: A model policy. Ethics & Behavior, 18(1), 44–58.

JERRY ALLENDERTemple University, Emeritus

The Teaching of Ethics in the Light of Self-Study

ContextTeaching a yearlong course in ethics to junior high

students required intense self-study. Due to active student resistance, I had to continuously reflect deeply about my confidence as a junior high teacher and my ability to lead a group of co-teachers. The work demanded unusual intellectual and emotional engagement, though I have been a successful experienced teacher of children and adults for many years. I admit that it’s been a while since I taught junior high. Nor had I previously taught an ethics course. A breakout of bullying brought about this “emergency” response.

The purpose of this de facto retrospective self-study is to reclaim the insights that occurred during the actual teaching and to benefit from what is currently unfolding in my reading and writing at length about teaching ethics now that the course is over. The writing is aimed at expanding my knowledge, preparing to teach the course again, and better understanding my past experience. By sharing with others as in this report, I hope to find an audience that will benefit as well.

Review of the LiteratureOf the six tensions that Berry (2007) discusses,

“confidence and uncertainty” fit this situation exactly. Whether or not I wanted to reveal uncertainty, it actively contributed to my classroom behavior; teaching ethics to children becoming adolescents, however, required a show of confidence. What helped was recognizing that the subject itself is messy (Coady, 2008). Learning to cope with ambiguity leveled the learning field for both the teacher and the students. This common problem was addressed by focusing on building a tight learning community with experiential problem solving—an approach that made it possible to “promote children’s particular creativity . . . and responsiveness of relations [to others]” (Wall, 2010, p. 181).

QuestionsThree personal questions were raised to focus the study:

(1) What knowledge and skills have I added to my teaching repertoire that will help to influence students’ thinking? (2) What insights have I gained as a teacher for the teaching of ethics? and (3) How do I think my own views of ethics have changed? One further question also guided this study: How might this work transfer to other educators?

MethodAlthough the study was not planned in advance or even

as the course unfolded, it is possible to follow most of the suggestions made in a self-study primer (Samaras & Freese, 2006). The study pays attention to research assumptions, discovery in the process, and redefining the questions as part

of the analysis. With the consciousness that I was engaged in a self-study all along, my intuitions helped me to remember to keep the planning materials, quotations from students’ conversations, journal entries (although quite brief), and e-mail correspondence including that with an array of co-teachers who made special presentations. Overall, this study is a narrative that will tell my story as well as that of others. Loughran (2010) asks a guiding question: “How do we intend to push the boundaries of what we have learnt from self-study so that it can be structured and shared in ways that will invite further interrogation and development?” (p. 225).

The most striking project that came out of this teaching experience was the mounting of an ethics exhibit at two local coffee shops, each for more than two weeks. The students, art teachers, and local artists collaborated on designing and building an installation out of students’ papers, views, and artwork. The show was mounted on four 4x8 soundboards cut into shapes that displayed two triptychs, a couple dozen photos, collages, and hanging signage. The exhibit was recorded with seven high-density photos capable of being viewed at poster size.

Given the retrospective nature of the study, the method was based on an article by Manke and Allender (2006), “Revealing the Diverse Self in Self-Study: An Analysis of Artifacts.” The exhibit provided excellent material for discussion and learning for the students, teachers, and parents. As well, with the public showing, the work also included a community response with data provided in the form of Post-its added to a community board. Reanalysis is also an important part of the method Manke and Allender propose and can be accomplished by using the exhibit as a set of artifacts.

Three colleagues acted as collaborating friends—a kind of enlightened witness who offers support and critique. We met or wrote once a month while the writing took place and the narrative was written.

Outcomes: A Short Narrative and ReflectionRecalling my experience, I wrote a narrative reflection based on memory and archived materials from the course. This narrative is reproduced below.

Before the course was officially underway, I met the groups to observe and teach a short related lesson to introduce myself and learn their names. I chose two different poetry lessons that were tangentially related to the course. The students also had an opportunity to review the course outline and make suggestions for subtractions and additions. They were to understand that their input was relevant, and at the same time, I would firmly hold to the basic structure.

I came with strong beliefs about teaching junior

high from past experience. The students would challenge my authority and either bring me to my knees or turn into a wondrous group of energetic students. Given the final results, the latter was true. I was taken by surprise at how difficult the students were throughout most of the time spent in class and in regard to their homework. Pulling teeth is the image that comes to mind.

In retrospect, I realize that I acted as if I were confident at all times. Reflecting back, I see that many of my actions were more bluff than real security in the effectiveness of my behavior and clarity. I knew I was vulnerable, and it seems to me that this recognition served me well. There was a way in which I was constantly willing to back down when students made more sense to me than I felt about myself.

I regularly enlisted guests and teachers in the school to collaborate with me. Clearly, in some cases, they did not feel connected with the work and directly and indirectly expressed a sense of burden. In the role of a volunteer and limited to assisting the teachers in their classes, my taking over brought about palpable resistance. I did not do a good job of connecting with the needs of the teachers, in spite of the fact that some had pressured me to solve the bullying problem.

Most rewarding were the times when a student expressed confidence. Toward the end of the first semester, amidst complaining and grumbling once again about the addition of the an ethics course to an already busy schedule, a young student becoming a young womanone student, generally a quiet person, boldly stopped the group to say, “Guys, we have to admit we learned what we needed to learn and what we wanted to learn!” There was a silent pause—no one disagreed.

Ambiguity was also a big problem. Ethics by its nature does not lend itself to an absolutely clear structure. We can choose a few values where deviation is not broached, but the larger picture of the environment in which children grow up is filled with doubts and a need to sort out the ambiguities in practical ways. Staying honest with myself helped me to stay connected with the students. They reflected appreciation, without saying so, when I honored their clarity over my muddiness.

In an activity asking the students to illustrate different meanings of bullying, one drawing showed a boy with very weird hair, a red heart in his chest, and an iron grate covering the heart. The drawing was black and white, except for the bright red heart, and clearly evocative. We had previously written the word “bully” on a huge chart some three feet high and nine feet long. The students offered other words to the chart to describe a bully. This illustration was based on the single word, “closed.” Though the illustration was primitive artsimple, its effect was stunning. In this way, ambiguity disappeared for a moment, not unlike when I was extremely firm in my teaching.

A constant awareness on my part was about just how much I would reveal about myself and how much I expected of the students. There was in many ways a need for the students to stand together against me. This I knew was something not to confront. Their unity, though often driving me slightly crazy, was a strength I could draw on. It loosened their creativity and their insights. As well, though feisty, they were responsive—drawing heavily on their need to be right. Given a curriculum

that partly focused on right versus right, these moments offered good material for class discussion.

I was able to hold the students to a workable classroom structure while honoring the inherent ambiguities. It is hard to explain fully how I managed. I certainly was drawing on years of experience and a body of intuitions. Together, they supported a belief that human beings—even kids in relation to adults—will most often appreciate clarity. In this milieu, the parties in relationship offered each other more slack than we can typically expect. While writing this narrative, I noticed that there is a disjunction between what we do as teachers and what we can say about our insights and abilities.

DiscussionTeaching ethics shifted my approach to both teaching

and ethics. I now focus on the questions I asked at the start of the study: What have I added to my teaching repertoire? Are there new insights? How have I changed? What here is useful for other teachers?

The experience of the course alerted me to strengths I have that were previously less than fully conscious. Teachers, as do parents, must be in charge while at the same time allow room for growth. Young adolescents need to have a space that encourages creativity so that their development feels like they are becoming different from the adults around them. The two aims play back and forth in an effort to find balance. As a teacher, I have responded to my students consistently with this notion in mind. But never before have I felt as much on the edge of being out of control. Trusting myself while trusting the students introduced new levels of risk, particularly when I realized how little support I had from some of my colleagues, both younger and closer to my age.

Kegan (1994) wrote, “Power, authority, and control make many of us uncomfortable, in part because we have seen so many arbitrary and abusive exercises of power . . . that we come to feel that all exercise of power must be intrinsically arbitrary or deleterious” (p. 80). We are, though, expected to effectively manage boundaries. This I knew less articulately. But scarier was that I didn’t know how harsh I would become at times to maintain this balance, with both the children and even some of the teachers. My identity as a teacher was stretched. It is not the first time that I have been this harsh, but unique was how I didn’t feel a loss of control. Better yet, given the ongoing flow of the class at these times, the children’s behavior lost none of their desirable gumption. We seemed to be worthy warriors for each other.

In a recent article involving concepts of core reflection (based on the work of Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, and Lagerwerf in 2004), Kim and Greene (2011) seek “to deepen our understanding of the conditions in which transformative teaching and learning thrive . . . . [It] elevates the learning experience for all by tapping the human potential in ways that cannot be quantified, mandated, tested, or standardized” (pp. 109–110). They explore the contradictory nature of core qualities and find identity development enhanced by paying attention to hypocrisies, managing ambiguity, and sustaining authenticity. This is a close fit with both my teaching experience and the content of the ethics course.

What didn’t fit was how I was doing and learning as a teacher educator. At least, I am now recouping a deeper understanding. In light of the success of the final Ethics Exhibit, there was a begrudging acceptance by the adults of what and how it occurred, and I can take some credit for

modeling learning for those who were collaborating. Learning at all levels depends on working relationships. This was what was missing with too many of the players. A tension outside the problems of hypocrisy and ambiguity pointed toward a mismatch of authenticities. What the teachers wanted and what I counted as success were not aligned. I felt impelled by time pressures to privilege my goals and connection with the students. My best guess for the future is to remind myself that the system as a whole is the best strategy for countering bullying.

Were I to teach the course again, or better, guide others in the school to teach, I would try to increase the engagement of more of the players. What we didn’t have was a common book that would draw us together. I used two books that I found were compelling both to students and to me as an adult. Since then, I asked Lisa, a key teacher in the process, for a book she would recommend. She chose Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (1989), a book about moral courage, about children in Denmark during the occupation of the Nazis. I realized that this book would have been a better fit for the class than the ones that I chose, in part because an important element in the study of ethics is to understand not only contexts but also the existence of pure evil. In the future, the new challenge will be to get all the players to be on common ground.

ConclusionResponsibly or inadvertently, everyone reading this

paper is an ethics teacher. On the job, at home, and everywhere else, we all are modeling connected, caring, and concerned behavior, or else we are modeling the opposite. We always teach young people with our actions and sometimes with our words. And other times, we are remiss in our failure to act. To be responsible, it is best when we are not a know-it-all and not imagining that the difference between ethical and unethical has to be clear-cut. Good judgment requires an understanding of the contexts. Ethical behavior is best assured when it is taught through guided conversations between children themselves. No doubt, adults always have to impose boundaries, but these boundaries should be ones that include the exploration of possibilities. No citizen, parent, or teacher is excused from this work.

In important ways, this self-study is about an intuitive practitioner (Atkinson & Claxton, 2000). The challenge was to translate a largely intuitive experience into one that can be communicated to others. In a discussion of complex decision-making in the classroom, Brown and Coles (2000) note, “it was rare for established practitioners to talk in terms of the details of their behaviors in response to particular events” (p. 169).The methods of self-study made it possible to translate intuitive actions into documented experience.

ReferencesAtkinson, T., & Claxton, G. (2000). The intuitive practitioner:

On the value of not always knowing what one is doing. Buckingham, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Berry, A. (2007). Tensions in teaching about teaching: Understanding practice as a teacher educator. Dordecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Brown, L., & Coles, A. (2000). Complex decision making in the classroom: The teacher as an intuitive practitioner. In T. Atkinson & G. Claxton (Eds.), The intuitive practitioner: On the value of not always knowing what one is doing (pp. 165–181). Buckingham, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Coady, C. A. J. (2008). Messy morality: The challenge of politics. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kim, Y., & Greene, W. L. (2011). Aligning professional and personal identities: Applying core reflection in teacher education practice. Studying Teacher Education, 7, 109-119.

Korthagen, F. A. J., Kessels, J., Koster, B., & Lagerwerf, B. (2004). Linking theory and practice: The pedagogy of realistic teacher education. Mahwah, NY: Lawrence Earlbaum.

Loughran, J. (2010). Seeking knowledge for teaching teaching: Moving beyond stories. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 221-226.

Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars. New York, NY: Yearling.Manke, M. P., & Allender, J. S. (2006). Revealing the diverse

self in self-study: The analysis of artifacts. In D. Tidwell & L. Fitsgerald (Eds.), Self-study and diversity (pp. 249–265). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Samaras, A. P., & Freese, A. R. (2006). Self-study of teaching practices. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Wall, J. (2010). Ethics in light of childhood. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

VALERIE ALLISON-ROAN LAURIE A. RAMIREZSusquehanna University Appalachian State University

Striving to Walk the Talk: Engaging in Shared Learning Tasks Perceived as Daunting

IntroductionAs friends/colleagues teaching in different regions

of the U.S., we engage in collaborative research because mutual trust enables us to be honest with one another about inconsistencies between our ideals and actions as educators (Kosnik, Samaras, & Freese, 2006). We claim commitment to modeling reflective practices. Students, we believe, should be active in constructing their and others’ knowledge, including our evolving knowledge as teacher educators. However, we noted we had not been diligent in engaging in the learning opportunities we believe are worthwhile for our students (Guilfoyle, 1995; Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000; Hudson-Ross & Graham, 2000; Loughran & Berry, 2005). In fact, we have assigned students tasks we have not completed, assignments that we admit can be daunting.

Valerie has been teaching for four years at a small, private liberal arts institution in the Northeast. She required student teachers she taught and supervised to videotape themselves teaching. Meeting with each individually to view and reflect on his or her practice, she was struck by students’ comments that watching the video was anxiety inducing. Laurie is completing her third year as a professor at a moderately large state institution in the Southeast. She required students to place themselves in the position of a “minority,” finding a location that was new, unfamiliar, and where they felt somehow different. Students then wrote reflections summarizing their experiences. In writing and class discussion, they typically expressed feeling discomfort or anxiety.

Through this inquiry we came together to support each other in completing those intimidating tasks. Our respective students helped us reflect on our experiences, allowing us to see our practices through their eyes.

Questions1. What might we learn about ourselves and our teaching from completing the “daunting” tasks we require, thereby placing ourselves in the position of students? 2. What might students learn from our efforts to “walk the talk” and model transparent practice?

Framework We view knowledge construction as a continually

evolving process requiring critical reflection with others also examining their beliefs, assumptions, and experiences (e.g., Larrivee, 2000; Walkington, Christensen, & Kock, 2001). We endeavor to engage students in a “partnered practice of critical reflection,” a process of collaboratively constructing knowledge about teaching and encouraging one another to critically reflect (Berry & Crowe, 2009, p. 86).

This study is grounded in S-STEP literature. Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009) suggested self-study is enhanced by multiple, and sometimes alternative or oppositional, perspectives as we consider our practices, potential problems, and positive aspects. Although no one wishes to seek out “public failure,” we see value in making our work transparent to students, modeling the researcher-practitioner viewpoint (p. 84). This requires dialogue and a process of “coming-to-know,” and yet goes beyond knowing to transforming practice (p. 84). In seeking out others who might disagree and offer contradictory interpretations, we can begin to improve. Kosnik et al. (2006) stated, “Collaboration does not mean harmony. Interactions may cause the individual to question his/her position or those of others as they develop new understanding” (p. 159).

Participating in the activities our students find most intimidating and “walking the talk” opens us up to criticism and uncertainty. Berry (2008) invited students to critique and provide feedback on her teaching, acknowledging this is a “risky business” for the teacher educator, but one with potential to reframe our work (p. 36). “In doing that which one advocates for ones’ students, insights into teaching and learning are apprehended in practice that might otherwise not be fully appreciated or understood if such learning was not genuinely experienced by oneself” (Loughran & Berry, 2005, p. 194). Through this self-study we endeavored to better understand students’ experiences and help them achieve the goals of critically reflective practice we espouse.

MethodsCompleting our own assignments, we documented our

journeys through journaling and e-mail exchanges, allowing us to reflect and interrogate our experiences with a trusted critical friend. Reading and responding to each other offered a more objective, outsider perspective. All these communications were used as data sources. We shared portions of these with students, making decisions jointly so what we “held up for public examination . . . would be useful and accessible for these prospective teachers” (Berry, 2008, p. 71). We collected students’ responses made in class discussions and through anonymous feedback. When students completed the assignments themselves, they submitted written reflections and met with us individually. Those reflections and our discussion notes were used as data sources to better understand how they experienced our course assignments. In combination, these data sources allowed for public, transparent discussion of experiences as well as private, safe spaces for feedback and reflection.

Valerie video recorded herself teaching the first meeting of the semester with her Literacy II students. Shortly after, she viewed the recording with 18 student teachers (STs) during a

meeting of her Seminar course. All but one ST who viewed the video had been class members in a previous Literacy II section taught by Valerie. Therefore, they shared an insider’s understanding of the course and the learning objectives and activities associated with it. Prior to sharing the video, Valerie provided some context including what she saw as her objectives for the class meeting. As STs viewed the recording, Valerie thought aloud about what she had been thinking and feeling during the teaching episode, as well as what she was thinking and feeling while viewing it with them. Valerie encouraged STs to interject their observations, questions, and suggestions regarding her practice as they watched. Valerie’s think aloud, along with STs’ contributions, were audio recorded as an additional data source.

After sharing and discussing the video, Valerie asked STs to complete a short anonymous questionnaire about the experience. Items included “What do you think Valerie learned about herself and her practice as a teacher educator?” “What was shared through her think aloud or students’ comments that was most intriguing/interesting/surprising?” and “What do you hope you will learn or experience through watching yourself teach?” Valerie compiled the responses and shared them with Laurie. She also provided Laurie with entries from her teaching journal she wrote prior to and following the recording of her teaching and its viewing with STs.

Laurie asked students in a graduate-level diversity course to place themselves in the position of a minority in any context (n = 11). She typically has given students examples of possible contexts but allows them to choose based on their comfort level, access, and availability. Six of eleven in this class chose to attend religious services. In response to this common interest, Laurie chose to attend a Baptist church, as it is the predominant religion of her students. As she asks her students to do (but which most do not), Laurie attended the service alone, thereby not employing a “safety net” or “buddy system.” During the experience, she took brief, surreptitious notes which she used when writing her reflection. Laurie then sent that reflection to her 11 students, asking for their feedback, thoughts, and opinions. Questions included “Is this a ‘typical’ Baptist service or does every church have its own ‘culture’ determined by its members?” and “How does my ‘minority’ experience help you engage with this assignment yourself?” Students also freely commented on the narrative of the experience, adding their own questions, providing “insider” knowledge, and comparing Laurie’s experience to their own. Laurie shared her reflection and student feedback with Valerie, soliciting her perspective as a research partner and critical friend. Laurie used her notes and reflective narrative, the students’ responses, and Valerie’s responses as data sources, along with students’ reflective narratives on their own minority experiences.

Collaboratively, we coded and analyzed data to find themes and inconsistencies in students’ and our experiences. We systematically engaged with our individual data sets, identifying codes, emergent patterns, and questions for consideration which we then shared with each other. Laurie’s week-long visit to Valerie’s home offered the chance to collectively engage with the data as a whole. We were able to exchange ideas, meaningfully discuss and reflect, and identify together the broader patterns and divergent themes that might inform teacher education at large (Samaras & Freese, 2006; Yeh & Inman, 2007). Analyzing our journals/narratives and students’ reflections/feedback allowed us to compare and contrast our interpretations of experiences with theirs. Finally, we prepared summaries of our individual and shared analyses

as a tool for further reflection and to facilitate the writing process.

ResultsThrough our teaching, we began to appreciate the

discomfort/difficulty students faced completing particular tasks. We committed to complete these assignments ourselves and to share our experiences with students and each other. We anticipated “courageous conversations” would follow (Singleton & Hays, 2006), impacting our own and students’ learning.

Consequences for our students. As we had anticipated, our efforts to complete the daunting assignments we required of our students had consequences for them and their learning. While it did not completely alleviate students’ anxiety, it did help to mediate some of their uneasiness. It also provided students with tangible models of how the tasks were structured and how a completed assignment might be presented.

• “It sort of breaks the ice. I now know someone with her experience still feels awkward when they expose themselves for criticism.” (Valerie’s ST)• “Realizing we can talk through it and explain our rationale behind things helps. I was expecting us to be watching it in silence and watching her body language to gauge how good of a teacher I was :(. I’m much less nervous now.” (Valerie’s ST)• “This definitely helped me conquer some of my fears and made me realize what I might be missing out on.” (Laurie’s S3) • “I can honestly say I had a very negative attitude about this from the beginning, but now I’m looking forward to it!” (Laurie’s S5)

In doing so, we were able to help our students consider how the tasks would provide them with an opportunity for self-discovery and learning.

• “I want to see what students see as I teach so I can improve each aspect. There are so many things to consider when you are up in front of the room, so I hope to make sure I am thinking about each one.” (Valerie’s ST)• “My goal has always been to change the world, but maybe at the same time, I should have the goal of how can the world influence me?” (Laurie’s S1) • “I don’t ever want to forget this feeling… I need to remember my students may feel the same way about my class. I hate that they may feel so alone and out of place. I hope by remembering how I felt, I will have more compassion and understanding.” (Laurie’s S2) By thinking aloud and sharing excerpts from her journal,

Valerie modeled what she meant when she described and encouraged her STs to be critically reflective. Laurie modeled this through the written narrative of her minority experience and through in-class explanation of the process from start to finish. Modeling the process of critical reflection, along with our own apprehension when completing these tasks, helped students more fully engage in the tasks themselves and more openly, honestly question their own beliefs and practices.

For both groups of our students, they noted our efforts to “walk our talk” reinforced and supported our espoused ideals of aspiring to be authentic and vulnerable in our practice and students of our own teaching. Doing so enhanced our trustworthiness and, we believe, the likelihood our students will choose/be willing to “walk their talk” as teachers.

• “☺ Thank you for experiencing this with us!” (Valerie’s ST)

• “I hope I can put myself in the position of being a student with me as a teacher. I might think about how I would respond to my actions and teaching methods.” (Valerie’s STs)• “The experience has forced me to look at my classroom and my students with a different perspective and realize how much I can learn from them.” (Laurie’s S4)• “I understand more about diverse cultures and plan on continuing to foster relationships with my students while making my classroom a safe place to learn and discuss diversity.” (Laurie’s S6)Consequences for our selves and our practices.

Putting ourselves in the shoes of our students was an anxiety-filled experience, both in having the experiences we required of students and then inviting students to respond to us as learners.

Valerie. Beforehand, I firmly believed one or multiple STs would pounce on the opportunity to “take me down.” In hindsight, this was a wholly irrational fear and would have been completely out of character for the relationships we share. Where does that fear come from? I really had to do some soul searching to confront my propensity for anticipating the worst and imagining that others see me in an unfavorable light. In the end, the experience, my students’ feedback, and Laurie’s perspectives contributed to me stepping out of my pattern of self-deprecation for two reasons: first, it is not a healthy or happy way to live and experience my professional work; second, it is an unhelpful model to provide students. In this self-study, Laurie’s role as my critical friend was to remind me critical reflection is not a rally cry for beating oneself up. There is always room for growth, but the path to being an effective teacher educator is not through being flawless in my performance; it is through my willingness to seize opportunities to grow.

Not just in this experience but through all my interactions and self-talk, I am inclined to look for my shortcoming, and I find it nearly impossible to embrace and celebrate the good work I do. If I heard one of my student teachers running herself down the way I typically talk about myself, I would despair and probably shake her by the shoulders! What kind of a model am I being when I spend so much time throwing myself under the bus? That is definitely not what I want my student teachers to see as the goal for this assignment and not what I want them to see as healthy and helpful reflection or the point of being a reflective practitioner. (Valerie’s journal)Laurie. Even though we had committed to this endeavor,

I still managed to put it off. I knew the majority of my students and colleagues are members of the Baptist church, and I continually profess the importance of seeking knowledge about school communities and students to better understand them and meet their needs. I realized my fear stemmed mainly from a complete lack of information. I wondered, only to myself at first, if there would be extreme practices, although I had only media images to feed that concern. I also feared (this was confirmed) I would be singled out and “targeted” as a visitor. I realized quickly why students feel this task is “daunting” and why they sometimes resist.

What happened next caused me to stammer and sweat, forcing me completely out of my comfort zone. At this time, the preacher stood up and asked everyone to greet their neighbors. Initially, congregation members turned to those nearby and shook hands, said “good morning,” and chatted briefly. Then, one by one, they started

coming toward me… Each person was welcoming (is it possible to be TOO welcoming?) and kind, wishing me a good morning, a happy new year, and saying they were glad I was joining them. While this greeting time was welcoming and not unpleasant, it served to highlight my outsider status and made me feel very uncomfortable. (Laurie’s reflection)

This experience produced great discomfort and helped me understand what I ask my students to do is no easy task. Like them, I felt anxious and out of place. After reflecting and writing my narrative, I actually looked forward to sharing it with them, knowing it would foster discussion about why we all have similar negative expectations and how those moments of “disequilibrium” are necessary for growth and learning. In our discussion, we highlighted the way many of our students must feel, increasing empathy and promoting advocacy for them. Our discussion also emphasized the idea that we all possess privileges, one of which is to choose to not participate in activities or communities where we feel unsafe or uncomfortable. These lessons were important for us all as teachers and as members of a diverse social world.

We were challenged to consider how to structure the tasks’ requirements so students’ potential for learning was optimized without requiring them to engage in experiences so laden with fear their learning was impinged through affective filters. First and foremost, as their teachers, we must have the capacity to listen to their anxiety and respond in a manner that helps them mediate their fear. Additionally, we must be clear in articulating our rationales behind requiring the tasks, what we hope they will learn through engaging in them, and what criteria we will employ to give them feedback and evaluate their efforts.

Significance Through this self-study we endeavored to make our

critical reflection and knowledge construction transparent. Childs (2005) acknowledged, “We are probably not born critical reflectors/reflective thinkers;” rather it is a skill we must teach, refine, and practice ourselves (p. 144). This self-study is an example of our efforts to be critically reflective practitioners and to learn in concert with students (Hudson-Ross & Graham, 2000). We are engaged in the “critical exploration of experience, perceptions and positions; the insight gained into these can then be used as a starting point for engaging with others, and for starting to develop shared understandings” of our practice (Kirk, 2005, p. 240).

With students, we developed learning communities where we all more closely examined our pedagogy to ensure its meaningfulness, relevance, and appropriateness (Guilfoyle, 1995; Loughran & Berry, 2005). We simultaneously taught students and ourselves. Hopefully our students will be willing to be similarly vulnerable, seeking their students’ feedback in the spirit of lifelong learning. Likewise, we hope other teacher educators are encouraged to critically examine what they ask students to do.

ReferencesBerry, A. (2008). Tensions in teaching about teaching:

Understanding practice as a teacher educator. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Berry, A., & Crowe, A. R. (2009). Many miles and many emails: Using electronic technologies in self-study to think about, refine, and reframe practice. In D. L. Tidwell, M. L. Heston, & L.M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 83–98). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Childs, K. (2005). Just where do I think I’m going? Working with marginalized and disaffected youths and their self-study. In C. Mitchell, S. Weber, & K. O’Reilly-Scanlon (Eds.), Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching (pp. 142–153). New York, NY: Routledge Falmer.

Guilfoyle, K. (1995). Constructing the meaning of teacher educator: The struggle to learn the roles. Teacher Education Quarterly, 22(3), 11–27.

Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (2000). On the threshold of a new century: Trustworthiness, integrity, and self-study in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 234–240.

Hudson-Ross, S., & Graham, P. (2000). Going public: Making teacher educators’ learning explicit as a model for preservice teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 27(4), 5–24.

Kirk, J. (2005). Starting with the self: Reflexivity in studying women teachers’ lives in development. In C. Mitchell, S. Weber, & K. O’Reilly-Scanlon (Eds.), Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching (pp. 142–153). New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.

Kosnik, C., Samaras, A., & Freese, A. (2006). Beginning with trusted friends: Venturing out to work collaboratively in our institutions. In L. Fitzgerald, M. Heston, & D. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 152–156). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Larrivee, B. (2000). Transforming teaching practice: Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1(3), 293–307.

Loughran, J. J., & Berry, A. (2005). Modeling by teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 193–203.

Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M. L. (2009). Self-study of practice as a genre of qualitative research. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Singleton, G. E., & Hays, C. A. (2006). Beginning courageous conversations about race. In G.E. Singleton & C. Linton (Eds.), Courageous conversations about race (pp. 18–23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Walkington, J., Christensen, H. P., & Kock. H. (2001). Developing critical reflection as a part of teaching training and teaching practice. European Journal of Engineering Education, 26(4), 343–350.

Yeh, C. J., & Inman, A. G. (2007). Qualitative data analysis and interpretation in counseling psychology: Strategies for best practices. The Counseling Psychologist, 35, 369–403.

SAL BADALIBrandon University

Reconciling Tensions as a Teacher Educator and Administrator

Context of the StudyMy journey as a university administrator has been

fascinating, partly because it was not something that I aspired to when I began my career as an academic. There have been many rewards, but it’s become increasingly difficult to fulfill my responsibilities as an academic leader within a context of budgetary and programmatic constraints. Nevertheless, this is a journey of self-discovery and I am thankful for the opportunity to be in a position to facilitate change that I hope will lead to positive improvements in the work we do as teacher educators.

This study takes place between 2008 and 2011 when I was Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Human Resources at a midwestern Canadian University. One of my responsibilities was to oversee seven curriculum teams that were tasked to develop core studies education courses. This required a sensitive understanding of Faculty politics and interests because these courses blended the traditional content of Educational Foundations, Educational Psychology, Educational Administration, and Educational Professional Studies. At the time of this study, the Faculty of Education was engaged in the last phase of program renewal, building upon its “self-study” that came out of a formal program review process.

My practice as a teacher educator and administrator in higher education is guided by the following core beliefs: 1) I believe in collaborative, community-based models of teacher education, research that informs teaching and practice, and principles of equity, diversity, social justice, and inclusion; 2) I believe that teacher education and graduate programming should be transformational so that new teachers and other educational leaders are well positioned to address the complexities and ambiguities associated with teaching and learning; 3) I believe in preparing professional educators beyond technical competencies. On the one hand, universities should be responsive to school and community needs, but on the other hand we are compelled to fulfill our academic and scholarly duties in critiquing policy and practices of education. I assert that these are complementary and necessary functions; 4) I believe that post-secondary education is primarily about relationships, and we need to pay attention to the roles and responsibilities associated with being part of vibrant learning communities; and 5) I believe in a continuum of professional development and growth. One of our primary responsibilities is to assist others in supporting students in making those transitions but these transitions also apply to us as Faculty members as we build a career. Being an administrator in higher education, however, may mean living with internal conflicts that may surface between one’s core beliefs and the realities of carrying out administrative duties.

Aims/ObjectivesIn this study, I report on how I lived the contradictions,

ambiguities, satisfactions, and frustrations associated with being an administrator in higher education. Specifically, I explore the tensions inherent in operationalizing a series of team-taught, blended core studies education courses. This study is primarily about making sense of my teacher educator/administrator identity during a time of uncertainty and change. But the outcomes of this study may also have implications for others striving to improve their administrative practices. While the administrative context I found myself in was fluid and flexible, my core values were not. The following are among the questions I explored: 1) In what ways have my core principles as a teacher educator impacted my practices as an administrator? and 2) What does it mean to be an effective administrative leader?

Brief Overview of Relevant LiteratureUntil recently, there has been relatively little attention

paid to the experiences of academic leaders in higher education (Bray, 2008; Mills, 2010; Williams, 2009; Wisniewski, 2007), and almost none of the literature uses a self-study approach. Hoppe (2003), Howell and Shamir (2005), and Raines and Alberg (2003) suggested that effective academic leaders are truthful, honest, and trustworthy. Gross (1988), O’Brien (2002), Ravid and Handler (2001), and Reeves (2006) emphasized the importance of collaborative leadership, that is, working strategically over time to build multiple layers of buy-in, support, and guidance among stakeholders. Bray (2008) observed that “faculty members expect academic leaders to value input but be visionary and provide input as well” (p. 694). This means that leaders must demonstrate a willingness to listen to multiple and often discordant voices.

Leadership is sometimes portrayed (e.g., Howell & Shamir, 2005) as a relationship that is jointly produced by leaders and followers. This view of leadership criticizes extant leadership theories for being too leader centric because they focus almost exclusively on the “impact of leader traits and behaviors of followers’ attitudes and behaviors” (p. 96). Fiedler’s (1967) contingency model specified group atmosphere, which includes followers’ loyalty, support, and cooperation with the leader, as an important situational determinant of the effectiveness of people-oriented versus task-oriented leaders (p. 97). Rosser, Johnsrud, and Heck (2003) found that academic leaders’ effectiveness comes from their ability to garner individual and group support, as well as from performing the various functions and tasks that support the organization’s mission and goals.

Despite the complex organizational structures present, university leaders need to learn how to navigate and utilize

the informal paths and networks, sometimes totally bypassing (and occasionally undermining) the formal channels. Bray (2008) suggested that “academic leaders face a particular challenge in their relationship with faculty, whose activities they are supposed to support, whose behavior they are supposed to regulate, and with whom they share governance responsibilities” (p. 692). But individuals often rise to their positions from the academic ranks as faculty themselves, receiving little training for their new role (Wolverton, Wolverton, & Gmelch, 2000).

Studies of self-awareness (e.g., Goleman, 1995) indicate that our identities come from our own stories or narratives about our experiences and interactions with others. The stories that we tell are a series of tales that describe how our process of gaining self-awareness depends upon our interactions with others (Ashmore & Contrada, 1999; Bracken & Lamprecht, 2003). In crafting a sense of identity or self-awareness through our interactions with our social environments, we are engaged in a reflective process (Russell & Bullock, 2010; Clift, 2008; Loughran, 2008). We become self-aware as a result of testing the meaning of exchanges with others in the workplace.

MethodsFor a number of years, I have been exploring my

practice as a teacher educator and administrator through self-study. For the purposes of this paper, self-study is defined as the intentional and systematic inquiry into one’s own practice. In teacher education, self-study is powerful because of the potential to influence student teachers as well as impact one’s practice as a teacher educator. Reflective practice, therefore, is an important component of this self-study. Loughran (2007) notes that self-study can have a broader impact by informing other teacher educators’ practice.

Data for this study was collected from my reflective journal that documents critical incidents, notes from faculty retreats and meetings with colleagues, e-mail correspondence, program renewal documents, and informal conversations with colleagues. The use of critical incidents is well documented in the reflective practice and self-study literature (e.g., Brandenberg & Gervasoni, 2010; Kosnik, 2001). This approach helps a person to go beyond description to a deeper analysis of events, thereby challenging taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs about practice. Having multiple data sources enabled me to compare my personal and professional development, to document my perceptions over time, and to expose successful and unsuccessful routes to my learning. Keeping a reflective journal of critical incidents was useful because it enabled me to focus on everyday occurrences. Each entry was dated and contextual information was attached. While reading descriptions of critical incidents I also spontaneously recorded my ideas about emerging themes in an effort to capture connections within the data. I scrutinized the data, separated the important from the unimportant, and grouped similar things together. During several readings of the data, themes began to emerge (e.g., core beliefs; administrative roles; leadership characteristics; collaborative practices; resistance to change; issues associated with power; and coping strategies). These themes ultimately became the basis for how I organized the outcomes of this study. Trustworthiness was established from engaging in self and collaborative reflective practices (e.g., confirming my interpretation with colleagues by circulating minutes and draft documents). LaBoskey (2004) reminds us that validation is accomplished when the findings are considered to be trustworthy for other researchers to rely on in their own work. I partly relied on questions adapted from

McNiff’s (1995) action research framework: Why do I do the things I do? Why am I the way I am? How do I improve my work for the benefit of others?

Outcomes: What Did I Learn? The five core beliefs outlined at the start of this paper

anchored my efforts to bring to life these team-taught, blended core studies education courses. Our success was based on trust and a willingness to listen to one another’s concerns. At the beginning of this journey, however, I realized it was going to be difficult to remain faithful to my beliefs. It is not surprising that I sometimes encountered tensions between my teacher educator identity and my administrator identity. In an early journal entry I noted, “Sometimes I feel like an imposter. I am trapped between being an administrator and teacher educator; it’s like I’m straddling two worlds. How can I bring myself to argue for a large, team taught lecture format, when I believe that smaller cohort groups have more pedagogical merit?” (September, 2009) My task was further complicated by various uncertainties including long-range staffing plans. For example, very little consideration had been given to whether or not we had sufficient expertise to cover course content, as well as accommodating sabbatical leaves.

Some individuals were very resistant to a team-teaching approach because they believed it would have negative implications for tenure and promotion. I had numerous one-on-one conversations with tenure-track individuals, in particular, who wanted to focus on their research. “Why should I agree to teach in this format when I know the University is mainly concerned with my research….this will be more time consuming and take me aware from what really counts” (e-mail correspondence from a Faculty member, February, 2010). Others were opposed to collaborative teaching models based on their belief that it violated their academic freedom. Early in the process, a tenured faculty member, for example, publically challenged me when he said, “The content of the course is up to me, this proposal violates my academic freedom by forcing me to teach someone else’s course” (Faculty member comment during program meeting, October 2009). I resisted the impulse to debate each point, instead accepting that this type of opposition was predictable and inevitable. I listened, and then listened some more. I made sure that I didn’t promise anything I knew I wouldn’t be able to deliver later on in the process. In my journal, I wrote, “I really wanted to react and quash this kind of resistance, but I bit my tongue….I can either fight every point and we’ll never get anywhere, or I can be more strategic and move this along in a fair and transparent manner.” (April, 2010) I was guided by a commitment to collaborative and collegial decision making processes. I also recognized that “I can’t please everyone equally, and if I am going to be judged, I want to be judged on what we accomplish together, and minimize the side battles” (May, 2011).

Some resistance came from individuals who had no direct connection to these courses, but their comments had the potential to side-track the previously agreed upon process. It is important to also note that some of the architects of the re-designed program were no longer part of the faculty because they had either retired or left the employment of the university. This created fertile ground for pockets of resistance, and I realized that I needed to give people sufficient time to air their concerns. I reminded people that this was a collective decision, while internally struggling with my personal reservations about issues pertaining to course content and course delivery. The Dean had made it clear that “this will happen on schedule,

it’s too late to turn back.” It was obvious to me that we could not afford any more delays; program renewal was being implemented whether or not some individuals liked it or not. “Imposed change is rarely, if ever, well received,” I wrote in my journal after one faculty meeting in 2011. Although I believed in making evidence-based decisions, “I was conflicted between fulfilling my responsibilities as Associate Dean and with my deeply engrained views as a teacher educator” (journal, February, 2009).

One of the most effective strategies I used to manage resistance was to link individual interests with collective and University priorities. I reminded individuals, for example, that it was in our best interests to leverage our priorities with those identified in the University Strategic Plan. Following a faculty meeting in September 2010, I wrote, “We are incredibly privileged as academics. We do a number of things very well, there is a great deal of talent and commitment among faculty. We need to identify our expertise, and what we are most passionate about, otherwise it may be difficult to sustain whatever we create.” I was also dealing with collective faculty fatigue, a byproduct of experiencing the tribulations associated with many years of program renewal. It was clear to me that most individuals still underestimated the complexity of simultaneously offering several versions of the same program. “I don’t think people realize how much more work needs to be done….we are running out of time…. We are paying the price for the ‘figure it out later’ mentality” (September, 2010). I was able to lessen some of the resistance about workload and team teaching when I promised to authorize and fund a third-party review of the large-lecture delivery model. “This will buy me some time,” I wrote in my journal, “if the review suggests that this isn’t working, at least I have some evidence to make future decisions. They trusted me!” (May, 2010). Trust is important. Bolden, Petrov, and Gosling (2008) noted that an organization’s recent and past history is significant in determining how it is perceived both by those within and outside it. Current and recent initiatives and priorities will also be instrumental in framing how people make sense of their leadership role, and subsequently, how they go about their work (p. 369).

In summary, what did I learn about my teacher educator/administrator identity and practice?

• Being a teacher educator and administrator is challenging work but it is also highly rewarding. I was grateful for the opportunity to assist my colleagues in creating a better teacher education program. In a sense, serving in this administrative role has been a catalyst for my own professional development.• My experiences affirmed my belief in the importance of flexibility, patience, and strategic priorities in facilitating a process of change in higher education. • Our collegial faculty culture was instrumental in helping us overcome challenges associated with program renewal. We tried to model best practices in terms of being reflective practitioners. Our work as teacher educators improved because we opened ourselves to learning from one another—we planned together, shared resources, and reflected collaboratively on the impact of our pedagogical choices and behaviors.

DiscussionSometimes fulfilling my role was complicated by issues

of power and authority. As Nyberg (1981) suggested, issues of power exist in every aspect of social life: “organization and power are conjugal concepts….Where there is organization,

there is power; where there is power, there is organization. If organization is inevitable in social life then it is also true that power is inevitable in all social relations” (p. 43). As associate dean, I often found myself pulled in different directions by the needs and desires of student teachers and the somewhat different priorities of faculty, staff, and cooperating teachers and the still different priorities and expectations of faculties of education. Clearly, I was positioned in the middle of the university’s administrative hierarchy. My success depended on my ability to read the context and create solutions that are mutually supportive of colleagues and the institutional culture. Williams (2009) suggested that the level of power academic leaders possess becomes critical when the barriers to change are highly resistant, such as when change involves academics losing their power or violating the normal way of doing things (p. 138). As a power holder, I was placed to manage changes that are in conflict with the faculty’s deeply-rooted culture. As individuals and groups interact within a social system they develop shared beliefs (e.g., relating to mission, and the right way of performing certain tasks). Over time this tacit knowledge can become divorced from its origins and become part of the shared culture or memory of the organization. The strength of culture is that it promotes stability, continuity, and identity. Simultaneously these are its weaknesses and therefore any planned attempt to change culture is a long uphill battle (p. 140).

Concluding CommentsMy competence and development as an administrative

leader and teacher educator evolved as I undertook this self-study project; at times it was a painful process of examining and re-examining my taken-for-granted assumptions about what I presumed to be effective leadership. There were three important outcomes of this research. First, documenting and making accessible to other administrators the impact of critical reflection on administrative practices. Second, I learned about the multilayered and multifaceted nature of leadership in universities and the manner in which individual agency and organizational structure interface at the group level. My experiences indicate that while the elements of leadership in higher education are widely distributed (through people, structures, networks), leadership is perhaps better understood as a hybrid (comprising both individualistic and collective approaches). Finally, I bring into focus some aspects of leadership that typically remain obscured, particularly the multiple and competing nature of personal, professional, social and organizational identities, the varying forms of influence available to leaders, and the informal, emergent, and shifting processes of social influence within large, complex organizations such as universities.

ReferencesAshmore, R., & Contrada, R. (1999). Conclusion: Self, social

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Bolden, R., Petrov, G., & Gosling, J. (2008). Tensions in higher education leadership: Towards a multi-level model of leadership practice. Higher Education Quarterly, 62(4), 358–376.

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Brandenburg, R., & Gervasoni, A. (2010). Engaging with ethical praxis: A study of ethical issues arising from self-study research. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 45–48). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

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Loughran, J. (2007). Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships and practices (pp. 1-15).New York: Routledge.

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LAURA BAECHER BEDE McCORMACKHunter College City University of New York

Clinical Supervision as Opportunity for Self-Study: Do We Promote or Hinder Teacher Self-Reflection in Post-Observation Conferencing?

Like many teacher educators supervising teaching practice, we have spent countless hours in post-observation conferences (POCs) attempting to facilitate teacher candidates’ self-reflection, guided by the firm belief that through the non-judgmental feedback of an experienced observer (Fanselow, 1987, 1988), teachers will grow in their capacity to assess their own practice. However, due to the private nature of POCs, we lacked peer feedback on our effectiveness during these sessions and were often frustrated by a sense of insufficiently fostering self-reflection in our teacher candidates. In order to address this, we examined Bede’s supervisory conferences with two experienced and two inexperienced teacher candidates seeking their Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL). This paper shares how we first analyzed these POCs, then examined our findings using an interactive journal, as tools to better understand how our post-observation conferencing might support or impede teacher candidate self-reflection. Two questions this paper sets out to explore are “What specific linguistic moves in Bede’s post-observation conferencing seemed to promote or inhibit self-reflection on the part of teacher candidates?” and “How did our journal exchange about this data serve to deepen our understanding of our supervisory role as teacher educators?”

The Discourse of the Post-Observation Conference A handful of researchers within the field of TESOL have employed the tools of applied linguistics such as corpus review, discourse and conversation analysis, and sociolinguistics to analyze POCs between university supervisors and teacher candidates. These studies have suggested that these are complex yet predictable speech events that reflect the dominance of the supervisor over the teacher candidate, whose power in the conversation may be analyzed through language use (Copland, 2008; Farr, 2011; Vásquez, 2004). A broader survey of literature on POCs in university-based teacher supervision, as well as in school-based mentoring (Helman, 2006; Hobson, Ashton, Malderez & Tomlinson, 2009; Meyer-Mork, 2010) aligns with that of TESOL teacher education, confirming that the POC is a remarkably stable “genre”— patterns transcend the individual conference and hold across these conversations. Across educational contexts, supervisors tend to control the interaction by initiating or shifting topics, taking and holding the floor, using extensive hedging to save face, and speaking for about 80% of the conference. Supervisees tend to speak about 20% of the time, respond to rather than initiate topics, give up the floor, and reply with minimal response tokens (yeah, mm-hmm) to affirm the assertions of the supervisor.

For example, Strong and Baron (2004), in their work with mentors (peer-to-peer POCs), identified 206 suggestions

made by the mentors in their corpus of 64 conversations of between 15 minutes to an hour in length, out of which 96 were indirect. Most commonly used hedges were conditionals such as perhaps, maybe, might, could, or wonder. Mentees accepted these suggestions in a ratio of four to one, with only a third resulting in elaboration on their part. Strong and Baron conclude that the mentoring conversation is indeed more of an “open-ended interview rather than a naturalistic conversation” (p. 49) and therefore is not fully reciprocal.

Crasborn, Hennissen, Brouwer, Korthagen and Bergen (2010) investigated POCs between a teacher in training (pre-service or student teacher) and their school-based mentor (cooperating teacher). In their study, 20 mentoring conversations across a variety of trainees were broken down into 410 mentor utterances, which were then coded and analyzed using cluster analysis. Indeed, the most prevalent role was one they called “imperator,” focusing “on teaching performance by pointing out as right or wrong elements in what student teachers do during their lessons and [providing] them with tips and suggestions to make improvements” (p. 327). Hence, despite a sincere desire to “help,” supervisors may inadvertently stifle opportunities for candidate professional learning. One explanation is the “facilitator’s paradox” (Farr, 2011, pp. 55–56), which posits that genuine dialogue between two parties of unequal status is impossible, as in the evaluative role of supervisor vis-a-vis supervisee. However, attempts to bring awareness of the tendency of supervisors to dominate the talk in POCs has the potential to change these patterns and create more democratic spaces to invite dialogue (Wang, Strong, & Odell, 2004). In light of this research, we proceeded with our self-analysis as a means to improve our practice as supervisors by uncovering potentially ineffective patterns of behavior that may be widespread among well-intentioned teacher supervisors.

Context of StudyIn our institution’s MA TESOL program, which serves

approximately 200 graduate students within a large urban school of education of about 2,500 students, candidates prepare for teaching either PreK-12 English language learners (ELLs) or adult ELLs. These teacher candidates bring a wide range of prior teaching experiences to the MA TESOL program. For example, many adult-track teacher candidates choose to enter the program following years of teaching English abroad, in community-based programs, or in private language schools. Therefore, although they are new MA students, they are not all novice TESOL teachers. Many have been supervised in their teaching or have participated in TESOL certificate programs, short-term courses that involve some supervision and self-assessment of teaching practice.

In our MA TESOL program, in the final semesters of

the adult-track program, teacher candidates complete two semesters of teaching practice. In the first, they are placed in an academic English environment at a local community college where they serve as student teachers in a cooperating teacher’s classroom. In the second practicum, candidates teach their own class independently once a week for three hours within a community English program housed at our institution. Both practica are accompanied by a seminar, and the seminar instructor also serves as the supervisor and observes the teachers three times in each cycle of 12 weeks of teaching, for a total of six formal observations.

At these observations, the supervisor evaluates the lesson according to a standard observation rubric used across the school of education. This rubric covers eight domains of teaching, one of which is TESOL-specific. Performance on the rubric is evaluated by the supervisor, and a grade is given for the observed lesson. The supervisor also schedules individual, one-hour POCs at a time not immediately after the lesson, in order for candidates to prepare reflections and join the supervisor to debrief the lesson. This conference is viewed not solely for the supervisor to provide the candidate feedback on the lesson, but also as an opportunity to assess candidates’ self-awareness about their teaching, by prompting the candidate’s reflection on the lesson without being overly directive. The supervisor’s role is thus developmental in terms of the process which takes place in the POC, but ultimately evaluative.

MethodAs colleagues at the same university teacher preparation

program, we met regularly over the course of one year to first use Conversation Analysis (CA) as a tool to analyze the linguistic features of Bede’s POCs to identify those opportunities (both missed and taken up) of teacher candidate self-reflection. We then used a dialogue journal to specifically explore those targeted instances where we had coded the data as missed or taken-up opportunities for candidate self-reflection. Our “common purpose” (Lassonde, Galman, & Kosnik, 2009, p. 10) in this study was to use CA as means to delve deeper into the language of the POC and reflect on how our supervisory language nurtured the self-reflection of teachers. By embarking on the investigation as colleagues, cross-coding the data, and using Laura as a “critical friend” in examining the results, we hoped to use our interaction to leverage a deeper understanding of ourselves as supervisors and teacher supervision in general (LaBoskey, 2004; Lighthall, 2004).

Data Collection and AnalysisFrom one practicum course, POCs with five teacher

candidates who had the greatest and the fewest years of prior teaching experience were selected for analysis, to explore whether this seemed to alter the interaction in the POC: Carol (6 years), Jack (4 years), Krystina (1 year), John (1 year), and Helen (0 years). After observing them teach in the adult-track community-based TESOL program, B audiotaped the third (final from the first semester) conference session (approximately 30 minutes in length) with each of the four candidates and transcribed them using CA transcription conventions to reflect the organization of turn taking. The first step was to quantitatively describe the POCs in terms of (1) the length of turns taken by the teacher candidates, (2) the percentage of time each spoke, and (3) the number of topics initiated. Conference word count ranged from 3,000 to 5,000 words, and most of the candidates spoke about 50% of the time. We saw immediately that the more experienced teacher

candidates tended to surpass the less experienced in all these categories.

By examining the organization of turn taking, we hoped to identify instances where the institutional power differential was at play and instances where this differential broke down and reflected a more “ordinary” conversation in which both participants exhibited a right to question, floor hold, and topic shift. The role of each conversational move in the POCs was then considered. The overall number of turns, and turn length taken by both the supervisor and the teacher candidate, was roughly equal in all five conversations. In other words, both interlocutors tended to speak approximately the same amount of time. When we examined turn type, however, we could see the power differential come into play. In all but Carol’s POC, Bede has fewer topic shifts (an average of 5 per POC), while the teacher candidates tend to have a greater number (6.6 topic shifts per POC). In stark contrast to this, Bede dominates the floor by taking the floor an average of 7.8 times per POC to the teacher candidates’ average of just 3.6 times per POC. Even more striking is the number of floor-holding moves performed by Bede: 28.4 to the teacher candidates’ average of just 6.2. Thus, despite the roughly equal amount of talk time during the POCs, the type of talk by floor taking and holding seems to reflect a power imbalance, a key feature of institutional talk as described above. Interestingly, a closer look reveals that as each POC progressed, floor taking and holding became more even. That is, the bulk of Bede’s conversational control was during the beginning and middle, but in its final stages the conversation reflected a more balanced conversation in which teacher candidates not only took the floor but also held it.

A continued analysis of the POCs considered instances teacher candidates were reduced to hesitation markers such as “oh,” “yeah,” “okay,” “uhm,” “well,” and “right.” These markers were tallied and found to range from 35 to 80 per POC. Because we were particularly interested in instances where Bede’s turn-taking pattern effectively shut down teacher candidate talk, often reducing the teacher candidate to lengthy sequences of hesitation markers, we examined the turn type which directly preceded these. This analysis suggested that, to varying degrees, teacher candidates exhibited markers of hesitation when the supervisor made one of the following four moves: (1) made a suggestion (perhaps received by the teacher candidate as veiled criticism); (2) shifted the topic (perhaps received by the teacher candidate as supervisor’s assertion of power); (3) spoke at length (perhaps received by the teacher candidate as supervisor’s domination of conversation; or (4) posed vague or numerous questions (perhaps rendering the teacher candidate unsure of expectation of supervisor).

The final phase of data analysis took the form of an online, interactive journal in Google docs, in which we placed examples of each of the above hesitation move sequences into a format that placed the data extract in the first row, with Bede self-reflecting on his observations, followed by a back-and-forth exchange with Laura supporting Bede in analyzing these excerpts in relation to his motivations, perceptions, and insights on his role as a supervisor. We opted for a written exchange in order to archive our progressive learning about supervision. Twenty-five asynchronous journal entries were read and responded to over a period of three months.

Results of Analyzing the Post-Observation Conference and Our Reflections on Self-Study

An examination of the interactive journal helped us to recognize the value of collaborating with a peer in self-study. Our interchange, which was grounded in analyzing instances of topic shift, floor taking and floor holding in the POCs, led to a fuller understanding of our data. We also noticed that over the course of our dialogue, Laura took on different “stances” in responding to Bede’s reflections. For instance, in Figure 1, Laura challenges Bede’s interpretation of the data.

*****************************************************************Transcription from the POC (Carol):1. TC: Yeah, I did this lesson at Union Settlement that we did before with2. Lauren and, and they got it easily, and the last time I even tried to change3. the way the vocabulary, I…we wrote the vocabulary similar or different =4. B: =right5. TC: to try to make it easy for these guys*****************************************************************Bede:This is at the beginning of the conference session, and the TC starts the POC in line 1 without any prompting from me. I think that despite her experience, she feels somewhat insecure about her teaching and leads off as a way of trying to appear she is “in charge”. This is fine with me, but sometimes I wonder how comfortable she would be if I did direct her to generally discuss the lesson.Laura:I think it’s exciting to see a candidate jump right in in this manner to the POC. It makes me think that she is experienced enough to want to take charge of her own reflection on her lesson. Is it possible that it is you who somehow feels a need to be “in charge”, that this threatens? I am thinking that if the patterns of this POC are as predictable as we’ve seen, this sort of her taking the reins and leaving you saying, “right...”.Bede:Good point. Compared to a typical POC, the TC starting off the conference as Carol does here does seem to leave me at a loss as to what to say. Certainly I shouldn’t feel threatened by behavior like this. This points out the need to really listen to the TC, pick up on what she is saying and use that because that is what is important to her at that moment. This is something I hadn’t noticed.

Figure 1. Excerpt from self-study dialogue journal.

The above excerpt highlights how Laura was able to take on the “stance” (Schegloff, 2007) of mentor to Bede, choosing to pose a question that would prompt him to consider an alternative explanation to his interpretation. Using the language of CA previously applied to our data set, Laura was able to direct Bede to consider how his reaction to the teacher candidate.

In reviewing our dialogue journal, we also noted that the process of reacting to critical incidents which appeared to have led to the teacher candidate being derailed from self-reflection caused Bede to become very self-critical and even discouraged when he saw these missed opportunities in the analysis of the transcripts. For example, he stated in one entry, “Argh! I don’t give up! I continue asking questions, overlapping her attempts to respond to my questions. Five of my six turns above are either interrogatives or imperatives. Certainly I have an agenda and am pushing it.” At these times Laura took on the “stance”

of cheerleader in order to reassure Bede that he was doing a lot of things that were very supportive of teacher candidate reflection. After one entry in which he described feeling concerned about how he opened the POC, she stated, “The way you first started seems very open-ended (non-evaluative) to me and invites the teacher candidate to really bring up anything salient for him. That seems like a great way to assess his awareness of his practice—by what he chooses to bring up.”

Many of the dialogue journal interactions represented the stance of “peer” as Laura expressed recognition and awareness of her own similar behaviors in interacting with teacher candidates. Being able to witness Bede’s POCs through the transcripts in their analyzed forms was as enlightening for Laura as she reflected on her own POCs as it was for Bede.

As self-study data, the close analysis and comparison of these POC extracts has been enormously informative and has begun to inform our thinking as we continue to conduct POCs. One practice we are much more aware of is topic shifting. We are beginning to notice how this awareness tends to curtail us from promoting our own “agendas,” allowing us to focus more closely on the content the teacher candidate is describing rather than attempting to change the focus to our own agendas. We have begun to consciously include language used by the teacher candidate in our questions and comments. This can potentially empower the teacher candidates, making them more confident and participatory discussants. Our recommendations include using conversational turns to confirm meaning rather than challenge teacher candidates’ content focus, noticing how the organization of the conversation changes over time from an institutionally oriented power differential to an ordinary conversation in which both interlocutors can question and hold the floor.

ConclusionThe busy schedule of teacher educators can preclude

the kind of attention given here to the interaction patterns in POCs. However, this self-study provides evidence that collaborative investigation can lead supervisors to reframe their thinking and practice when engaging their teacher candidates in these conversations. A next phase is to examine additional data through the CA lens for evidence of how a self-study of POC language leads to change in the supervisor’s approach, which then positively impacts teacher candidates’ subsequent planning, teaching, and reflection. In addition, we hope to determine whether conducting POCs subsequent to teacher candidates viewing a video record of their teaching might change the nature of the conversation. Our self-study of POCs has pointed the way for us as teacher educators as we aim to improve our practice, which in turn may lead to increasingly higher levels of learning outcomes for our teacher candidates.

ReferencesCopland, F. (2008). Deconstructing the discourse:

Understanding the trainer’s talk. In S. Garton & K. Richards (Eds.), Professional encounters in TESOL (pp. 5–23). Hampshire, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.

Crasborn, F., Hennissen, P., Brouwer, N., Korthagen, F., & Bergen, T. (2010). Capturing mentor teachers’ reflective moments during mentoring dialogues. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16(1), 7–29.

Fanselow, J. F. (1987). Breaking rules: Generating and exploring alternatives in language teaching. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Fanselow, J. F. (1988). “Let’s see”: Contrasting conversations about teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 22(1), 113–130.

Farr, F. (2011). The discourse of teaching practice feedback: A corpus-based investigation of spoken and written modes. New York, NY: Routledge.

Helman, L. (2006). What’s in a conversation? Mentoring stances in coaching conferences and how they matter. In B. Achinstein & S. Z. Athanases (Eds.), Mentors in the making: Developing new leaders for new teachers (pp. 69–82). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hobson, A., Ashby, P., Malderez, A., & Tomlinson, P. (2009). Mentoring beginning teachers: What we know and what we don’t. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(1), 207–216.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L.Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Lassonde, C. A., Galman, S., & Kosnik, C. (Eds.). (2009). Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators. Professional Learning: Vol. 7. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Lighthall, F. F. (2004). Fundamental features and approaches of the s-step enterprise. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 193–245). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Meyer-Mork, J. (2010). “Oh, I say…!” Reflecting upon my role as a preservice teacher supervisor. In L. Erickson, J. R. Young & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 164–168). Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University.

Schegloff, E. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Strong, M., & Baron, W. (2004). An analysis of mentoring conversations with beginning teachers: Suggestions and responses. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(1), 47–57.

Vásquez, C. (2004). “Very carefully managed”: Advice and suggestions in post-observation meetings. Linguistics and Education, 15(1-2), 33–58.

Wang, J., Strong, M., & Odell, S. J. (2004). Mentor–novice conversations about teaching: A comparison of two US and two Chinese cases. Teachers College Record, 106(4), 775–813.

This year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of our collaborative engagement in ACE (Active Collaborative Education), a postgraduate teacher education program. ACE is a holistic learning environment of intertwined workshops, most of them co-taught by the program’s team of educators. Learning in this space is based on participating in a community of practice through sharing ideas and experiences, reflecting on practice, engaging in critical thinking, and conducting self-study of questions and dilemmas that emerge in the process.

We keep in touch with many of our graduates, and what we heard in many informal conversations was supported by a preliminary research study (Gidron, Barak, Arafat, & Weinberger, 2009). For our students, teacher education was primarily a space were they could dream and dare, explore and experience, uncover assumptions and beliefs, and question those beliefs with others. When asked to elaborate, their almost immediate responses relate to the team and the atmosphere we foster. From this we learn that our most profound influences are the space we create for these processes to occur and the students’ experience of learning in the program as different to what they previously knew and expected.

Following this, our current self-study inquires into the relational processes of our co-existence within the team in order to understand the inter-subjective aspects of our pedagogy and the meaning of our collaboration as an inherent part of our curriculum. As Zembylas (2005) describes it, “Pedagogy is the site of inter-subjective encounters that entails transformative possibilities” (p. 140).

Bringing the relational aspects of pedagogy to the forefront makes teacher education more dynamic and complex. Within this framework, the relational activity folds and unfolds inter-subjective encounters that create a space of unforeseeable choices. Phillips (2010) suggests understanding such spaces as open, non-scripted spaces with no right answers or routes. They are transitional, troubled, or turbulent spaces that encompass questions, conflicts, dilemmas and opportunities. “Pedagogy as transitional space recognizes the power of discourse, the complexity of subjectivity” (Phillips, 2010, p. 635). This viewpoint relates to processes in the making. Knowledge is not discussed in regard to routes or directions from explicit to implicit or from practical to theoretical and vice versa, but in ecological terms trying to grasp the unforeseeable multiple directions for its emergence. The relational-pedagogy approach grants learners the authorship of their becoming by respecting the individuals’ knowledge as developing within the contexts of their engagement. It involves emotional experiences in regard to self and others and the wider social and political context in which teaching and learning occur. It encourages transformational learning and is seen as a fluid process of becoming in which identities are

continuously negotiated (Boyd, MacNeill, & Sullivan, 2006; Britzman, 2007; Brownlee & Berthelsen, 2008; Zembylas, 2007).

In previous studies (Mansur, Tuval, Barak, Turniansky, Gidron, & Weinberger, 2011; Turniansky, Barak, Tuval, Gidron, & Mansur, 2010) we described the collaborative curriculum as a living curriculum in a process of becoming. We drew the dimensions that carve its landscape and analyzed the collaborative tools that sustain its dynamics. Our current self-study investigates the relational and transitional aspects of our collaborative curriculum of teacher education. We aim to grasp the complexity of this environment including how we, as teacher educators, are influenced by the collaborative curriculum we are creating and the implications it has for our practice. We explore our program by looking at the following questions:

a. How do we, the teacher educators, experience our life in the collaborative space of our program?b. How do our students and graduates speak and write about their teacher education studies?c. What can we learn from both perspectives about the relational and transitional space of our program, to further inform our practice?

MethodologyThis is a collaborative self-study (Pinnegar & Hamilton,

2009) that takes our teacher education program as a phenomenon and aims at understanding the subjective ways it is experienced by its participants.

The teacher educators’ perspective comes from an analysis of staff vignettes about our professional life in the program and analysis of four research articles about the team’s work. Through these we try to discover the story beyond our curriculum and what it tells us about our collaborative space.

The students’ perspective comes from analysis of an assignment in which they relate to their experience of learning. At the end of the first year, students prepare a “middle of the road” summative journal entry where they are asked to step back and look at their learning journey in light of the ongoing portfolio they assembled during the year.

The graduates were interviewed after tenure of 3–5 years in the profession. Each interview took about 1.5 hours. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed.

These multiple perspectives and diverse sources and lenses aim to capture the “grand story” of the phenomena and contribute to the trustworthiness of the study. Each perspective was analyzed first by a subgroup of our team, then brought to the full group for further discussion and negotiation of meaning.

The data were narratively analyzed using Spector-Mersel’s (2011) mechanisms of selection and Craig’s

JUDITH BARAK, SMADAR TUVAL, ARIELA GIDRON, & BOBBIE TURNIANSKYKaye College of Education

Being in the Between: Teacher Education as a Relational Transitional Space

(2011) conceptual framework. Each group’s narratives were interpreted regarding the themes that were chosen and their expressions within the texts. We then investigated how the texts from the different sources were negotiated with each other.

OutcomesTeacher educators’ perspective. Almost every team

member’s story about his or her ACE experience begins with some aspect of it as a “we” experience and relates to the collaborative experience. Within the framework of narrative selection mechanisms (Spector-Mersel, 2011), collaboration is a profound theme that is included, sharpened, and attributed within the stories. Almost absent are actual teaching experiences and teaching content. Although expected in teachers’ discourse, these themes are omitted, silenced, and flattened within the stories as well as the published papers. When teaching is mentioned, it is in relation to the experience of co-teaching, where again collaboration is the issue:

Dina: [Teaching in] co- is a very strong emotional experience for me in ACE, a strong and positive experience that in itself provokes thinking, other forms of thinking, fresh, divergent, multi-perspective, creative, mind-opening. Analysis of the collaboration theme reveals the complex,

multifaceted ways different members experience it. For example:

Judith: This is a game of life within tensions that we often call collaboration and paralysis. It’s not a peaceful life. Even today, after so many years, we don’t have a feeling of “OK, we’ve reached some serenity…”

These attributions encapsulate our collaboration as relational phenomena. The ways this life is experienced by its members are described through their interactions with others. Going deeply into the stories, they reveal variations in the ways the collaborative life is experienced. Alongside voices of creativity and belonging there are also voices of stress and confinement. The dynamics of the collaborative landscape can be viewed as the choreography of dancing on a web of relations. You can’t define your position as a point on the line between two poles, because each point is a node connected to many others and each move has widespread effects.

Out of the various encounters, a sense of personal growth is also attributed to the collaborative landscape. A prominent theme regarding the emergence of the self through being part of the group is evident in the stories. As the following quotations demonstrate, this growth relates to the atmosphere that encourages taking risks, being adventurous and open to new possibilities, and allows making mistakes. There is a notion of transformative processes that are intertwined with the collaborative experience.

Dina: I see this combination of our teaching and thinking about our teaching as something that is interwoven, giving us a feeling of progress and growth….people here think in terms of how can we do things differently. They don’t cling to the familiar. They’re ready to try and also fail… Judith: We all know this kind of life. It’s rather turbulent, no land of milk and honey, but when I put those things aside, I truly think that my years in ACE are among the most meaningful years in my career, in the sense of combining practice with personal interaction with students, and between working with colleagues, teaching, thinking, studying .The most powerful thing I

take from these years is the feeling of creation….it’s the feeling I have a home where I can develop.

This theme of collaboration is also prominent in much of our research which examines the mechanisms and dimensions of our co-existence as a theme (Barak, Gidron, & Turniansky, 2010) and the processes of collaborative research and curriculum-making (Tuval, Barak & Gidron, 2011). Studying the self is actually our “subject matter.” This is our curriculum, and by doing it we explore this curriculum.

Thus it seems that our collaboration gets the most “screen time” in our narrative and it might make one wonder where teacher education is in all this. The students’ views and the ways they describe their teacher education experience shed some light on this aspect.

Students’ and graduates’ perspectives. The students’ and graduates’ reflections on their studies in ACE are first told through their narratives about the ways they experienced their learning in the program and how it influenced them. The theme of “the learner’s personal experience” in the program is prominent in every story we heard. Relational experiences such as participation, listening to each other, and breaking boundaries are sharpened in the stories. The essence of this experience as learning emerges during this process, sometimes to their surprise.

Hadar (end of 1st year): When I brought my story … and the group was interested and discussed it, I felt that my learning was most effective, especially the chance to share my feelings and emotions as I expressed them in the story I chose to share.Rami (end of 1st year): Week two, I still haven’t really mastered the names of the workshops. I feel I’m slowly making my way to “happiness.” I feel I’m going through a process that’s different from what I knew or what I could even imagine existed. A totally different learning environment—as if I came from another planet.…The workshops and the learning in ACE in general bring out things that were well hidden inside me, in the depths of my soul. And for me, it’s still too early to know if that’s a good thing or not.Liat (graduate): I know there are different kinds of learning, and what ACE gives is more the experiential and fun kind, and less the high school or university kind … it’s a different kind of learning. This is why I can’t tell whether I learned in ACE or not… yes in general… Learning, in this sense, gains a new and unexpected

meaning. In the above quotations we can see a narrative of learning without “tangible” subject matter to rely upon. There is some confusion regarding this new experience, a lack of words to describe it and, at times, difficulty in conceptualizing it as learning. Actually, the absence of the traditional experience of content learning is regarded by some as the weak aspect of the curriculum.

Imad (graduate): I tell you the style [of teaching] is OK, but you should add some more subject matter so the teacher doesn’t arrive at school for the first time not knowing the curriculum, the content… you should expose us to the content. Learn both sides—how to be involved and how to understand the subject matter in depth.The major sense of learning is about themselves as

human beings, members of a community, and learners. This might be interpreted as a transformative experience in regard to personal-professional development.

Yael (end of 1st year): What’s the secret of the magic? What makes a person change or change his actions? Looking back over this year I tried to understand what

made me change and what changed my perception of myself as a teacher. The conclusion is: everything I learned and believed in came from me and only from me. It doesn’t matter how much they tell you to do something and if they tell you it’s recommended, etc. If you don’t understand it from within yourself, you didn’t learn anything….That’s the secret of ACE—the guidance and facilitation to get answers through your practice. I doubt I’ll remember the different workshops I had in another few years but I’m sure I’ll take to heart the new way of thinking that I got to know this year, a way that invites a wealth of possibilities, a patient and diverse way, one that allows each of us to find a good, safe place.Yafa (graduate): What they teach you here is to look into yourself and bring your own personality, who you are, into your teaching. Not “the teacher” but yourself. To look the kids straight in the eye, to see them as pupils, not just empty vessels to fill with knowledge… it’s beyond this, it’s not just teaching history… There’s an initiative here to introduce a different kind of pedagogy, on both personal and school levels. Here I learned to see how I can recruit the people around me and the families.

Yafa refers to “tools” she adopted as a teacher, which are actually the relational tools. Imad’s words that follow demonstrate how he made the links between the egalitarian environment he experienced as pre-service teacher and his work as a teacher.

Imad (graduate): In ACE the teacher isn’t “up there,” above … the students are given a feeling they’re partners. They give you the feeling that you’re part of the learning process itself. And this is very good.…most of the time when you [as a teacher] talk to a pupil he can share problems with you… then you can start from this point, can bring up the issues and start help fix it.The graduates’ stories also reveal their developed sense

of autonomy and readiness to try uncommon solutions within their classes and their schools. They see opportunities to author their own ways and they dare to take them.

The following quote from Liat, a kindergarten teacher, demonstrates how she dared to question the norms of the school where she worked and bring about change. Liat’s kindergarten was part of a K-6 elementary school, where school norms were “forced” on the kindergarten classes.

Liat (graduate): I make small changes where I can. For example, birthdays. It was very important for me that the parents participate in the parties. I told the other teachers and they looked at me suspiciously. I went to the head and told her: “Listen, this is a kindergarten, although it’s in the school, so it’s possible to have the parents with us.” … They (the other teachers) told me that parents weren’t interested. I sent letters to the parents and found out that most of them wanted to come.… In the end, another teacher told me, “You should know, I’ve been trying to organize that for nine years (!) … congratulations” … The parents came and we all enjoyed it … I think this is something I did despite the system… because it was important for me.

Concluding RemarksThe stories of teacher education, as told from both

perspectives, share an interesting end point. Both teacher educators and graduates tell their experience as a personal learning journey taken in the context of a participative learning environment. Members from both groups emphasize the

intensity of their personal learning processes in relation to the learning environment and others’ roles in its dynamics.

This understanding highlights the dynamics and intersubjective facets of the curriculum as major texts that influence learning. Relational pedagogy, as comes out of this, is situated in a space that legitimizes and encourages divergent ways of becoming. The data reveal the emotional intensity of this experience in which effects and desire are entangled within the learning process, and a sense of reframing the notion of learning to include risk taking and openness to new experiences. This space can be viewed as a nomadic space (Deleuze & Guatarri, 1987) in which both we and our students explored new territories of practice and learning. Nomadism entails trying unscripted routes, making choices, and blurring boundaries and therefore helps us theorize the conceptual framework of our relational pedagogy. Curriculum-making in a collaborative landscape entails leaving known comfort zones and creating an edge environment in which norms and identities are constantly negotiated (Gorodetsky & Barak, 2008; Mansur et al., 2011). Creating an edge involves processes of de-territorialization from its participants, who become nomads in an unscripted space of possibilities.

The idea of pedagogy of teacher education as relational and transitional refers to the potential of such a space to become transformative for both students and teacher educators, and emphasizes the holistic sense of such an experience. Understanding teacher education pedagogy from this point of view supports the notion of teaching as human activity that entails engagement and feelings of meaningfulness (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2009). We believe that this view can open up the horizons of teacher education toward unforeseeable possibilities that might now exist as blind spots within our professional space.

Our experience tells us this is not an easy route. It is not pre-planned pedagogy; it builds upon resonance of paradoxes (Mansur et al., 2011). This work highlights some of the problematic and conflicting situations that it entails as well as the opportunities it holds for teacher education pedagogy. We hope this conceptualization can serve as trigger for others to set out on a nomadic journey, to create edge spaces of their own—to be in the in-between.

ReferencesBarak, J., Gidron, A., & Turniansky, B. with the collaboration

of Arafat, A., Friling, D., Mansur, R., Simca, M., Tuval, S., & Weinberger, T. (2010). “Without stones there is no arch”: A study of professional development of teacher educators as a team. Professional Development in Education, 36, 275–287.

Boyd, R., MacNeill, N., & Sullivan, G. (2006). Relational pedagogy: Putting balance back into students’ learning. Curriculum Leadership: An Electronic Journal for Leaders in Education, 4(13). Retrieved from http://cmslive.curriculum.edu.au/leader/default.asp?id=13944&issueID=10277

Britzman, D. (2007). Teacher education as uneven development: Toward a psychology of uncertainty. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10, 1–12.

Brownlee, J. M., & Berthelsen, D. M. (2008). Developing relational epistemology through relational pedagogy: New ways of thinking about personal epistemology in teacher education. In M. S. Khine (Ed.), Knowing, knowledge, and beliefs: Epistemological studies across diverse cultures (pp. 399–416). New York: Springer.

Bullough, R. V., Jr., & Pinnegar, S. (2009). The happiness of teaching (as eudaimonia): Disciplinary knowledge and the threat of performativity. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15, 241–256.

Craig, C. J. (2011). Narrative inquiry in teaching and teacher education. In J. Kitchen, D. Ciuffetelli Parker, & D. Pushor (Eds.), Narrative inquiries into curriculum making in teacher education (pp. 19–42). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). Thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Gidron, A., Barak, J., Arafat, A., & Weinberger, T. (2009). Who are the teachers we educate? (Research report.) Tel Aviv: Mofet Institute.

Gorodetsky, M., & Barak, J. (2008). The educational-cultural edge: A participative learning environment for co-emergence of personal and institutional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1907–1918.

Mansur, R., Tuval, S., Barak, J., Turniansky, B., Gidron, A., & Weinberger, T. (2011). Storying curriculum making in a collaborative research and teaching landscape. In J. Kitchen, D. Ciuffetelli Parker, & D. Pushor (Eds.), Narrative inquiries into curriculum making in teacher education (pp. 91–107). Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing.

Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M. L.(2009) ‏. Self-study of practice as a genre of qualitative research: Theory methodology, and practice. New York / Heidelberg: Springer.

Phillips, D. K. (2010). On transitional space, unresolved conflicts, and an uncertain teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16, 633–644.

Spector-Mersel, G. (2011). Mechanisms of selection in claiming narrative identities: A model for interpreting narratives. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(2), 172–185.

Turniansky, B., Barak, J., Tuval, S., Gidron, A., & Mansur, R. (2010). Conversations in a collaborative space: From stories to concepts to dimensions. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 303–312.

Tuval, S., Barak, J., & Gidron, A. (2011). Negotiating a team identity through collaborative self-study. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 201–210.

Zembylas, M. (2005). A pedagogy of unknowing: Witnessing unknowability in teaching and learning. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 24, 139–160.

Zembylas, M. (2007). Emotional ecology: The intersection of emotional knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 355–367.

This self-study is a collaborative research project in two voices: a doctoral student who was a middle-school curriculum support teacher but had no university teaching experience and a veteran faculty member who was a department chair with 32 years of university teaching experience. The major purpose of the study was for both the prospective teacher educator and professor to critically analyze their learning as apprentice and mentor.

Research has shown doctoral programs socialize students into the “norms, values, and ethics” of an academic career (Austin, 2009, p. 173). That socialization is aided by faculty mentoring of doctoral students, which has been shown to have benefits for the mentee, mentor, and institution (Noonan, Ballinger, & Black, 2007). In fact, the Carnegie Foundation’s report on doctoral education (Walker, Golde, Jones, Bueschel, & Hutchings, 2008) has deemed apprenticeship with multiple mentors as the “signature pedagogy” of the doctorate.

While mentoring of doctoral students has widespread support, most of the research focuses on facilitating the role of researcher rather than the role of teacher. The lack of information on learning to teach pre- and in-service courses is unfortunate because learning higher education pedagogy has been found to be one of two major challenges (the other being research) necessitating a two- to three-year transition from classroom teacher to teacher educator (Murray & Male, 2005). Ritter (2006), a former classroom teacher, found his teaching philosophy underwent substantial change during this transition period. While a graduate student, his reflections about experiences with student teachers, coursework, and peers led to an ideological shift from a “banking model” (Freire, 1993) to teaching for social transformation (Stanley, 2005). As an assistant professor, Ritter’s (Bullock & Ritter, 2010) personal definition of teaching excellence was again tested by institutional demands and values.

Given the importance of the induction into teacher education, more studies of learning to teach at this level are needed. The present study chronicled an integral part of a doctoral intern’s transition from classroom teacher to teacher educator, a time when the individual learns new mores and assumes another career identity (Murray & Male, 2005).

Context of the StudyThe context of this self-study was a college-wide

Ph.D. program in a large urban university with very high research activity. In this program, students choose between an internship in college teaching and a research-based field project as a capstone course. The doctoral student in this study enrolled in a teaching internship with her committee chair. Since most doctoral students select the field project, this was the first time the professor had served in this specific mentoring role.

The internship took place in a graduate-level literacy education course, titled Children’s Literature in the Elementary Curriculum. The catalog describes this course as an “in-depth examination of traditional and modern literature for children, with emphasis upon genre, historical development, research, and curriculum development.”

The seven graduate students enrolled in the course met on campus weekly for 2.5 hours over the 16-week semester. Most were in their first three years of teaching, although one was a 16-year veteran and one was hired for his first classroom position during the semester of the study. In teaching about children’s books and media, the professor emphasized use of the books and technology to teach critical pedagogy. The major assignment was to plan and teach a critical literacy unit. Evaluated for relevance and appropriateness for a range of learners, the unit was used to address the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education’s Standard 4: Diversity. As stated in the course syllabus, the professor sought to create a learning community in which graduate students felt safe to challenge what happens in schools and in our course.

The lens for the study was Giroux’s (2006) concept of critical pedagogy. In this vision, teachers are “publicly engaged intellectuals who address the most pressing problems of their society as part of a wider politics and pedagogy of solidarity and democratic struggle” (p. 5). Giroux (1987) provided four specific implications of critical pedagogy: (a) different students’ voices are heard and appreciated as the basis for critical dialogue, (b) curriculum materials are analyzed critically, (c) students learn a “language of morality” (p. 179) through which society is evaluated, and (d) students come to believe that their actions have an effect on the world.

Aims/ObjectivesSpecifically, the study explored the question, “What

did the intern learn about using critical pedagogy in teacher education, and how could that learning have been improved?”

MethodsThe study met LaBoskey’s (2004) five conditions for

self-study. Intern and professor both studied ourselves in the context of a graduate teacher education course (“self-initiated and focused”) with the goal of reframing and improving our own practice (“improvement aimed”).

Journals served as a vehicle to extend our thinking about the course, what the graduate students learned, and what we value for in-service teacher education. Throughout the semester, we wrote after each class, addressing ideas in the other’s previous journal entry before writing a new entry. We served as critical friends, responding to thoughts expressed in the journal, then making sense of what we had written through collaborative analysis (“interactive”).

ANDREA BARTLETT & AMANDA PAIGE VOGEL University of Hawaii at Manoa

Extending Inquiry Communities Through Cross-Experience Self-Study

Research methods were “multiple” and “primarily qualitative” (LaBoskey, 2004). We examined the two sets of journals for critical incidents in which our values were elucidated and new goals for practice were set (Russell, 2006; Schon 1983). Furthermore, we looked for tensions that might be expected when learning to live a new story of teacher education (Clandinin, 1993).

Our research process involved reading and rereading the two sets of journals for critical incidents that showed substantial growth in the intern’s theory and practice related to critical teacher education. These incidents provided “engagement in a state of wobble (Fecho, Graham, & Ross, 2005), a time for paying attention to ourselves, others, and our contexts” (Fecho, Lassonde, Mallozzo, Mazaros, & McLean, 2006, p. 82). We were well aware of our responsibility to be trustworthy, even when it meant “revealing understandings about ourselves and our actions that we might rather have kept secret” (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009, p. 160).

A limitation of the study was the power differential involved in teaching and conducting research with one’s doctoral advisee. Recognizing this challenge, the professor modeled critical pedagogy and invited critique whenever possible.

OutcomesAmanda, the doctoral intern, participated actively in

the children’s literature class. Woven through the class was an emphasis on critical literacy. The aim was to provide our graduate students with opportunities to consider marginalized populations within their classrooms and provide curriculum that is more inclusive to those groups. Furthermore, the instructor and intern sought to provide our students with the resources to promote critical literacy in their classrooms.

As Amanda learned to use critical pedagogy in the children’s literature class, her participation included regular meetings with small groups and four presentations on (a) teaching visual literacy, (b) conducting a literature search, (c) podcasting, and (d) supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transvestite (LGBT) students. Since diversity was a major emphasis of the course, we chose her presentation on LGBT students, described below, as the focus for this paper.

Critical incident. Amanda’s presence in the class had encouraged the professor to add a new assignment in which graduate students in the class presented information on social or diversity issues impacting children in their classrooms. To provide an idea of what was expected, Amanda modeled a social issues presentation early in the semester. She selected creating safe schools for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students as the topic because “this population is at risk for physical and verbal assault, increased risk of suicide, decreased feelings of acceptance, increased absences, decreased enrollment in post secondary schools, and generally feeling less safe and accepted in schools.”

Using the projector, Amanda opened her presentation with research showing “through the use of inclusive curricula, gay-straight alliances and supportive teachers and staff, LGBT students experience less harassment and feel a greater sense of school community.” Next, Amanda formed two groups that reviewed children’s books on the topic. The groups discussed whether they would feel comfortable using these texts in their own classes. Some graduate students shared experiences they had had with LGBT children or children with LGBT families in their classrooms. Finally, Amanda showed a Fox News broadcast, “Gay Curriculum Proposal Riles Elementary School Parents,”(see FoxNews.com, 2009) about a school

district that had required one 45-minute LGBT lesson a year, with adjustments by grade level. Some parents had objected, and Amanda asked our graduate students what they would do in this case, finding that “our students seemed torn between wanting to respect the wishes of the parents while desiring to break the cycle of prejudice.”

As the discussion wound down, one graduate student stated that she would not teach such lessons because they conflicted with her religious beliefs. Amanda offered the idea that tolerance did not necessarily require condoning the lifestyle, and ultimately might prevent various dangers LGBT youth face. In response, the graduate student said she would not allow bullying in her class, however, she would not teach about LGBT tolerance because it would give the message she thought this lifestyle was acceptable. After Amanda’s summary and final comments connecting the discussion to the graduate students’ upcoming social-issues presentations, the professor moved the class to a new topic.

Reflections. In response to the professor’s journal entry about the incident, Amanda expressed her surprise at the conservative views held by some of the class and her satisfaction that class members felt “comfortable expressing their ideas and views.” Amanda returned to the incident a week later, still concerned the dissenting graduate student’s beliefs would lead to children feeling marginalized. Amanda wondered, “What action is taken next, or should any further action be taken?”

Amanda’s opinions on a course of action changed during the semester. At first, she thought she could not change graduate students’ perspectives on LGBT students. However, later she wrote,

When I teach at the middle school I would never assume that a child cannot learn something new or change their views, so it would be unfair to state that I would not hold an adult to the same standard. We should seek to change her attitude, so that she can see that it is necessary to understand the needs of LGBT students and to support this population just as she would other marginalized groups in her classroom.Through our work together, however, Amanda and I

found a solution that works for us at this point in our growth, to try to provide the time and freedom needed for graduate students (and us) to reconsider our long-held beliefs. Often, it is other class members who wield the most influence in changing attitudes. Therefore, we see our responsibility as introducing controversial ideas, particularly those related to tolerance, by giving the reasons for our beliefs and encouraging our graduate students to do the same.

DiscussionThe intern participated in a range of activities

throughout the semester. All activities were competently handled, and the intern reflected upon what she had learned from the experiences. However, the researchers chose to focus on the intern’s lesson about supporting LGBT students since it challenged both of us to reframe our views of critical pedagogy and our part in shaping our students’ beliefs.

Intern statement. With the focus of critical pedagogy woven throughout the course, I found myself encouraging the graduate students to take action based on the material presented in class, as well as begin to use critical literacy in their own classrooms.

The social issues presentation focusing on LGBT students and their families was an opportunity in which my understanding of using critical pedagogy developed. I

liked engaging in discussions that challenged me to defend, rethink, or examine my beliefs. In the culture of Hawai`i, this is not always appropriate. Modesty is valued greatly and to challenge another person could be seen as disrespectful. However, in the culture of the College of Education, challenging the status quo is valued because we are seen as teacher leaders in schools and agents of change for the betterment of our students. In this complicated dichotomy, I found myself wanting to encourage thinking about a new perspective without creating apprehension or alienation. In fact, I wondered if my model lesson would have sparked the same response if it had focused on diverse family structures including grandparents raising children, single-parent families, adopted children, and children of LGBT families. Perhaps it would have been the small step that would have seemed more applicable in the classrooms of a greater range of the graduate students. Or perhaps it would have left others seeking to be further challenged. I am still unsure of the right answers, but through the self-study process, reflection, and discussion with my mentor, I was able to consider ideas that might have been otherwise overlooked.

The self-study process itself provided me with the opportunity to reflect and grow as I evaluated my path to becoming a teacher educator. So much time went into planning lessons and activities that it would have been easy to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of class, then start preparing for next week. Instead I looked at my notes from class, reflected, and synthesized responses weekly. Although “the process of looking critically at one’s own practice over a sustained period of time is not always easy” (Dinkelman, 2003, p. 16), I appreciated the opportunity to look critically at my actions, my mentor’s actions, and the graduate students’ actions. I tried to make sense of what occurred during the class and see how our actions contributed to the outcomes. There were various opportunities for me to grow and to see things from this new perspective, as a teacher of adults. Then through looking at Andrea’s responses to my ideas in her journals, I saw things from the perspective of someone with years of experience doing what was all brand new for me. There was the opportunity to improve my own practice by looking back and reflecting on what meaning this class had for me through this additional lens (Cole & Knowles, 1998). This process served to “provoke, challenge, and illuminate rather than confirm and settle” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p. 20) the issues Andrea and I raised throughout the study.

Professor’s statement. Amanda’s internship had a positive impact on the children’s literature course. Her presence encouraged me to add a social issues assignment that supported our emphasis on diversity and tolerance. Amanda’s presentations, technology expertise, and perspectives from her current middle-school teaching enriched the course for our graduate students and for me. My teaching was also at its best, since my awareness of being a model led me to ask more probing questions and give more wait time than in previous classes.

Our unpacking of the LBGT lesson, in particular, clarified that our role as teacher educators is to share our own beliefs and rationales, then give our students multiple opportunities to do the same. It was this incident that provided “a state of wobble” (Fecho et al., 2005) and unearthed tensions (Clandinin, 1993) that led to the most interaction and growth for the two researchers. Amanda had modeled what we hoped our students would do, confront controversial topics with the children in their classrooms. She had spoken passionately about the dangers LGBT students face and differentiated tolerance from condoning a lifestyle. The graduate student

who said she would not teach this topic had said she would prevent bullying. At the time, I thought Amanda had done all that we should do. However, looking back at the incident I realize I should have supported her position, perhaps by talking about tolerance in a more general sense and leading a discussion on what teachers can do to prevent bullying. Broadening the topic would have invited the dissenting graduate student back into the conversation and moved the class toward accepting all children as diverse individuals.

The experience also helped me to reframe my view of teaching internships.

Amanda and I did not plan together, and the course remained mostly mine. There was also a tendency to shelter Amanda’s time given her demanding job and doctoral studies. Looking back, I see I may have done her a disservice since the goal should be to have “collaborators [who] are jointly involved in developing the study and in learning through their shared experiences” (Taylor et al., 2006, p. 247). In the future, I will try to make the teaching internship more of a “shared adventure” (Loughran & Northfield, 1998, p. 16) through developing courses with my interns and re-conceptualizing with them as the courses evolve. That change would provide a more transformative experience for intern, mentor, and our students.

Rereading the two sets of journals after the semester ended also provided too many instances of missed signals and unanswered questions. In the future, I will give more careful attention to the issues that arise and follow up verbally and in writing despite our busy schedules.

Extending the inquiry community to include Amanda brought both of us greater clarity and renewed enthusiasm for our chosen field. As earlier researchers have shown, there were benefits in this apprenticeship for the intern, mentor, and our graduate students (Noonan et al., 2007). Although she was an effective middle school teacher, Amanda’s journals showed that continued learning is still necessary to become the type of teacher educator she wants to be, one who supports change in teachers’ beliefs and practices (Bullock & Ritter, 2010; Murray & Male, 2005; Ritter, 2006). Our experiences demonstrate the value of college teaching internships: Learning to pass on the knowledge of our field should be at least equal to learning to create new knowledge!

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Russell, T. (2006). How 20 years of self-study changed my teaching. In C. Kosnik, C. Beck, A. Freese, & A. P. Samaras (Eds.), Making a difference in teacher education through self-study: Studies of personal, professional and program renewal (pp. 3–18). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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Context of the StudyI teach at the pre-service and graduate levels at OISE/

University of Toronto, a school of education with a variety of pre-service programs: one-year and two-year post-baccalaureate programs, many with differing cohort structures and emphases, and a five-year concurrent program. In pre-service, I teach a social foundations course called “School & Society,” within a one-year post-baccalaureate program with its own faculty team and about 70 students. The students are preparing to teach junior/intermediate (grades 4–8). Our program, which is called Midtown, focuses especially on community and inclusion.

Earlier in my career at OISE/UT, I taught and supervised only at the graduate level, also serving from time to time in academic administrator roles. The program in which I taught then was philosophy of education, my Ph.D. having been in philosophy; at one stage I was president of the American Philosophy of Education Society. However, my interests were always more school-oriented than those of my philosophy of education colleagues. This I think was partly because I was certified as a teacher and my mother and sister were teachers. But in addition, while recognizing the good work teachers do, I am passionate about the need for better schooling for our young people. In line with these interests, 15 years ago I started teaching and supervising in the Midtown pre-service program and soon afterwards transferred from philosophy of education to the Curriculum, Teaching & Learning Department. My teaching continues to be split about half and half between pre-service and graduate levels.

Since becoming involved in pre-service I have conducted research on the Midtown program as a whole, looking especially at community building in the cohort and the relationship between the campus program and the practicum (Beck & Kosnik, 2001, 2002a, 2002b, 2006; Kosnik & Beck, 2003a, 2003b). My concern in the present self-study research was to focus more closely on my School & Society course, attempting to find ways to enhance both its content and pedagogy and to clarify my identity and role as its instructor.

I like to think that, in attempting to improve the School & Society course, I was not just trying save it. For one thing, I’m not adamant about the need for social foundations courses in teacher education, since the same goals could conceivably be achieved in other courses such as Teacher Education Seminar, Issues in Teaching, and Practicum Seminar. And at a personal level, if School & Society did not exist there are other pre-service courses I would be glad to teach. But given that the course does exist and I’m teaching it, I wanted to make it as worthwhile as possible.

About 20 sections of School & Society are taught at OISE/UT, and the content varies greatly. My central aim in teaching the course is to help student teachers develop a coherent teaching “vision” or “approach,” which many believe

is essential for surviving, thriving, and being effective as a teacher (Hammerness, 2006; Kennedy, 2006; Tom, 1997). Other courses in Midtown tend to be more theoretical or more practical. As noted, I want to help our student teachers integrate the key components of teaching while also running the gamut from basic theory to concrete practice. This is a tall order, and it would be ideal if all the courses in the program did more along these lines. However, in the absence of greater program integration, I try to do what I can within my course while linking up with other instructors where possible on certain topics or themes (e.g., community, inclusion, program development, pupil assessment).

Aim/Objectives of the StudyStudent teachers and new teachers often report that

their pre-service program was not practical enough and did not help them very much in figuring out how to teach in real classrooms (Kosnik & Beck, 2009). Although they see the need for general goals and principles, they say they did not really understand a lot of the theory in their program or how to implement it. This problem tends to be especially acute in relation to social and psychological foundations courses.

The main purpose of my self-study research was to explore how to teach my School & Society course so that it would assist student teachers more in developing an approach to teaching that is sound, both theoretically and practically (with variations, of course, from teacher to teacher). The central question, then, was “How can I help foster a coherent teaching approach among my student teachers that ranges from broad concepts and goals to effective and feasible everyday practice?”

Theory, Issues, and ResearchMy theoretical orientation is broadly social constructivist

(Richardson, 1997; Vygotsky, 1978). I think student teachers should co-construct their teaching approach with their instructors (Wells, 1994), who in turn should constantly learn from their students (Beck & Kosnik, 2006). In Schön’s (1987) terms, the relationship between pre-service “coaches” and their students should be one of “dialogue,” such that the inquiry mode is “reciprocal reflection-in-action” (p. 101). Among other things, this implies that student teachers should have a considerable amount of “air time” in class. If discussion is lacking, or is tightly scripted through assigned group tasks, students don’t have a chance to think for themselves or critique and test the ideas to which they are exposed. Moreover, they don’t have an opportunity to experience a constructivist or dialogical approach themselves. They may even wonder if we actually believe in it, seeing that we do not practice it.

The notion of learning with student teachers in dialogical mode is supported by Munby and Russell (1994). Drawing on

CLIVE BECK OISE/University of Toronto

The Never-Ending Story: Studying and Fine-Tuning My Teacher Education Practice

insights developed by Schön (1983, 1987), they emphasize that the past successful experience of pre-service instructors does not (or should not) translate automatically into an “authority of experience,” which is then imposed on student teachers. Following Schön, they point out that transmitting experience through language is problematic since it often cannot be expressed in propositional form; it is something that student teachers must experience for themselves. Based on their own research, they note that student teachers often want to be told how to teach by their more experienced instructors, but they argue that this outlook must as far as possible be replaced by a willingness on the part of student teachers to learn through their own experience, albeit in dialogue with instructors. Student teachers should be helped to understand the experience-based nature of teacher inquiry, which will stand them in good stead not only during the pre-service program but in their later teaching career.

One reason why pre-service instructors sometimes have difficulty teaching in a constructivist, dialogical manner—despite our theoretical commitments—is because there is “so much to cover” in such a short period of time. For example, I have 36 hours over a nine-month program. Feiman-Nemser (2001) describes some teacher educators as “trying to cram too much into their courses, because they believe this is their last chance to influence prospective teachers” (p. 1016). In order to overcome this “coverage” mentality, a number of researchers in recent years, including Feiman-Nemser, have argued that we should focus on a limited number of key dimensions of teaching. For example, Hagger and McIntyre (2006) state that in initial teacher education “it is always necessary to be selective, to prioritize” (p. 6). And Bransford, Darling-Hammond, and LePage (2005) advocate concentrating on “the essential knowledge for beginning teachers” (p. 3).

Sometimes a broad approach is justified on the ground that it is less prescriptive. It exposes student teachers to a wide range of ideas and strategies, leaving them free and equipped to choose their own teaching approach. Focusing on “essential knowledge” and “core ideas” is seen as a form of indoctrination. Who are we, it is asked, to impose a particular teaching approach (Bransford et al., 2005; Kennedy, 2006). However, this position is problematic in two ways. First, it does not work. Most new teachers are so overwhelmed by the challenges of real teaching that they don’t have time to devise a teaching approach through selection from the ideas covered in the program. If anything they tend to forget those ideas, even if they understood them in the first place. Second, there is a perfectly viable, non-indoctrinative alternative. We can work with student teachers in together developing an effective, focused, feasible approach to teaching, which of course will be adapted by individuals to their distinctive styles, beliefs, and circumstances (Bransford et al., 2005).

Similar arguments are sometimes used to justify emphasizing theory rather than practice in pre-service education. Given the lack of time in the program, pre-service instructors should focus on general issues, ideals, and principles, leaving it to student teachers and new teachers to figure out their own way of implementing them. But once again, this line of reasoning is flawed. First, as before, this is expecting too much of beginning teachers, given the pressures they are under. Second, we can discuss practical implementation with student teachers during the program. And third, unless student teachers have a good sense of what the theory means in practice, they are unable to understand it, let alone critique it. As Dewey (1938) observed, pedagogical principles on their own have little value: “everything depends

upon the interpretation given them as they are put into practice” (p. 20).

For the above reasons, then, I believe it is important in a pre-service foundations course to explore and model a constructivist, dialogical pedagogy that runs the gamut from abstract theory to concrete practice. In this study, my goal was to experiment with various ways of doing this. However, I wish to emphasize that in doing so I tried to remain open to assessing and significantly redefining constructivism itself: I think that even our constructivist assumptions should be subject to ongoing critique and modification.

MethodMy research approach was within the self-study

paradigm (Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009). It was “self-initiated and self-focused,” “improvement aimed,” and primarily qualitative in nature (LaBoskey, 2004) and resulted in “knowledge generation and presentation” (Samaras, 2006, p. 10). It involved case-study elements and a modified grounded-theory approach, including “constant comparison” of emerging theory with the data (Merriam, 2009; Punch, 2009). My grounded-theory method was “modified” in that I was open to new discoveries rather than being a “blank slate”. My past experience, reading, and reflection gave rise to ideas that I brought to the research, although these changed substantially through the impact of the data.

As LaBoskey (2004) notes, self-study research is in an important sense self-focused, with substantial emphasis on reconstruction of the identity of the self, both personally and as an instructor. This is certainly true of my own research reported here. In an earlier paper (Beck, 2010) I described in detail how my personal and professional identity has changed dramatically as a result of reflection-in-action as a scholar and teacher. Making the transition to genuinely constructivist and dialogical teaching, with an integration of theory and practice in the face of prevailing academic norms, requires deeply personal changes and commitments.

The methodology contained elements of “action research” in that it followed a “series of flexible cycles” (Somekh, 2006, p. 6): ongoing action, problem identification, data gathering, reflection, modified action, additional problem identification, and so on. The trustworthiness of the research was addressed by having a “critical friend” review the same data, having the student teachers examine my emerging ideas rather systematically, and seeking the input of program graduates who were no longer within the orbit of the program. It should be noted that my critical friend observed me teaching on several occasions throughout the research. In addition, students had opportunities to give extensive anonymous evaluation of my teaching, in such a way that the power differential can be assumed to have been significantly reduced.

The data sources were as follows:• Feedback from students through emails, class papers, anonymous course evaluations, and comments in class. • Regular feedback from and discussion with a critical friend in teacher education familiar with the program context.• Regular presentation to and feedback from a teacher educator support group. • Yearly one-hour interviews with graduates of the program, six of them over a seven-year period and seven over a four-year period. Each interview was supplemented by about two hours of observation in the teacher’s classroom.

• My own journal of reflections on how the classes are going, their apparent impact on the student teachers, and possible ways to improve them.

OutcomesThis self-study research is ongoing; however, the

following are a few of the main insights I have gained and changes that have occurred in my practice.

The research has given me more insight into the complex and challenging role of a classroom teacher, and hence the need to foster a more realistic approach to teaching. On the whole, the students in my course each year are as idealistic and unrealistic as I was, given my philosophy background, although their reports of the challenges they face in their practicum schools do push us in a more realistic direction. Much stronger influences in this respect have been the interviews with past students, especially during their initial years of teaching, and dialogue with my critical friend, who was a classroom teacher for many years.

I have come to see more clearly that, given the challenges of classroom teaching—large class sizes, the wide ability range in a class, the integration of “special needs” students in regular classrooms (which I agree with, on the whole), and constant and often misguided directives from the education bureaucracy—teachers can implement their ideals only to a degree. Teaching is always a compromise, a matter of doing the best one can under the circumstances. And I increasingly encourage my students to recognize this for their own sanity while looking for ways to achieve their ideals more fully over time.

Another challenge is that teachers must spend virtually the whole day teaching academic subjects, and hence the broader social, cultural, and value issues we dwell on so much in pre-service have to be addressed in that context. Once again, this problem can be overcome to some extent, for example by organizing subject teaching around themes with social and personal relevance. However, figuring out how to do this is a career-long task. In my course now, we spend more time discussing the centrality of subject teaching to schooling (because of traditions over which we have little control), and considering examples of how to integrate broader issues within a particular subject or across several subjects.

At a personal level, while this greater realism with respect to teaching has been difficult to accept and apply, given my background and natural tendencies, it has helped me link theory and practice in a way I have long advocated in theory. Further, it has made me more comfortable teaching pre-service classes, where students want to be ready to go into the classroom, and graduate classes where most of the students are already experienced teachers.

I now have more respect for student teachers and classroom teachers and am more aware of the flaws of disenfranchising them. This in turn has strengthened my commitment to a constructivist, dialogical approach to teacher education. As discussed earlier, while we typically advocate constructivism in pre-service programs, we often “preach” or “lecture” about it (Dewey, 1916, p. 46), instead of practicing it ourselves. As I have listened to the views and experiences of new teacher graduates from our program and given present students more voice in my course, I have seen that they often have important insights that had not occurred to me. In addition, certain members of my pre-service classes already understand points I planned to make, and I have found that it better to have the ideas come from them than from me. It increases their confidence, provides an example of teacher

and students learning together, and leads to greater ownership and engagement in learning.

Shifting to a more dialogical style of teaching has required an adjustment of my self-concept and my relationship with my students. I have sensed the danger of loss of status when students no longer see me as “the expert” who is initiating them into the mysteries of teaching. I am particularly sensitive to this given my background in philosophy: I am keen to establish that I do have valuable insights into practice.

I have found, however, that any loss of status of this kind is outweighed by advantages. First, by following this approach rather than always pretending I have practical advice to offer, I am actually learning more about practice and therefore feel more comfortable in my role. Second, I find that when I come to class with the thought “what am I going to learn today” rather than “here we go again,” my motivation is significantly increased. Third, I have a better relationship with my students than I would as remote expert, and as a result the class experience is more enjoyable. Finally, the students on the whole appreciate this approach. While in my view some do not fully understand its value, two types of feedback I frequently get through informal comments, e-mails, and course evaluations are “We appreciate your frankness about the realities of teaching” and “This is one of the few courses in which we have real discussions and can say what we think.”

My course is increasingly effective in helping the student teachers and new teachers develop an approach to teaching that is focused, integrated, and feasible. As discussed earlier, I believe that a foundations course should not remain abstract but should assist future teachers in their day-to-day practice. It should help them understand the key goals of teaching and how to build these into a feasible approach to teaching. Having listened to their presentations and discussion, read their papers, received feedback on the course, and studied the new teachers’ ideas and practices after graduation, I believe the course has helped them move in this direction.

ReferencesBeck, C. (2010). Experiences in philosophy of education: A

self-portrait. Paideusis, 19(2), 10–15.Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2001). From cohort to community in

a pre-service teacher education program. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 925–948.

Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2002a). Components of a good practicum placement: Student teacher perceptions. Teacher Education Quarterly, 29(2), 81–98.

Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2002b). Professors and the practicum: Involvement of university faculty in pre-service practicum supervision. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 6–19.

Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2006). Innovations in teacher education: A social constructivist approach. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Bransford, J., Darling-Hammond, L., & LePage, P. (2005). Introduction. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 1–39). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York, NY: Collier-Macmillan.

Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). From preparation to practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1013–1055.

Hagger, H., & McIntyre, D. (2006). Learning teaching from teachers: Realizing the potential of school-based teacher education. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Hammerness, K. (2006). Seeing through teachers’ eyes: Professional ideals and classroom practices. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Kennedy, M. (2006). Knowledge and vision in teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(3), 205–211.

Kosnik, C., & Beck, C. (2003a). The internship component of a teacher education program: Opportunities for learning. The Teacher Educator, 39(1), 18–34.

Kosnik, C., & Beck, C. (2003a). The contribution of faculty to community building in a teacher education program: A student teacher perspective. Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(3), 99–114.

Kosnik, C., & Beck, C. (2009). Priorities in teacher education: The 7 key elements of pre-service preparation. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

LaBoskey, V. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. Loughran, M. Hamilton, V. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Merriam, S. (2009). Qualitative research: A Guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Munby, H., & Russell, T. (1994). The authority of experience in learning to teach: Messages from a physics methods class. Journal of Teacher Education, 45(2), 86–94.

Punch, K. (2009). Introduction to research methods in education. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Richardson, V. (Ed.). (1997). Constructivist teacher education: Building a world of new understandings. London, United Kingdom: Falmer.

Samaras, A. (2006). Self-study teacher research: Improving your practice through collaborative inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Somekh, B. (2006). Action research: A methodology for change and development. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Tidwell, D., Heston, M., & Fitzgerald, L. (Eds.). (2009). Research methods for the self-study of practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Tom, A. (1997). Redesigning teacher education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wells, G. (1994). Changing schools from within: Creating communities of inquiry. Toronto, Canada: OISE Press/Heinemann.

IntroductionAt Arcadia University, two teacher educators

(Bhukhanwala and Dean) have collaborated in the design and facilitation of a voluntary, supplemental student teaching seminar using Theater of the Oppressed (TO) activities. The purpose of these seminar meetings is to engage student teachers in examining their experiences of grappling with disparities and tensions, as we believe that it is in the process of grappling with these complexities that student teachers reframe their identities (Britzman, 2003) and surpass their perceived limitations to imagine new possibilities to create a just and a humane society (Greene, 1995). We have written and presented about student teachers perspectives on their participation in Boalian Theater. Recently, we have shifted our focus from understanding our students’ experiences to considering our own learning. In this self-study, I (Foram) am interested in systematically inquiring into my experiences with the Jokering role in facilitating theater activities as envisioned by Boal and others and as I lived the role with the student teachers.

I am a beginning pre-tenured, immigrant teacher educator who formerly has had experiences working with linguistically and culturally diverse groups in the US and India prior to this research. Dedicated to social justice in education, I contend that using Performative Pedagogy with preservice teachers is empowering. This pedagogy creates an aesthetic space not only for reflecting critically but also for engaging them in empathy and perspective taking. Participants often report increased understanding of their students’ and other professionals’ perspectives that could foster better communication and enhanced relationships (Bhukhanwala & Allexsaht-Snider, in press). Furthermore, a Critical Performative Pedagogy (CPP) such as Theater of the Oppressed (TO) provides a context for preservice teachers to take embodied actions and rehearse interventions which they could consider using later in real life to transform the way they relate to others in a diverse world (Bhukhanwala & Allexsaht-Snider, in press; Boal, 2003, 2006; Cahnmann-Taylor & Souto-Manning, 2010).

Research QuestionsThe guiding research question for this paper is “What

did I learn about facilitating TO activities to address student teachers’ experiences with difference and helping student teachers to engage in critical reflections?” In this inquiry, I am seeking to develop strategies that could help in effectively engaging student teachers in critical reflections.

Conceptual Framework: Critical Performance Pedagogy

CPP acknowledges that all learning is influenced by cultural differences and by the context in which it takes place (Ladson-Billings, 1999; Nieto, 2004) and we need to attend to that which is expressed and to the voices that are silenced. In other words, we need to study the socio-cultural-historical-political frame within which knowledge is constructed as well as the content.

My work with CPP in teacher education is informed by Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed (TO). For Boal, TO is grounded in the work of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1974) and is a safe aesthetic space for people to come together to rehearse for reality and restore dialogue among human beings (Bhukhanwala, 2007; Boal, 2003, 2006; Cahnmann-Taylor & Souto-Manning, 2010; Harman & French, 2004). For Greene (1995), aesthetic spaces allow students and teachers to imagine. Imagination is a way of engaging in empathy and perspective-taking: “It is becoming a friend of someone else’s mind” (p. 38). Cahnmann-Taylor and Souto-Manning (2010) assert that in the fields of multicultural teacher education and research, little attention has been given to being imaginative. Through a performative approach, teacher education may become a context for exploring issues of systemic and local oppressions (Harman & French, 2004), engaging in perspective-taking (Bhukhanwala & Allexsaht-Snider, in press), thinking about a change, and taking embodied actions to transform the ways teachers relate to their students in a diverse world. With this approach, theater is seen as a reflection of daily activities of human beings. Theater serves the function of bringing a community together for celebration, entertainment, and dialogue (Blanco, 2000) as well as for problem-posing and generating multiple possibilities. Jackson (1991) says, “Victims of the oppression under consideration are able to offer alternative solutions because they themselves are personally acquainted with oppression” (p. xxiv).

Role play and simulation have been used as learning techniques in education (Crawford, 2004; Griss, 1998). Theater of the Oppressed differs from these approaches in several ways. Unlike traditional role play, in Boalian Theater, the topics/situations and the scripts for the role play are generated by the participants and are embedded in their lived experiences. Furthermore, by inviting the spectators to enact their possible solutions, the Boalian Theater often becomes an aesthetic space where participants reflect on their assumptions, engage in perspective-taking, and rehearse their actions for future.

FORAM BHUKHANWALA Arcadia University

Learning From Using Theater of the Oppressed in a Student Teaching Seminar: A Self-Study

Context of the Larger Study This self-study is situated within the context of a larger

ongoing study. The study is situated in a liberal arts university in the mid-Atlantic United States. The undergraduate and graduate student teachers participated in a voluntary, supplemental seminar during their student teaching semester. Eight two-hour seminar meetings were facilitated in each semester (fall 2011, spring 2012). A total of 12 undergraduate and graduate student teachers from diverse backgrounds participated in these seminars. Data were generated using multiple sources. The video tapes from 16 seminar meetings; photographs; four individual and four group interviews (audio-taped and later transcribed); ongoing post-session reflections with Kim; and personal reflections served as data. The ongoing analysis involved the use of constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). We used line-by-line coding to create properties, categories, and themes. Further analysis was done by creating axial codes. Axial coding helped to specify the properties and dimensions of the categories that were constructed through line-by-line coding. Furthermore, axial coding allowed us to sort, synthesize, and organize data that could be used in explaining the relationships between categories more fully.

Self-Study MethodsRussell (2008) argues that “Self-study relies on

interaction with close colleagues who can listen actively and constructively. Self-study relies on ideas and perspectives presented by others and then takes into one’s personal teaching and research contexts for exploration of their meanings and consequences” (p. 5). In this part of the self-study inquiry, I invited Kim Dean to play the role of a critical friend. Kim was a co-facilitator of the Boalian Theater in our student teaching seminar context. As a result she shared an understanding of the context and experience and had ample opportunities to observe me in facilitating the Boalian activities in our seminar meetings.

As defined in self-study methods, critical friends are trusted colleagues who collaborate in the research inquiry process by providing a supportive and a nurturing environment that allows for both intellectual and emotional learning and caring (Kitchen, Ciuffetelli Parker, & Gallagher, 2008; Samaras, 2011). A critical friend engages in an authentic conversation (Clark, 2001), asks critical questions, provides new ideas and interpretations (Samaras, 2011), and offers alternative perspectives. It is through conversing, reflecting, and participating in socially constructed communities that meanings are negotiated and new understandings are constructed which support professional growth and development.

The specific data sources for this inquiry were as follows: Fifteen video tapes of the seminar meetings which were reviewed to examine my practice of facilitation of Boalian Theater activities; ongoing post-session notes from conversations with Kim, who functioned as a critical friend; eight transcribed interviews with student participants; and personal reflections on facilitation. The data were analyzed using open and axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to identify themes, categories, and properties. The analysis was an iterative process and continued into the writing of this manuscript. Using multiple data sources helped in triangulating the data, and the ongoing conversations with a critical friend and my opening myself to accepting the findings helped to make this an authentic inquiry and increase the trustworthiness of the findings.

Findings: Jokering Role Within TOI will first explain the jokering role as articulated by

various Boalian practitioners and then situate my role as a joker as noted in the video data. Fundamental to Augusto Boal’s theatrical process is a facilitator, someone who keeps things moving (Schutzman, 2006), someone who takes responsibility for logical running of the TO activities (Cahnmann-Taylor & Souto-Manning, 2010), and someone who both supports the participants and raises critical questions to engage the spect-actors in critical thinking (Osterlind, 2011). Boal refers to this person as the “joker,” in reference to the wild card in a deck of cards. Just like the joker in a deck of cards, a TO joker can also assume a role as needed, “sometimes director, sometimes referee, sometimes facilitator, sometimes leader” (Linds, 2006, p. 122) and sometimes spect-actor, engaging in a discourse of posing questions, examining social structures, and generating possibilities (Boal 2003; Schutzman, 2006).

In Forum Theater presentations, Boal typically played the role of the director, facilitator, and critic (Boal, 2006). After generating multiple possible interventions to the same situation, Boal asked the spect-actors to consider if the intervention was real; could it happen? By asking such questions, Boal engaged with the spect-actors to challenge and problematize any overly simplified solutions that had been offered. Through the processes of generating possibilities and examining the “realness” of the solutions, the TO participants engaged in a “rehearsal for revolution” (Boal, 1979; p. 155).

On examining the video data, I learned that as a co-facilitator I too wore multiple hats that included taking responsibility for the logistical decisions of TO activities, selecting TO structures to work with, supporting, inviting, and engaging students (including those who were shy and tentative), addressing the audience by posing questions to examine the situation and realness of the solutions, and jumping in to “spect-act” when appropriate.

During the seminars, many of these students brought to light the challenges they experienced with student(s) in their elementary classroom and their host teacher. In posing these challenges, they often raised issues around classroom management and searched for strategies that could help them to “fix” the behaviors of their students. I noticed an absence of the critical perspective in exploring these tensions despite having been exposed to these ideologies in their coursework. This puzzled me as I wondered why the students, in addition to looking for classroom management strategies, did not further explore the issue through a critical lens. What could my role as a teacher educator be in helping students to develop a critical lens and supporting them as they critically examine their assumptions and cultural frames in making sense of diversity?

It was through the ongoing process of debriefing with Kim that I reflected on my assumptions and recognized that somewhere I was taking for granted that the students would automatically engage in critical reflections. I came to see the value of including explicit and intentional questions that could have the potential of engaging the students in critical reflections. After each seminar meeting, we took time to share and unpack the scene and generated a series of questions that could have the potential to engage student teachers in critical reflections: What happened in the drama? What are the power relations among the characters? What type of relationship does this protagonist establish with the antagonist in this scene? What could be the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings? What could be the antagonist’s thoughts and feelings? How does this scene end? What other strategies could possibly lead to a

different outcome, especially an outcome that could be more humane and democratic and would establish an open channel of communication?

On examining the data from my ongoing conversations with a critical friend and from personal reflections, I found the value of slowing down and posing questions as an emerging theme. In the later seminar meetings, I took this learning to inform my jokering practice. From this new perspective, I (re)examined the video data to identify specific moments in the facilitation that demonstrated my use of questions to engage students in developing a critical perspective as one more way of making sense of the difference. I share two such examples to illuminate my role as a joker in promoting student teacher’s reflections of their assumptions and cultural frames in understanding difference.

Example 1: Why can’t they just be quiet? Jessica, a Caucasian student teacher teaching a diverse group of second-grade students in a suburban school district came to one seminar meeting describing her frustration with her students’ failure to follow directions and her inability to understand why they would continue to talk despite being told over and over again not to do so. After the role play was enacted and a few responses generated by the spect-actors, the joker (played by Foram) raised questions to engage Jessica and others in further exploring the assumptions she could be bringing into the interpretation of the situation.

Foram: Jessica, who is a “good” student?Jessica: Someone who follows directions and someone who does not have to be told things over and over again.Foram: What were your experiences with talking in elementary classroom?Jessica: (Straightening up) Oh, we never talked.Foram: You never talked. Why did you not talk? Were there rules about talking?Jessica: I went to a private Catholic school. Our teachers told us once and as students we complied. Our teachers never had to say things over and over again… (Sharing her insight) I guess, I am expecting my second graders to be like how we were growing up in a Catholic school environment.

Having awareness about her own cultural frame, Jessica was able to see how this could be impacting her interpretation of student behavior. Jessica reported that she could now see the humanity of her students and was more willing to be tolerant of their “chattering” behavior. She explained that having this awareness helped her to question her expectations and engage in perspective-taking as one possible response to understanding difference.

Example 2: Opening a communication channel. Kate (a white, graduate student teacher) shared the frustration she felt when her host teacher (an African-American veteran teacher) left her in charge of completing an art project to teach fractions and ME-poems to second graders with a few instructions. Though not all students had completed their work, Kate took the students out during recess. When the host teacher came back the next day, she let Kate know that she was not happy about the quality of the work and would have liked the work to be done differently (in a way not given in the instructions) and that the students should not have been taken out to play when their work was not completed. In the moment, Kate felt unheard and silenced. She did not know how to deal with this situation and proposed we consider a Forum Theater re-enactment of the experience from her student teaching classroom. The embodied experience of (re)enacting the situation, watching her peers generate multiple possibilities, and reflecting on the joker’s questions related

to power and positionality helped Kate to reflect on her assumptions and create new ways of communicating with the teacher. This helped her to bridge the communication gap she had experienced.

Kate later reflected,When we role played and talked about this situation, I realized that I needed to strengthen my communication with my cooperating teacher. They [my peers in their interventions in the role play] offered details about the things that really went well… they clearly stated what [information] they needed from my teacher in the future in order to avoid similar occurrences. This role play activity and critical reflections helped me to realize that there were steps that I needed to take with regard to daily communication that would allow me to avoid similar interactions and strengthen my relationship with my cooperating teacher… asking questions, and clarifying my doubts are not to bother my teacher but are important to ensure that we successfully meet the needs of the students.Using TO, Kate reviewed the situation from multiple

perspectives—the tight school schedule that moved them from one activity into another, leaving little sit-down conversation time; the host teacher’s expectations from her and the students; and her own needs for clear instructions as well as her inhibition to ask further questions in the fear of taking up her teacher’s time. Kate, who earlier had felt intimidated to take time and ask questions, now saw the value of communication and the importance of using questions to be informed about students and the routine activities in the classroom. Above all, she came to recognize her agency and explore steps she could take to bring about a change in her situation. Taking this awareness into student teaching, she kept a list of questions that arose for her during the day and asked them at the end of the day when the teacher had time. She also shared with her host teacher moments in teaching that excited her and made her proud of her students. The teacher responded to the questions Kate asked and provided the needed structure for her to feel successful.

ImplicationsCochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) argue, “In every

classroom where teachers are learners and all learners are teachers, there is a radical but quiet kind of school reform in process” (p. 101). In teacher education, change is possible within the walls of the classroom, in the teacher-student relationship, and at the program level as well. Dinkelman (2003) notes that “when teacher educators develop understandings about their own work in promoting reflective practice through self-study, they generate knowledge that is potentially useful in reforming teacher education programs” (p. 13). Numerous examples of self-study research highlight the value of self-study inquiry to promote reflective practice and professional development. For example, the works of Kitchen et al (2008) and LaBoskey (2008) speak to these outcomes.

Having a critical friend is one approach to collaboration (LaBoskey, 2004; Samaras, 2011). A critical friend is a trusted colleague who engages in authentic conversations (Clark & Florio-Ruane, 2001), someone to problem pose, analyze, and generate possibilities with. These interactions could also benefit TO practitioners to reflect, deepen, and transform one’s practice. Furthermore, collaborating with critical friends could help them to create an emotionally nurturing and intellectually challenging relationship where one could support the other,

mediate, critique the thinking behind the account, and work to create new understandings that may eventually shape one’s TO facilitation, teaching practices, and scholarship.

TO activities offer one way in which teacher educators could engage their preservice teachers to explore issues of difference. By engaging in perspective-taking first and then generating possibilities for changing the situation (even if in small ways), student teachers could reframe their perceptions and thoughts in ways that could help them to build bridges rather than create barriers in their relationships with their colleagues/supervisors and the students they teach. Student teachers often experience stress, anger, and anxiety when they are likely to perceive a situation as oppressive. By taking steps to open channels of communication and build humane relationships, student teachers could create ways of reframing the previously perceived oppressive relationship into a more humane and a collaborative one.

Based on my experiences of facilitating TO activities within a student teaching seminar context, I have come to recognize that the joker plays an important role in asking explicit questions to further initiate critical conversations regarding assumptions and cultural frames as a means of understanding difference and building bridges to transform the perceived difference.

ReferencesBhukhanwala, F. (2007). Pre-service teachers’ perspectives on

Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed: Outcomes and potential (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Georgia, Athens, GA.

Bhukhanwala, F., & Allexsaht-Snider, M. (in press). Diverse student teachers making sense of difference through engaging in Boalian theater approaches. Teaching and Teacher Education: Theory and Practice.

Blanco, J. (2000). Theater of the oppressed and health education with farm workers: A primary research project (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL.

Boal, A. (1979). Theater of the oppressed. (C. McBride & M. McBride, Trans.). New York, NY: Urizen.

Boal, A. (2003). Games for actors and non-actors. New York, NY: Routledge.

Boal, A. (2006). The aesthetics of the oppressed. New York, NY: Routledge.

Britzman, D. P. (2003). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: SUNY.

Cahnmann-Taylor, M., & Souto-Manning, M. (2010). Teachers act up: Creating multicultural learning communities through theater. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Clark, C. M. (2001). Good conversation. In C. M. Clark (Ed.), Talking shop: Authentic conversation and teacher learning (pp. 172-182). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Clark, C., & Florio-Ruane, S. (2001). Conversation as support for teaching in new ways. In C. M. Clark (Ed.), Talking shop: Authentic conversation and teacher learning (pp. 1-15). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1993). Inside/outside: Teacher research and knowledge. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Crawford, L. (2004). Lively learning: Using the arts to teach the K-8 curriculum. Greenfield, MA: NEFC.

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Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Griss, S. (1998). Minds in motion. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Harman, R., & French, K. (2004). Critical performative pedagogy: A feasible praxis for teacher education. In J. O’Donnell, M. Pruyn, & R. Chávez (Eds.), Social justice in these times (pp. 97–115). Greenwich, CT: IAP.

Jackson, A. (1991). Translator’s introduction to the first edition. In A. Boal, Games for actors and non-actors (A. Jackson, Trans.) (pp. xxii-xxvii). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Kitchen, J., Ciuffetelli Parker, D., & Gallagher, T. (2008). Authentic conversation as faculty development: Establishing a self-study group in an education college. Studying Teacher Education, 4(2), 157–177.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2008). Course assignments for self and program renewal: Learning to lesson plan. In C. Kosnik, C. Beck, A. Freese, & A. Samaras (Eds.), Making a difference in teacher education through self-study: Studies of personal, professional, and program renewal (pp. 227–242). Lexington, KY: Springer.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: A critical race theory perspective. Review of Research in Education, 24, 211–247.

Linds, W. (2006). Metaxis: dancing (in) the in-between. In J. Cohen-Cruz & M. Schutzman (Eds.), A Boal companion: Dialogues on theater and cultural politics (pp. 114–124). New York, NY: Routledge.

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Schutzman, M. (2006). Joker runs wild. In J. Cohen-Cruz & M. Schutzman (Eds.), A Boal companion: Dialogues on theater and cultural politics (pp. 133–145). New York, NY: Routledge.

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NATHAN BRUBAKER DAWN GARBETTMonash University University of Auckland

Constructing Pedagogical Identities: Revisiting Our Undergraduate Selves

ContextAs beginning teacher educators, we encountered

some obstacles to realizing our democratic ideals. Students’ deeply rooted familiarity with authoritarian teaching proved particularly powerful in preventing inquiry and interaction from catching immediate fire in our undergraduate courses. Our vision of classroom democracy proved equally problematic since it insufficiently accounted for the magnitude of students’ limited experience with participatory practices. Compromising our democratic ideals to accommodate the context of authoritarian teaching to which our students were accustomed presented us with ongoing processes of conflict and compromise between who we were, had become, and aspired to be relative to our students’ experiences in learning to be teachers. While multiple layers of self inform the inner landscapes (Palmer, 1998) and pedagogical identities (Bullough, 1997) which define our efforts as teacher educators, effectively reframing our practice requires additional insight into the influences (Whitehead & Rayner, 2009) and values (Whitehead, 1989) from throughout our careers. Such insights can help illuminate the dynamics of extending inquiry communities in teacher education.

We know very little, however, about the formative experiences of teacher educators committed to democratic ideals. Research literature from varied educational contexts suggests that the complexity of aligning one’s professional identities as teacher educators (Murray & Male, 2005) parallels that of beginning teachers (Broemmel, Swaggerty, & McIntosh, 2009; Knowles & Cole, 1994). Furthermore, institutional culture (Guilfoyle, Hamilton, Pinnegar, & Placier, 1996), inner conflicts (Wood & Borg, 2010), and communities (Harrison & McKeon, 2010) can all play important roles in shaping the process of becoming teacher educators. While researchers have examined the role that biography (Skerrett, 2008), neophyte experiences (Garbett, 2011), and childhood memories (Seaman, 2011) can play in understanding the process of becoming teacher educators, we have limited insight into the influence of teacher educators’ own initial experiences in gaining professional teaching credentials—namely, as undergraduate teacher education candidates. Such an omission is surprising given that without such insights, we run the risk of experiencing our undergraduate selves—positively, negatively, or otherwise—as untold stories (Sharkey, 2004) and ghosts (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2003) which can implicitly affect, direct, or haunt our everyday practice as teacher educators. A more complete understanding of such influences is necessary to explicitly inform our teacher education practices.

The purpose of this paper is to understand more deeply the process of constructing pedagogical identities as teacher educators by examining our experiences as undergraduate teacher education students. We discuss aspects of our

teaching that illustrate the relevance of our own experiences as undergraduates to helping students learn to be teachers. Specifically, we present insights into how our experiences as undergraduate students have informed our efforts to create more democratic classrooms as teacher educators. We believe that such research is important not only for identifying and making sense of prominent themes from our own undergraduate experiences, but also for discerning their relevance to pedagogical reasoning and judgment as teacher educators more broadly. Such research can help us understand more deeply the influences informing our commitments as teacher educators while assessing the value of students’ undergraduate experiences in our own teacher education classrooms. Furthermore, such understanding can be useful for constructing public knowledge of practice (LaBoskey, 2004) in ways that contribute to professional knowledge about the complexity of teaching teachers how to teach (Russell & Loughran, 2007) and construct identities as teacher educators.

MethodWe conducted this collaborative self-study over one year

at our respective institutions as teacher education faculty at large comprehensive universities in the U.S. and New Zealand. Nathan, who is now a faculty member in Australia, completed his undergraduate studies in physical education and history in the mid-1990s at a mid-sized comprehensive university in the northeastern U.S. He kept extensive personal journals throughout all four years of his undergraduate career, which included detailed accounts of his experiences with academic coursework, summer camps, substitute teaching, practicum, and interactions involving peers, professors, family, and friends. Because of the sheer quantity of data he generated during that time, he used his journals from a six-month period (from June to December of 1995, the first semester of his junior year) as the central focus for this study. He did so for several reasons: first, it represented a defining period in his undergraduate experience characterized by considerable questioning of his reasons for becoming a teacher; second, although he was conflicted about his direction as a teaching professional, the sources of his conflict were more immediately evident than in other semesters he examined; third, the particular semester he selected coincided with the point in his students’ educational careers at which he typically taught them at his institution in the U.S. We considered this combination of factors meaningful for understanding more deeply his experience as an undergraduate while also maximizing the relevance to his current efforts as a teacher educator.

Dawn completed her undergraduate studies in science at a mid-sized university, plus her teaching qualifications concurrently at a Teachers’ College in New Zealand in the

late 1970s. Unlike Nathan, who kept extensive documentation of his undergraduate years, Dawn had few records of her time as an initial teacher education candidate. She therefore wrote survival memos (Brookfield, 1995) to reconstruct her undergraduate career and create a basis for examining more deeply her trajectory into teaching. While Nathan was very serious and determined to become a teacher from the first day of his educational experience as an undergraduate, Dawn hoped to complete her teacher education experience as quickly as possible. As a female in her particular era, teaching was one of the few career options available to her. Coming from such different perspectives, we were able to support each other as “critical friends” (Costa & Kallick, 1993) throughout the study by actively questioning each other’s interpretations, presenting counter arguments, and examining our views from multiple perspectives as a means of unmasking assumptions embedded in our practice (Brookfield, 1995).

In conducting the study, we analyzed several sources of qualitative data: extensive journals from Nathan’s undergraduate years, Dawn’s written reflections, e-mail correspondence, notes from Skype conversations, and notes from in-person communication (Nathan visited Dawn’s institution for one week). Upon compiling our data into a single file of more than 250 pages, Nathan used the constant comparative method for analyzing the data, for which he continually compared incidents in the data with previous incidents of similar and different attributes until stable categories emerged to give rise to the findings for the study (Glaser & Strauss, 1999). He used the computer software program QSR Nvivo 8.0 to facilitate the process of constant comparison. To increase the trustworthiness of the study, we independently coded parts of the data and resolved any discrepancies through dialogue. We then reviewed each category and sub-category until we felt we could not code them any further without compromising the meaning and value of the data (e.g., by removing it from context or changing its meaning by, for example, reducing complex ideas to simple phrases or single words). Three themes related to constructing pedagogical identities as democratic teacher educators emerged from the data about our experiences as undergraduate teacher education students: concern with relevance, commitment to social justice, and disillusionment with the educational experience.

Concern with RelevanceOur concern with relevance involved a profound sense

of frustration about the extent to which our coursework was helping us understand ourselves as prospective teachers. Nathan wrote, “I’m not being encouraged or told to know anything about myself. … How can I possibly teach children…without an awareness of who I am?” Without such knowledge, he stated, “I cannot possibly go out and teach…in a meaningful and effective manner.” From his perspective, he was being treated as though “removed from the educational process,” with little chance to learn about himself as a “thinking, feeling, moving human being.” Furthermore, instead of being encouraged to engage more deeply with his learning, he perceived himself as implicitly being led to recognize how his teachers possessed “the right answer which students are to internalize and… regurgitate.” He asked, “Why is everything so rigid, especially when the needs of my students…will be so varied and broad?” He declared, “I do not want to be lectured to” and “told what to do.” Instead, he asserted, “Let me explore, let me discover, let me…dare to take this world head on and make it a better place.” In

expressing dissatisfaction with his sense that “our minds are being controlled” and “content is what rules,” he pleaded for a more active role in his studies. With greater concern for personal relevance by his teacher educators, he may have found greater meaning and reward in his experiences and felt more prepared to teach as a result.

Dawn likewise considered her concerns about the context of teaching a missing component of her teacher education experience. To her, her teacher education coursework provided her with little support for developing a sense of what it meant to be a teacher. She wrote: “I hardly did anything at [Teachers’] Training College….Curriculum content was considered the more important aspect.” As Nathan experienced in his courses, knowing what to teach was considered far more important by Dawn’s instructors than whom or how to teach. Content knowledge was “privileg[ed]…over pedagogy.” Even though her course of study at Teachers’ Training College “was highly individualized” due to her unique scheduling circumstances, being asked to read and review books like I’m Okay, You’re Okay instead of attending classes “didn’t feel like a special accommodation.” Nathan commented in our discussions that at least Dawn’s lecturers had been willing to accommodate her on an individualized basis rather than prescribe a narrowly focused one-size-fits-all approach. In response, she argued that her individual course of study was expedient and “was the easiest way for the lecturers to skirt the issue” of her not being able to attend classes very often. Ultimately, her instructors’ actions conveyed the message that “classes weren’t important,” which she considered “a cop out.” As a result, she concluded that her teacher educators “made very little impact” on her. From her view, they were “lackluster and uninspiring” and, to her recollection, never even asked her to answer a question, “because no one asked questions.” Overall: “Transmission of information was considered a one-way street.” Without a stronger emphasis on what she considered relevant, her experience lacked meaning and fell short of her expectations for learning to become a teacher.

Commitment to Social JusticeOur commitment to social justice was another issue

that helped define our experiences as undergraduate students. Nathan exhibited a particularly intense desire to understand racism, considering it a “moral obligation and responsibility.” Since he saw racism as a “terrible evil” that is “perforating the lives of us all,” Nathan considered the process of dismantling racism to be “the most fundamental contribution anyone can make to this world.” He echoed a similar sentiment when he declared, “Every student on campus should be encouraged to ask their professors…what they believe the purpose of education is, and how this relates to the history of racism.” Specifically, Nathan had experienced an “incredible void” when one of his teachers who had “changed [his] life” was fired by the university. He recorded in his journal, “The man is almost solely responsible for the growth I’ve made over the past year.” He considered his termination a “quintessential act of institutional racism.” He continued, “For nearly two years I’ve been engaged in a rigorous, intense phase of personal transformation” where his world was suddenly opened to “the realities of racism, sexism, homophobia…and other social diseases.” Any serious mention of such topics, however, was conspicuously absent from his teacher education courses, which he considered both troubling and limiting. Without attention to such matters, “much that this institution has to offer is worthless and meaningless.” Without defining one’s

values, “you’re not educating; you’re indoctrinating.” To Nathan, the quest for social justice had become an obsession. He expected his teacher educators to share such concerns in helping him become a teacher.

Dawn echoed a similar sentiment when she developed a “commitment to redressing the imbalance of girls in taking science at school.” Her awakening to sexist practices and mores in secondary schools was not apparent to her, however, during her teacher education experiences. She wrote: “[I]t hardly registered [in me] that there were very few other females” taking science subjects at the university. In fact, she recalled, “At graduation my parents proudly watched me process.” Afterwards, her mother asked her why she was wearing a blue hood when most of the other women were wearing pink. “Exasperated, I explained that blue was for Science, pink was for Arts. It was only then that I realized that I was in a minority as a female science graduate.” Because she had spent such little time at Teachers’ College, she was not aware of the gender imbalances that helped structure her experience. However, once she started teaching, her concerns changed to “making science relevant and accessible to girls.” Determined to redress the imbalances in the numbers of girls that took physics and chemistry at the sixth and seventh forms, she offered fourth form girls the option of taking a girls-only science and mathematics course, “to play without the boys telling us what to do.” Twenty-five girls enrolled in the course, but a senior teacher at the school questioned the ethics of providing the opportunity to girls only. He wrote a letter to the Human Rights Commissioner. When she was asked for a response, Dawn argued for the course on the basis of needing to redress the imbalance. It was a defining moment in her teaching career and the point at which she realized that girls and women were disadvantaged by paternalistic attitudes pervading society. From such comments, we were both deeply invested in addressing issues of social justice as future teachers.

Disillusionment with the Educational Experience

Our disillusionment with the educational experience emerged from a sense of feeling confined and limited in our institutional contexts. Nathan’s comments in particular suggest that he considered his instructional environment to have been influencing him adversely. Regarding one professor, he wrote, “She has taken me from a shining, potential genius to an absolute idiot. I’m lowering to her expectations.” Across the board, he considered the educational process to be “making me stupid.” He considered himself to be learning “the exact ways in which I will never want to teach people in the future.” To him, the university experience was like “serving a sentence” where he was transformed from “a dedicated college student” to one who had to “fight” to “get an education.” From his perception, the “entire structure around here revolves around obeying authority,” where people “never question.” He considered his classes “so top down” that school had become a “serious burden” without “any gratification.” He wrote, “For two semesters, I’ve experienced...academic, personal and social decline.” He could not wait for the semester to end so that he could “do some new, original, extensive thinking” with “actual involvement” from himself. Dawn remembered her learning at Training College as being similarly disillusioning. She considered her experience overall “a complete farce” in which she was taught “very little about how to teach.” It was “a waste of time” that was “unmemorable” and that left her feeling “unprepared to teach.” She took “very little

away” from her college lectures which she considered “non-events,” taught by lecturers who were “faceless and nameless.” Such experiences of teacher education, as drudgery rather than opportunities to cultivate our expressive capabilities, were hardly what we had imagined. We both completed our undergraduate studies feeling deeply disillusioned about our educational experiences.

Educational RelevanceFostering active participation in democratic life is a

major priority of many teacher educators, though this task is complicated by limited insight into the process of constructing pedagogical identities as teacher educators. Through the lenses of integrity (Schulte, 2009) and multiple layers of identity (Korthagen & Verkuyl, 2007), the insights provided by this study help illuminate the complexity of constructing such identities from examining past experiences as undergraduate teacher education students. Such knowledge can help us more deeply understand the complexity of becoming teacher educators (Zeichner, 2005) and reframe future practice.

From this study, it is evident that Nathan’s program in the U.S. was embroiled in a particular sociocultural context that his professors seemed both unable and unwilling to adequately critique. Despite Nathan’s efforts to account more fully for the larger context of social injustice pervading his educational experience, he felt powerless within his teacher education classes to respond authentically to such concerns. Dawn’s program, a couple of decades earlier and in a different country, also functioned to maintain the patriarchal status quo. Dawn naïvely accepted the relatively limited prospects for women, though her sense of injustice was aroused upon gaining several years of teaching experience. Then, her quest to make science a vehicle for social equity became an important focus. Initially, we both felt powerless to effect such change as undergraduate teacher education candidates, though conducting this collaborative self-study has helped us interrogate our memories of initial teacher education and gain a deeper appreciation for our pedagogical identities as teacher educators.

Despite our vastly different experiences, we recognize that teacher education is a potent and powerful site for student teachers to develop their identities. While we consider our own teacher education programs to have been poor preparations for enacting a democratic pedagogy in our classrooms, we have drawn much inspiration for pursuing such priorities from the shortcomings of our experiences. We now realize more concretely the importance of ensuring that our programs are relevant and empowering for our students, with concerted efforts to engage students in understanding themselves, their personal philosophies, and what it is to be teachers rather than emphasizing prescriptive, content-focused curriculum. We recognize that how we teach teachers must be quite different from how we were taught ourselves. Furthermore, to help our student teachers come to markedly differently conclusions about the relevance of teacher education to their professional future, we have a moral obligation to model alternative pedagogies that promote diversity, democracy, and critical reflection for all.

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NATHAN BRUBAKER ALAN OVENSMonash University University of Auckland

Implementing Individualized Grading Contracts: Perspectives of Two Teacher Educators

ContextGrading, as a process of reducing multidimensional data

derived from assessment and evaluation procedures to a single letter or number, is one of the key accountability structures of most teacher education programs. As such, it becomes a site where multiple discourses of assessment circulate, oftentimes creating tensions around practice and shaping the everyday subjectivities of participants in ways that are seldom questioned. While alternative discourses concerned with emphasizing assessment and evaluation over grading (Elbow, 1993) frequently co-exist in educational contexts, they seldom have the pervasiveness or power to successfully challenge prevailing orthodoxies (McClam & Sevier, 2010). Deeply ingrained assumptions about the educational necessity of grades help solidify their status as valued institutional commodities for which students must compete as preconditions for employment and financial opportunity. Furthermore, such assumptions help uphold conventional practices in which students are situated as passive recipients of knowledge (Freire, 1996). Alternative approaches to grades are needed to develop a pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran, 2006) congruent with democratic aims.

We know very little, however, about the implementation of alternatives to conventional grading practices in teacher education settings. Research literature from varied educational contexts suggests that such outcomes as increased motivation, meaningfulness, and honesty are possible from implementing student self-evaluation (Fernandez-Balboa, 2006; McVarish & Solloway, 2002), self-assessment (Milne, 2009), self-grading (Mader, 2009), democratic deliberation (Placier, 1996; Shor, 1996), “no failure” (Corbett & Wilson, 2009), and judgment-based (Barrett, 2006) approaches to grading. Nevertheless, additional insights into the possibilities and pitfalls of such practices in teacher education settings are necessary. Teacher educators have the unique responsibility of not only helping students experience alternatives to conventional grading practices, but of learning to implement such alternatives in their own future teaching as part of the “lived curriculum” of reflective teacher education (Peterman, 1997). Contract grading is one approach to promoting critical reflection about the problematic aspects of grading while working within existing systems of grades (Brubaker, 2010; Elbow, 2000).

The purpose of this paper is to understand the complexity of implementing individualized grading contracts in preservice teacher education contexts. Specifically, we examined the following research question: how did the process of involving students in designing individualized grading contracts affect us as teacher educators relative to our different levels of experience with the approach (six years and one year, respectively)? The courses in which we conducted the study—Diversity in Elementary Education and Physical Education Pedagogy—were core courses required of

all teacher education candidates in our respective programs. We both had considerable autonomy within our contexts to implement different approaches to grading so long as our procedures were published in the course syllabi and our efforts resulted in awarding each student a single grade for the course that corresponded with the university grading scale (D through A, or F, using pluses and minuses). Below, we discuss aspects of our experience that, based on the literature and the data, illustrate our perspectives on guiding students through the process of implementing individualized grading contracts in preservice teacher education.

Method We conducted this collaborative self-study over one year

at our respective institutions as teacher education faculty at large comprehensive universities in the U.S. and New Zealand. Nathan, who is now a faculty member in Australia, worked with elementary education students enrolled in a five-year M.A.T. program for teaching children in grades PK-6. His program was defined by strong commitments to constructivist practice, differentiated learning, and teacher inquiry, within which he developed his concept of individualized grading contracts over six years. His primary aim in doing so was to create a means of reconciling institutional requirements for grades with a desire to convey more meaningful information about learning. Throughout this study, he made his evaluation criteria extremely explicit to students for each of his proposed assignments, but with mixed feelings about the extent to which doing so represented a compromise between his democratic, emergent, student-centered ideals and his students’ deeply rooted familiarity with authoritarian teaching (Brubaker, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c).

Alan works with physical education students enrolled in a specialist four-year degree for teaching secondary school physical education. His program is underpinned by a socially critical perspective which foregrounds a strong commitment to inquiry and reflection as a basis for teacher development. In his pedagogy course, Alan wanted to create spaces where students would not just “learn more” but rather could unpack and reflect on the nature of teaching and professional decision making. To this end, he had a history of implementing a range of ideas consistent with implementing a critical pedagogy in his teaching (Garbett & Ovens, 2012; Ovens, 2010; Ovens & Garbett, 2008), but had not previously used a contract approach to grading. He adopted Nathan’s methods with a twist: instead of making available clearly defined assessment criteria and rubrics at the start of the course, he preferred to use a peer-marking panel to assess the quality of individuals’ work. With this open-ended approach, he hoped to help students experience and reflect on the difference between individual and collective expectations of achievement, while

promoting similar aims as those envisioned by Nathan. The subtle differences between the two approaches to individualized grading provided a productive source of issues for discussion and reflection.

In conducting this study, we collected data in the form of personal reflections, consisting of extensive e-mail correspondence (220 emails over 12 months), notes from in-person communication (Nathan visited Alan’s institution for one week), personal journals concerning our ongoing efforts to develop our contract approach to grades within our teaching contexts (72 pages of dialogue), and notes from Skype conversations (often conducted in response to our journals). For analyzing the data, we used the constant comparative method, for which we continually compared incidents in the data with previous incidents of similar and different attributes until stable categories emerged to give rise to the findings for the study (Glaser & Strauss, 1999). We used the computer software program QSR Nvivo 8.0 to facilitate the process of constant comparison. We also actively questioned each other’s interpretations and presented counterarguments to our perspectives as a means of supporting each other as “critical friends” (Costa & Kallick, 1993) and unmasking assumptions embedded in our practice (Brookfield, 1995).

While such a description presents the formal aspects of our research approach, it somewhat overlooks the “messiness” of our actual collaborative process. Inevitably, our knowledge is incomplete and partial and is mediated by tensions of remembering and narrating our personal experiences, of disclosing personal information, and of interpretation. What is missing are the voices of our students and colleagues who also co-participated in our discussions. This omission was intentional due to the differences across our programmatic contexts and our desire to focus the inquiry on our own experiences. Given that all inquiry, however, is messy, partial, ambiguous, and tentative (Kincheloe & Berry, 2004; Mellor, 2001), the analytic framework of self-study provided a useful matrix through which we could make our practices available for analysis and reflection. In doing so, we hoped to construct public knowledge of practice (LaBoskey, 2004) for informing our own and others’ future teaching and contributing to professional knowledge about the complexity of teaching teachers how to teach (Russell & Loughran, 2007), particularly concerning the dilemmas of grades. Three themes emerged from the data about how the process of implementing individualized grading contracts affected us as teacher educators: attending to purpose, internalizing tension, and harboring resentment.

Attending to PurposeReflecting on the alignment of our beliefs with our

practices as teacher educators was a frequently recurring theme of how involving students in implementing individualized grading contracts affected us as teacher educators. This theme was particularly prominent for Alan since this was his first time implementing a contract-based alternative to conventional grading practices. In our correspondence for the study, Alan articulated his purposes by emphasizing what initially interested him in the concept of individualized contracts: he found the approach appealing for its potential to help students “work collaboratively” and “practice making professional decisions.” From his perspective, this was akin to “how a good professional works—they make decisions based on their professional knowledge.” By involving students in a process of “collecting meaningful information” to “focus more on what learning was taking place” than the grade they would

receive, he considered the approach useful for abandoning “transmission-style pedagogy” and engaging students “meaningfully” in their learning. Furthermore, “as recipients of the learning process,” Alan believed students “should have some input into what they are learning” to “develop as quality teachers” and demonstrate greater levels of “questioning” through “inquiry and reflection.” In articulating his rationale for implementing such an approach, Alan demonstrated heightened awareness of his pedagogical purposes concerning grades—a theme of relevance to us both throughout the study.

While many of the purposes articulated by Alan were already central to Nathan’s rationale for implementing an individualized contract approach, we both perceived a heightened sense of congruence between our pedagogical aims and practices as a result of our efforts. While communicating about our evidence for supporting such a practice relative to traditional teaching, Nathan emphasized his perception that “students at least find our approach to be more meaningful and desirable than more didactic approaches.” He elaborated, “They have more ownership, feel more respected by the options, [and] consider it a sensible educational approach.” Alan came to a similar conclusion when he observed that his students had “taken the opportunity to determine their own educational paths” as a result of his guidance with the contract approach and were “more driven by their desire to lead [the course experience] than worry about course assignments.” When telling his students that it “would be so much easier to just lecture” to them instead of taking the time to individualize their course experiences, one student immediately said: “You wouldn’t do that because you are a good Lecturer, you try to make a difference.” Another immediately followed by saying, “Haven’t you noticed that more people come to your lectures than go to other classes? You get nearly the whole class because they enjoy what you do.” Such sentiment helped reinforce our sense of congruence between our pedagogical purposes and practices—an important outcome of having attended to purpose while implementing our contract approach to grades.

Internalizing TensionDespite our heightened sense of congruence between our

pedagogical purposes and practices as a result of implementing our contract approach to grades, we found ourselves internalizing a growing sense of tension throughout the study. Such tension was not entirely unexpected, since implementing alternatives to any sort of conventional practice is likely to generate some, though the project enabled us to better focus on the sources of our tensions, even if they were not always easily resolvable. Our principal source of tension emerged from the institutional context of grades at our respective universities, which challenged us to recognize with greater clarity the extent to which our institutions were arranged to support orthodox grading practices and limit alternatives. Nathan compared our experience of trying to implement our alternative approach in this “very toxic and contaminated context” to “being pulled in many different directions, including backwards.” He explained: “[We] are seemingly trying to go where the force is being applied,” yet with “so many forces being applied from so many different directions,” it was as though we were “just left feeling completely stuck” and “unsure of how [we] are situated in time and space.” Alan expressed his frustration with the difference between the “rhetoric and reality” of his institution, which made it more challenging to be “coherent with our philosophy” and contributed to a growing sense of internal tension concerning

our efforts to implement an alternative to conventional pedagogies concerning grades.

Reflecting on issues of time proved important to illuminating the sources of tension associated with negotiating contracts and administering/organizing our approach. Nathan identified the importance of time “not just in terms of having not enough time or wanting more, but as a symptom and manifestation of bigger issues.” Alan acknowledged that “by experiencing the pressures of time and having to adapt to the constraints in each context, we have become more aware of how the institution is organized to promote certain instructional methods over alternatives.” Nathan concluded, “The contracts represent an alternative form of educational practice that the prevailing system doesn’t necessarily support.” Consequently, “We are brought into direct conflict with what the system is promoting.” Furthermore, he suggested, “Imagine if an individualized contract/learning process was all that students knew from past experiences,” and teachers attempted—within this context—to implement “lecture-based methods with teacher-determined, uniform assignments, and arbitrarily assigned grades.” He asked, “How likely would this approach be to gain immediate acceptance and approval?” Imagining such scenarios helped us gain a deeper appreciation for the circumstances surrounding our internal tensions about implementing alternatives to conventional grading practices.

Harboring ResentmentOur internal tension was reinforced by a growing sense

of frustration with the widespread prevalence of conventional assumptions about grading. Such assumptions, we increasingly concluded throughout the study, were actively counteracting our efforts to create a different classroom reality with students and therefore undermined our attempts to implement a pedagogical innovation as teacher educators. Nathan lamented the fact that, when working with both students and other faculty, “the only approach that is ‘obvious’ or ‘understandable’…is that which reduces everything to points and percentages” and “ultimately only increase[s] everyone’s fixation on points rather than learning.” Alan acknowledged that the normative affect of conventional grading on students was pressure to receive “a favorable judgment from the person in power,” which draws students “into a game of impression management” which “inevitably” leaves students “somewhat confused about the ‘new rules of the game’” once a more democratic alternative is implemented, “regardless of our intent.” Rather than fostering the “use value” of the content being taught for “improved practice” and increased learning activity on the part of the students, Alan suggested that “the system…values grades for their exchange value,” which “devalues our efforts and the value of knowledge.” The prevalence of orthodox practices was observed by Nathan, who commented that “for virtually all of my students, I am the first one to intervene in and disrupt this reality.” Reflecting a sense of resentment, he continued, “To think that all of our efforts to help candidates reflect on teaching from so many different angles amounts to nothing more than a single letter on the transcript is essentially the ultimate insult.”

Reflecting on our resentment about our limited ability to reconfigure this reality helped us develop a deeper understanding of students’ subjectivities in our teacher education classrooms. Rather than railing against the limits of conventional pedagogy, we realized that students’ prior experiences made them comfortable with the very practices we were challenging. We recognized, from our view, that

grading practices represented forms of surveillance and self-surveillance which function as a technique of power because they perpetuate, create, and prescribe behavior by subjecting individuals to the gaze of normalizing judgments (Foucault, 1995). Nathan regularly observed this: “Each semester, I am continually shocked at just how genuinely engrossed in grades the vast majority of my students are. They actually consider grades legitimate barometers of their performance in school.” Instead of seeing this as a shortcoming of students, he realized they “have been taught to value them” and that such experiences reflected a “deeply rooted familiarity with authoritarian teaching” which was evident by a “lack of self-directed learning, questioning, curiosity, initiative and responsibility” for their own learning.

In a similar way, Alan wondered about our positioning as academics within the university setting: “Do we always have to be battling the system like this?” Furthermore, “For the amount of effort that we put into the approach of designing individualized grading contracts, do we get it back? Is it worth that much to us?” As we both coped with our sense of growing resentment, we developed a greater awareness of student subjectivity and positionality as something that was grounded in this reality but also capable of breaking from this reality, and realized that from this reality will come predictable problems and frustrations from which we and our students will stumble. We can have a constructive role in helping them through this process, with additional empathy for their journeys and assistance in helping them develop new habits and possibilities. Both of our struggles highlighted the difficulties of implementing an alternative to conventional grading while affecting the extent to which students understood and engaged with our efforts to implement individualized grading contracts.

Educational RelevanceConducting this study helped us become increasingly

mindful of the difficulties of practicing a pedagogy of teacher education that is built around principles of democracy and social justice, particularly in conventional university settings where the necessity to convey achievement through a single letter grade is the orthodox practice. While the biographies of our students did not position them to understand and embrace our alternative actions, our heightened understanding of this reality helped free us from the desire to have them value our approach to grades at a level of rationality, focusing instead on the structures and support that enable democratic classrooms to emerge as a consequence of our teaching. Presenting students with negotiable contracts presents one mechanism for undermining teachers’ ability to arbitrarily impose their will on students (Brubaker, 2009, 2010).

Overall, the study helped affirm for us that constructing a more democratic classroom within the constraints of our contemporary context does not require sharing “power” or “authority” with students, but using our authority to create opportunities for students to be more actively involved in defining their learning. As Shor (1996) asserts, “A controlling principle of critical-democratic practice is that the teacher’s right to propose goes only as far as the students’ right to dispose” (p. 77). In this respect, the insights provided by this study help illuminate the complexity of reconstructing conventional pedagogy and effectively negotiating the prevailing educational currency of grades (Brookhart, 1993). Such knowledge can help us more deeply understand the fundamental “mismatch” between assessment and grading

(Seeley, 1994) and fashion a more democratic pedagogy of teacher education (Russell & Loughran, 2007).

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SHAWN MICHAEL BULLOCK TOM RUSSELLUniversity of Ontario Institute of Technology Queen’s University

Developing Coherence at the End of a Preservice Methods Course

Context of the StudyThe argument by Zeichner and Tabachnick (1981) could

be read as suggesting that early teaching experiences in the school system “wash out” the learning that occurs in education courses. More careful analysis of their argument suggests to us that they were pointing out that there may be few, if any, effects of teacher education programs to be washed out in the first place. Transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991) suggests one interpretation of why teacher education coursework tends to have minimal influence on teacher candidates’ conceptual understanding of teaching and learning. Central to Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning is the importance of personal experience, as well as critical reflection on that experience and engaging in discourse about the quality of learning experiences. At its core, transformative learning theory posits that individuals learn through paradigm shifts in conceptual understanding. From Zeicher and Tabachnick’s (1981) argument to Cochran-Smith and Zeichner’s (2005) expert panel report on teacher education, it seems clear that most teacher candidates would not characterize their learning in methods courses as a transformative experience.

Mezirow (1997) argues that “the goal of adult education is . . . to help the individual become a more autonomous thinker by learning to negotiate his or her own values, meanings, and purposes rather than to uncritically act on those of others” (p. 11). Transformative learning occurs when learners change their “frames of reference through critical reflection on the assumptions upon which interpretations, beliefs, and habits of mind or points of view are based” (Mezirow, 1997, p. 7). This definition is particularly salient when one considers the effects of “the apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975, p. 61) on those learning to teach. Teacher candidates come to our methods courses not as blank slates but with a lifetime of observations and experiences of teacher behaviour. Although teacher candidates might be able to mimic the behaviours of teachers, it is unlikely that they have thought deeply about the pedagogical reasons that support a teacher’s enacting specific pedagogies in particular situations. As a result, many teacher candidates buy into the myth that “teachers are self-made” and that pedagogy is a “product of one’s personality” (Britzman, 1986, p. 451). While virtually everyone sees the practicum experience as a critical feature of a teacher education program, candidates’ experiences during a practicum are not necessarily transformative. The practicum experience tends to be a conservative force in teacher education; teacher candidates seem more likely to use traditional teaching approaches rather than alternative pedagogies that may be advocated in methods coursework (Bullock & Russell, 2010). Given the powerful frames of reference with which teacher candidates approach a teacher education program, it becomes particularly important

for teacher educators to find ways to create transformative learning experiences within their methods courses.

Our recent work has explored the potential of methods courses to serve as “contexts of productive learning” (Sarason, 1996, p. 396) in which teacher educators share intellectual control with teacher candidates over the learning experiences in the methods classroom. We see the value of framing the shared learning experiences that happen in a methods course as a source for inquiry, discussion, and constructing a shared language to talk about teaching and learning. By situating our work with candidates as a collaborative learning experience, we believe that we can partially disrupt the tacit message that the practicum is the only locus for relevant experience in a teacher education program. Course work need not be seen solely as background noise and a source of assignments.

Earlier work revealed that the methods courses can transform teacher candidates’ views of teaching and learning and that their reframed assumptions are uniquely personal (Bullock, 2011). We believe it is essential to study how teacher candidates’ views change as a result of learning experiences created in our physics methods courses. Encouraged by the results of research that explored the power of “making deliberate moves” at the beginning of our methods courses (Russell & Bullock, 2010, p. 232), we again turn to collaborative self-study a way to analyze the pedagogical approaches we enacted in the final classes of our methods courses. The purpose of this study is to describe and interpret how we provided opportunities for teacher candidates to consolidate their learning. Specifically, we studied how we created learning experiences that encourage candidates to consider how their views of teaching and learning have changed during their preservice year. We also studied the extent to which the messages we intend our teacher candidates to take from our courses did and did not match the messages that teacher candidates took from our courses.

MethodsWe both teach at universities that divide our methods

courses into two terms and structure the preservice teacher education program in terms of alternating one-month blocks of on-campus course work and field experience. The focus of this study is on how we concluded the first semester of our methods courses in November of 2010 and 2011. In both cases, candidates ended their second block of on-campus coursework with us before beginning a second practicum placement for the month of December.

Our collaborative self-study sought “evidence of the reframed thinking and transformed practice of the researcher” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 859). Our evidence comes from data collected in a variety of ways. The primary data are transcribed conversations between the authors and our personal research

journals. In addition, Shawn obtained ethical approval to include comments made by his students on blogs created for the course as evidence of the messages students took from his course. Shawn also video-recorded each of his classes during the 2011-2012 academic year; transcriptions of those data round out his perspective on the pedagogy he enacted. Tom’s data include students’ comments on Tickets-out-of-Class written at the end of every class, notes from two individual interviews with each of his students (one between his first and second classes of the term, the other after the first practicum), and responses to in-class exercises.

The multiple sources of data contribute to Bullough and Pinnegar’s (2001) criteria that autobiographical self-study research should “ring true and enable connection” and “promote insight and interpretation” (p. 16). Data were analyzed using content analysis and coding (Patton, 2002). The concept of “turning points” (Bullock & Ritter, 2011, p. 175) served as a lens through which we could create a shared understanding of how our self-study influenced our practice. Similar to other coding memes such as tensions (Berry, 2007) and axioms (Senese, 2005), turning points help us to generate themes that inspired us to think differently about our pedagogical approach.

Ending Part One of a Physics Methods Course: Shawn’s Perspective

Perspectives I developed during an in-depth study of five teacher candidates’ experiences during Tom’s physics methods course have had a profound impact on how I think about concluding my physics methods course in the fall semester (Bullock, 2011). In particular, I am mindful of the fact that candidates who participated in that study experienced themselves as “living contradictions” (Whitehead, 1993, p. 70) during their first practicum placements when their visions of how they wanted to teach did not match the realities of their teaching. By the time they returned to the second block of on-campus classes, I noted that many teacher candidates appeared to be in crisis as they struggled to reconcile their own practicum experiences with perceptions of other candidates’ success and with the new, often conflicting, demands of teacher education coursework. One of the most important insights I learned from my previous study was the importance of attending to fact that candidates are changed in some way by their first practicum. They return to the final round of fall classes armed with new experiences from the proverbial “other side of the desk,” and it would be foolish not to acknowledge the impact of these early experiences of teaching, many of which conflict with messages I try to develop in my course. I also realized that the second part of the fall term is the time to be explicit about the similarities and differences between course learning experiences and practicum learning experiences. It is a time to call attention to ways to focus on the quality of our collective learning during the methods course and to revisit and refine major themes that were introduced earlier.

The major assignment for my physics methods course in the fall semester is a blogging assignment that requires each candidate to write a minimum of five posts about the process of learning to teach physics throughout the semester. Although I could just as easily ask candidates to submit the same information in a document, I believe that blogs allow the creation of a shared safe space, protected by a password and accessible only to the candidate and to me. This permits

a sustained conversation about teaching and learning that is easily traceable by both of us. Many candidates have reported anecdotally that, despite initial resistance to writing a blog, they valued the opportunity to create a record of their thoughts developing over time and the space to receive feedback outside of classes. Many candidates far exceed the minimum requirements. The blog assignment also provides a unique way to judge how candidates are making sense of the course at the end of the first semester.

A thorough analysis of blog posts written by my teacher candidates at the end of the fall semester reveals that many had tuned in to major themes during our time together in September, but were leaving the course in November amidst a maelstrom of conflicting demands on their time and conflicting messages about teaching and learning. One candidate commented, “I’m saturated. I have about 12 things due in the next eleven days (I’ve counted), and they’re not minor things.” Many posts indicated a concern with balancing messages from the course with demands placed on them during practicum teaching. For example, the following quotations from three different teacher candidates might be interpreted initially as cause for joy, given their alignment with many of the ideas I hope to get across in my methods course:

• I think the most important shift in how I think about education has been asking the question, “What do I want my students to get from this experience?” instead of “How can I teach this material the best?”• The idea of getting students to construct their own knowledge really resonated with me.• As a teacher, I need to assess what my students know and build from there.

Yet any joy that I may have felt at the end of the course is tempered by the following quotations from the same candidates:

• I’m unsure about how the rest of the faculty/administration will feel about me as a teacher. I want to shake things up . . . I want to shirk traditional assessment methods ... Will this alienate me in the staffroom, or give me a good reputation? I don’t really care that much, except for the fact that I need a job to reach students. Essentially, I’m unsure about how divergent I will be allowed to be.• My biggest concern for the upcoming placement is that I may make a mistake in class and lose any sort of rapport I build with the students in the class.• I have concerns about content knowledge, although I have an honours degree in physics I feel like what I am actually really good at is plugging numbers into equations.The contrast between these statements (and many others

expressing both ambitious hopes and great doubt) caused me to make the turn to self and ask whether my pedagogy of teacher education failed to adequately unpack the challenges of adopting the pedagogical approaches used in the methods course to the K-12 environment, particularly for teacher candidates who are visitors in established teachers’ classrooms. Was I doing candidates a disservice? How do I balance the tension between promoting particular teaching strategies while acknowledging the time required to develop a pedagogical approach that is different from traditional approaches made comfortable by the apprenticeship of observation?

Review of video recordings of the final meetings of my fall physics class revealed that I did not make any explicit reference to the aforementioned challenges. I missed a golden opportunity to talk about the innate challenge of enacting a non-traditional pedagogy in the K-12 system during my last

class of the fall semester of 2011. Inspired by a technique frequently used by Tom to close his courses, I decided to ask candidates to brainstorm in small groups the big ideas they were taking from the physics course. My specific instructions were, “If you had a friend who you knew was taking this course next year, and that friend asked what the big messages were, what would you tell them?” The candidates were given 10 minutes to brainstorm, and the results were very gratifying. To my credit, I did ask candidates about how they could use this technique with students as a segue into discussing their thoughts about the course:

Is this a useful exercise, a way to consolidate things? . . . . Of course, when you’re looking at content with students you can have everyone hold up their board and talk about the big messages. What’s fascinating is that, as a teacher, you can just scan around the room and see things that have been picked up [Begins moving around the room and reading items from whiteboards]. I see POE [Predict-Observe-Explain pedagogy (Baird & Northfield, 1992)] mentioned on every board in some way, shape, or form. We’ve got pedagogical content knowledge . . . humour, oh that’s kind of you! Interpretive discussions [another PEEL procedure (Baird & Northfield, 1992)], we’ve got CoRe [Content Representation (e.g., Loughran, 2010)], constructivism, active learning. We’ve even got a diagram that is against standing up in front of the room and blah-blah-blah-ing [all laugh].At the time, I thought this was an engaging way to end

a course on a positive note. Undoubtedly, I felt good about the fact that the candidates put such stock in our experiences and that each group filled a large whiteboard with its particular take on the course. Only by engaging in this self-study and combining the video clip with representative blog posts from teacher candidates was I able to realize the danger of being self-congratulatory about my course.

Ending Part One of a Physics Methods Course: Tom’s Perspective

Tom’s approach to assessing his own teaching at the end of the fall Term focused on a question posed to his students who were working in groups of four: “What do you see as the working principles in my teaching?” His goal was to encourage the students to focus explicitly on how he had been teaching them, as a springboard to comparing his pedagogy with the ways they had been teaching in their first practicum and with their personal goals as future teachers. The five groups produced a range of responses; the comments in italics seemed particularly significant.

• Makes students responsible for learning, does not assume knowledge from us, answers questions with more questions, enables learning• Experience learning vs. knowledge learning, have one teach to the other, comfortable environment• Assumes we like to teach, takes what we want to learn and what we would use for our class, least amount of physical work but learn the most, equipping us with the right tools to incorporate into our classroom, make teaching fun!• Socratic teaching methods—some open, some applied teaching, applying theory, self-directed, thought encouraging—not limiting, exploratory, collaborative, practical• Assumes a good understanding of physical concepts, explores a variety of ways of teaching the same concepts,

learning is done largely as a group, not bombarded with tons of information in one sitting

Within these responses, Tom noticed several patterns that provided take-off points for the winter term to follow. Particularly important is the perspective that every teaching move represents a choice to emphasize one aspect of learning or another, and every teaching move sends a message that can influence how students respond. The comments appear positive; if individuals had negative comments, they may have been withheld for familiar reasons, as students are unaccustomed to giving direct comments to teachers. The comments confirm that students are paying attention to how they are being taught; they suggest to Tom that these teacher candidates are ready to accept greater responsibility for directing their own learning in the winter term.

Can a Methods Course be Transformative?

We view the end of the fall methods course as an important opportunity to analyze our methods-course pedagogy at the halfway mark in the teacher education program. This study builds on our earlier work (Russell & Bullock, 2010) that explored the promise of making early, deliberate pedagogical moves during the first month of our courses and analyzing how our students responded to those practices. We are particularly interested in describing and interpreting pedagogical approaches that encourage our students to construct their own conclusions from our courses.

We believe that teacher candidates’ ideas about teaching and learning at the end of our courses should differ significantly from their initial ideas. We also believe that turning our attention to how we teach at the end of the physics methods course can help us to think more critically about whether or not methods courses can truly be transformative. Just as teaching moves at the start of a course have significant implications for what will follow, so teaching moves at the end of a course have implications for consolidation of professional learning. This self-study describes our most recent practices with a view to encouraging sharing of such course-closing practices and to enabling the authors to improve those practices. We believe that it is particularly important for the conclusion of a methods course to include significant efforts to develop a sense of coherence.

ReferencesBaird, J. R., & Northfield, J. R. (Eds.) (1992) Learning from

the PEEL experience. Melbourne, Australia: Monash University.

Berry, A. (2007). Reconceptualizing teacher educator knowledge as tensions: Exploring the tension between valuing and reconstructing experience. Studying Teacher Education, 3(2), 117–134.

Britzman, D. P. (1986). Cultural myths in the making of a teacher: Biography and social structure in teacher education. Harvard Educational Review, 56(4), 442–457.

Bullock, S. M. (2011). Inside teacher education: Challenging prior views of teaching and learning. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Bullock, S. M., & Ritter, J. K. (2011). Exploring the transition into academia through collaborative self-study. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 171–181.

Bullock, S. M., & Russell, T. (2010). Does teacher education expect too much from field experience? In T. Falkenberg & H. Smits (Eds.), Field experiences in the context of reform of Canadian teacher education programs (pp. 91–100). Winnipeg, Canada: Faculty of Education of The University of Manitoba. Retrieved from http://www.umanitoba.ca/education/TEResearch/Book 2009 (Volume 1).pdf

Bullough, R. V., Jr., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–21.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Zeichner, K. M. (Eds.). (2005). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Loughran, J. (2010). What expert teachers do: Enhancing professional knowledge for classroom practice. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 74, 5–12.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Russell, T., & Bullock, S. M. (2010). Making deliberate moves: A collaborative self-study of teaching practices early in a pre-service teacher education program. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 232–235). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Sarason, S. B. (1996). Revisiting “The culture of the school and the problem of change.” New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Senese, J. C. (2005). Teach to learn. Studying Teacher Education, 1(1), 43–54.

Whitehead, J. (1993). The growth of educational knowledge: Creating your own living educational theories. Dorset, United Kingdom: Hyde.

Zeichner, K. M., & Tabachnick, B. R. (1981). Are the effects of university teacher education “washed out” by school experience? Journal of Teacher Education, 32(3), 7–11.

BRANDON M. BUTLER ALEXANDER CUENCA CHARLES ELFEROld Dominion University Saint Louis University Clayton State University

Metaphors of Complexity: The Roles of University Supervisors

Supervision of student teachers is a common component of teacher education. Typically, the value of a supervisory visit is found in the opportunity for university personnel to discuss with student teachers the challenges and opportunities of teaching and learning. Supervisors are positioned to help student teachers bridge learning that takes place within teacher preparation programs with the experiences of practice that occur in the field. In this way, supervisors are afforded unique opportunities as teacher educators to catalyze teacher learning. Unfortunately, there exists a limited research base about the frameworks, roles, and responsibilities for university supervisors.

Much like classroom-based teacher education, student teaching supervision is an incredibly complex endeavor. Being in the midst of a situated learning experience, the university supervisor must navigate (1) power-laden spaces of schools (Kumashiro, 2002); (2) hierarchical relationships between cooperating teachers and student teachers in the student teaching triad that consists of the cooperating teacher, student teacher, and university supervisor (Veal & Rikard, 1998); and (3) emotionally demanding student teaching experience to advance teacher learning (Cole & Knowles, 1995). Despite the challenging nature of supervision, this work is generally not valued within teacher education institutions (Zeichner, 2005). In fact, a dominant theme in the student teacher supervision research literature is the isolation supervisors face. Several studies point to supervisors’ descriptions of their work as marginalized within teacher education or the “sink or swim” attitude regarding supervision (Cuenca, 2010; Hartzler-Miller, 1999; Ritter, 2007; Slick, 1997). Given that the work of supervision is generally both low-status work and assigned to those without research responsibilities (e.g., graduate students, clinical faculty, retired teachers), giving an empirical voice to the complexities associated with supervision is a daunting, yet necessary task.

In this paper, we present evidence from a yearlong self-study of teacher education practices with aim to give voice to the complexities associated with the work of field-based teacher education. We build on prior self-study research that has evaluated the work of supervision from the standpoint of those doing supervision (e.g., Cuenca, 2010; Cuenca, Schmeichel, Butler, Dinkelman, & Nichols, 2011; Montecinos et al., 2002; Ritter, Powell, & Hawley, 2007; Trout, 2008, 2010) and detail three metaphors of complexity that we found as we collaboratively examined our own practice as supervisors. In voicing these self-constructed roles of supervision, we seek to surface some of the tensions and challenges we faced as we tried to navigate the challenging terrain of supervising student teachers. The nature of these metaphors should suggest not only the ambiguity that surrounds being a university supervisor, but also the intricacies involved in supervising student teachers.

Theoretical Perspective In this paper, our theoretical perspective is framed by the

work of communities of practice. According to Wenger (1998), a community of practice is a social group engaged in the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise. These groups coalesce around mutual engagement in a practice that is defined by what they do as well as the social context that gives that practice its structure and meaning. Klein and Connell (2008) described communities of practice as

A community of individuals immersed in a domain of practice, who share their knowledge and experience of the domain in a variety of ways, very often informally. The sharing serves a variety of purposes: it enables good practice to be spread; it enables novices to become more knowledgeable and experienced; and it enables the community to develop new knowledge. (p. 66)

Facing the confluence of low status in clinical teacher education (Zeichner, 2005) and the pervasive problem of ignoring the education of teacher educators (Cochran-Smith, 2003), four graduate students engaged in the work of supervision agreed to meet regularly throughout an academic year to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the work of field-based teacher education. Of the four graduate students, three (Alex, Brandon, and Joseph) were in their third year of university supervision and the fourth (Charles) was in his first year.

Our community of practice reflected many of the characteristics Kitchen and Ciuffetelli Parker (2009) suggested were “critical to the development of self-study communities” (p. 118). Our community of practice served as a space distinctly separate from a long-standing community of practice of faculty and doctoral students focused on issues of social studies teacher education at large (e.g., Cuenca et al., 2011; Dinkelman, 2010; Dinkelman et al., in press). Brandon and Alex organized the university supervisor community of practice and invited other supervisors to take part. They were voluntarily joined by Charles and Joseph.

Unlike much of the work of supervision, which generally occurs in isolation from other supervisors (Slick, 1998), our community provided a supportive environment that helped shape how we approached the practice of supervision. Engaged in the work of field-based teacher education, we brought together the lived experiences that challenged us, motivated us, and gave us pause. Moreover, the community environment allowed us to constantly negotiate the meanings surrounding the work of supervision that emerged from our experiences. Because we shared a familiarity with the experience of supervision, we were able to challenge, affirm, and learn from each other as field-based teacher educators. From the rich experiences in this community of practice, we surface the viewpoints and perspectives about the work of

supervision that emerged from our conversations and helped us define our roles as supervisors.

MethodsGiven that a primary aim of self-study is to provide

teacher educators a way to reframe understandings of practice (Loughran & Northfield, 1998), a self-study of teacher education practices paralleled the desire to collaboratively navigate our work as supervisors and to develop educational understanding of said work (Craig, 2009; Kitchen & Ciuffetelli Parker, 2009). This methodological vantage point allowed us to generate an emic form of knowledge that provided a different path to understanding the work of supervision (Loughran & Northfield, 1998).

Data for this study included transcribed recordings of 10 bi-weekly collaborative meetings and relevant documents (e.g., field notes, observation reports) the supervisors collected in the process of their work across two semesters. Each meeting lasted approximately one hour. Drawing on various forms of data across one academic year provided validity for our self-study of teacher education practices (Feldman, 2003, 2009). Data analysis occurred during and following our yearlong investigation. To develop an understanding of the different roles we saw ourselves fulfilling during supervision, we began with descriptive coding of data (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Merriam, 2009; Samaras, 2011). Examples of initial codes included “negotiating differences,” “status of supervisors,” and “definition of good teaching.” Through a constant comparative method of analysis, these codes coalesced into several metaphors (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Samaras, 2011) of how we perceived our role as supervisors, as uncertain judge, referee, and counselor.

OutcomesSupervisor as uncertain judge. A fundamental

responsibility of a university supervisor is judging the work and practice of a student teacher. Although this task is often simplistically reduced to checking off whether a student teacher meets a certain expectation of practice (Acheson & Gall, 1997), our lived experiences revealed that evaluating teachers and, subsequently, teaching teachers is far more complex than simply checking boxes and correcting behaviors. In the first place, our limited time with student teachers (three visits lasting roughly two hours each) provided a narrow perspective on the entire body of work of a given candidate. As Alex phrased it, “Honestly, the biggest issue is time. To do it all in three sessions is impossible I think.” We expressed these feelings of uncertainty not because we were not confident in our abilities as field-based teacher educators, but because the range of student teaching contexts was so diverse.

Given the variability and contingency of the act of teaching, we questioned whether the two-hour snapshot of teaching we were privy to during our observations was an accurate representation of the broader body of work of our student teachers. While we had some mechanisms available to assuage this uncertainty (e.g., communication with cooperating teacher, conferences with student teachers), the limited perspective made us question our judgments about the practices that we deemed “good” or “bad.” Consequently, the task of judging the teaching we observed and the development of a student teacher was an onerous activity.

On several occasions we also discussed feeling somewhat unqualified to make definite, objective judgments about whether a student teacher should pass or fail student teaching. As Charles described the dilemma, “How would

we say [with certainty] that [a student teacher] did or did not do what they were supposed to do when there’s more than one way to do it?” Although we collectively recognized that student teacher effectiveness varied considerably from one candidate to the next, determining objective standards for performance proved difficult. Speaking to the conflict surrounding determinations of failure, Alex asked, “What’s the threshold? If you’re learning to teach and if learning to teach is such an individualistic endeavor, then who the heck am I to tell you that you’re not properly learning to teach?” Deeply concerned about teacher quality and our own role in the development of a professional class of teachers, we nonetheless questioned our ability to make truly objective determinations given the multi-dimensional nature of our supervisory work.

Supervisor as referee. Supervisors are commonly described as liaisons between a teacher education program and a placement site. However, our conversations revealed that this description is much more complex than simply establishing a working relationship with a school and facilitating communication. Given the centrality of our position, we often found ourselves in the position of troubleshooting, problem solving, or settling disputes between the teacher education programs we represented, cooperating teachers, and student teachers.

Many disagreements stem from the well-documented differences between the progressive pedagogical and philosophical aims of teacher education and the conservative pull of classrooms (Britzman, 2003; Putnam & Borko, 2000). The progressive/conservative friction during student teaching manifested itself as many mentor teachers complained to us directly about the disconnect between the “ivory tower” and the “real world of teachers.” Implicated in this critique as representatives of the program, we found ourselves trying to justify our perspectives on how we went about preparing teachers. An example of this friction can be found in Charles’s early experiences as a supervisor. Charles, in particular, was challenged with a mentor teacher who perceived a distance between him and the program. He noted:

He’s not upset up with me. He’s upset with the university. … If we’re talking about challenges to being a new supervisor, one of the challenges is that the university may have goals, the program may have goals that I have to carry out on some level, but that those are not always in line with the day-to-day operations of another institution, the schools that we work with.

Charles acknowledged his role as an intermediary between mentor teachers and the program. This particular mentor had disappointing experiences with previous student teachers. As a result, Charles had spent considerable time in an attempt to assuage the mentor’s concerns. In our group conversation, he reflected on the cause of the mentor’s disappointment: “I think his issue is that when he gets a bad student teacher, that the [program] has not been quick enough to handle the situation.”

In response, Alex asked Charles how he negotiated these tensions: “I know one of the big struggles that I faced—I still face it—is whose side do you take?” Charles agreed there was difficulty in balancing these tensions, but he looked past the struggle between mentor teacher and program to the tensions between mentor teacher and student teacher. This friction manifested itself in several ways. Because our preservice teachers were prepared to teach social studies through a critical and democratic lens, many of the activities, pedagogies, and perspectives they brought into the classroom were often discouraged. Such beliefs and practices created tension between the student teacher and mentor teacher. As

supervisors, we often found ourselves trying not only to make concessions between both parties, but also to find a way to reconcile the aims we were trying to promote as field-based teacher educators within the status quo of a mentor teacher’s classroom.

Similarly, some student teachers expressed their frustration with their perceived preparation for student teaching. As supervisors, we frequently heard from our student teachers that they used very little of what they learned in their methods courses. While certainly these sentiments were taken with some trepidation as to their accuracy, again, as representatives of the program, we felt some obligation to referee the relationship between a student teacher and the teacher education program.

Supervisor as counselor. Considering that student teaching is a public act that can often lead to feelings of uncertainty, doubt, tension, and isolation, at times our relationship with student teachers assumed a counselor-like character. In some instances, we invested our time as pedagogical counselors, assuring our student teachers that the risks they were taking in the classroom with different strategies would ultimately pay dividends. We stressed that re-socializing students to thrive in student-based activities would take time, and that approaches that seemed to fail at first required only minor adjustments, not repudiation. These moments required each of us to reassure our student teachers that the effectiveness of practice was contingent on innumerable factors that become more apparent with time and experience in the classroom.

For instance, Alex expressed concern about several student teachers that were uncertain about how to teach content. For a program that emphasized student engagement, Alex noted that after several observations these students were not “having fun with the content.” Although he acknowledged these students were passionate about teaching, they did not show this passion in their instruction and interaction with the content. From their own experiences, Brandon and Charles reinforced Alex’s observation. Brandon noted he had informed student teachers about the importance of empathy and personal drama while Charles suggested to student teachers that they “establish some sort of conflict or problem to be solved” when teaching the content. These were preservice teachers with a strong emphasis in their content areas. Our students had content knowledge, but they lacked a degree of pedagogical content knowledge we deemed sufficient for effective student engagement. As supervisors, we viewed it as our role to counsel student teachers about best practices.

Our conversations also revealed that as supervisors we cared about monitoring and offering advice about the affective dimension of teaching. Several of us reminded our student teachers that they were still student teachers, and that learning to teach, not becoming consumed by the work of teaching, was the priority. Although part of the process requires assuming some of the responsibilities of teaching, we often offered advice about balancing the seemingly overwhelming workload. We also counseled our student teachers about the emotions associated with teaching. For some student teachers, facing the realities of poverty and inequity in some schools was jarring. The realities of homeless students, racial tensions, and unequal opportunities in schools required us as supervisors to listen to and to help our student teachers sort through the emotions associated with these experiences.

ConclusionsAlthough the literature on supervision reveals a number

of roles defined for supervisors, the roles we infer from our data are defined by supervisors engaged in the work of field-based teacher education. In taking this more authoritative stance on our work as university supervisors, we hope to add depth to the literature on the complex work of clinical teacher education. We consider that contribution in this section; however, we first turn to the impact of the self-study of teacher education practices upon our individual practices as teacher educators.

The community of practice impacted our teacher education practices long after our participation in the community ended. We immediately used the outcomes of our collaboration to create educational knowledge (Kitchen & Ciuffetelli Parker, 2009). Professionally, we shared the benefits and challenges of our work as a community of supervisors in an AERA symposium (Butler, Cuenca, Elfer, & Gitlin, 2010). Just as important, each participant has continued to value both the process and outcome of our community of practice. All four participants have since taken positions as assistant professors at research-intensive institutions (Brandon and Alex) or teaching-intensive institutions (Charles and Joseph). Despite the fact we are employed at separate institutions, we continue to engage in individual and collaborative self-studies of our teaching and/or supervision. And although not all members of our community of practice engage in the work of university supervision, each of us has applied the process and outcomes of our community of practice to our specific institutional work as university supervisors, methods instructors, and colleagues who seek to build collaborative communities with fellow faculty or doctoral students.

As noted at the outset, university supervision is plagued by inattention. As a consequence, field-based practice has remained a relatively low-status dimension of teacher education. In many programs, university supervision is performed by part-time, adjunct faculty members or is relegated to graduate students in the earliest stages of their degree programs. To be sure, the suggestion is not that part-time faculty or graduate teaching assistants are incapable of high quality field-based practice, but rather that supervision is generally regarded as simplistic and believed to require relatively little skill. The tendency toward checklist-like assessment protocols tends to further conceptions of university supervision as hollow and mechanical.

Our contention is that field-based supervision is a critical component of teacher education that deserves thoughtful reconsideration. It is our belief that much good could come from a broader conversation of supervisory practices—a conversation that includes investigations of diverse approaches, consideration of the programmatic contexts which tend to determine the relative value of supervisory practices, and explorations of the problems that inevitably follow fieldwork. The collaborative work presented here is unlikely novel, but does represent a relatively rare glimpse into the possibilities that self-study of teacher education practice might offer university supervision of student teachers. Our experiences represent new or unvoiced conceptions of university supervision, but more importantly, it is our hope that efforts to better understand our practices stand as a point of departure and frame of reference for a broader, reinvigorated conversation about field-based teacher education.

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Britzman, D. P. (2003). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach (Revised ed.). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Butler, B. M., Cuenca, A., Elfer, C., & Gitlin, A. (2010, April). Challenging the construction of student teaching supervision: The possibilities of collaborative action research. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Denver, CO.

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Cole, A. L., & Knowles, J. G. (1995). University supervisors and preservice teachers: Clarifying roles and negotiating relationships. The Teacher Educator, 30(3), 44–56.

Craig, C. J. (2009). Trustworthiness in self-study research. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 21–34). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Cuenca, A. (2010). In loco paedagogus: The pedagogy of a novice university supervisor. Studying Teacher Education, 6(1), 29–43.

Cuenca, A., Schmeichel, M., Butler, B. M., Dinkelman, T., & Nichols, J. R. (2011). Creating a “third space” in student teaching: Implications for the university supervisor’s status as outsider. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(7), 1068–1077.

Dinkelman, T. (2010). Complicating coherence: Self-study research and social studies teacher education programs and practices. In A. Crowe (Eds.), Advancing social studies education through self-study methodologies: The power, promise, and use of self-study in social studies education (pp. 157–175). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Dinkelman, T., Cuenca, A., Butler, B. M., Elfer, C., Ritter, J. K., Powell, D. J., & Hawley, T. (in press). The influence of a collaborative doctoral seminar on emerging researcher-teacher educators. Action in Teacher Education, 34(2), 172–190.

Feldman, A. (2003). Validity and quality in self-study. Educational Researcher, 32(3), 26–28.

Feldman, A. (2009). Making the self problematic: Data analysis and interpretation in self-study. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 35–52). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Hartzler-Miller, C. D. (1999). Learning to teach teachers in a standards-based program: When experience isn’t enough. Action in Teacher Education, 21(3), 88–101.

Kitchen, J., & Ciuffetelli Parker, D. (2009). Self-study communities of practice: Developing community, critically inquiring as community. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 107–128). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Klein, J. H., & Connell, N. A. D. (2008). The identification and cultivation of appropriate communities of practice in higher education. In C. Kimble, P. Hildreth, & I. Bourdon (Eds.), Communities of practice: Creating learning environments for educators (Vol. 1, pp. 65–81). Charlotte, NC Information Age Press.

Kumashiro, K. K. (2002). Against repetition: Addressing resistance to anti-oppressive change in the practices of learning, teaching, supervising, and researching. Harvard Educational Review, 72(1), 67–92.

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MAGGIE CHASE & BRUCE ROBBINSBoise State University

Modeling Reflective Practice

We are language arts teacher educators in different departments at a state university whose mission statement identifies “reflective practice” as a central goal of teacher education. On student course evaluations, Maggie’s department has included “The professor models reflective practice.” She wondered, “How would the students know if their professors are reflective practitioners, since often teacher reflection is not shared with students?” We began conversing about reflective practice as it pertains to ourselves as teacher educators. We wondered what students think it means to be a reflective practitioner, and in what ways they may or may not recognize their professors as reflective practitioners. Students usually have limited access to their professors’ reflective processes. What would happen if we consciously let them in on our reflections? Would students even recognize our modeling as reflective practice? To what extent might modeling our own reflection processes affect our students’ understanding of reflective practice or its place in their own teaching? Conversely, we speculated about some potential downsides such as an undercutting of credibility, and more importantly, whether students would view our modeling as relevant or potentially useful to themselves as future teachers.

As emphasized by our university’s conceptual framework, reflective practice begins with Dewey (1933), as developed by Schӧn (1987) to describe problem-based thinking typical of effective teachers. In teacher education, Russell (2005) asserts that “professional educators often advocate reflective practice; it is less clear that they model it and provide explicit instruction” (p. 199), which coincides with our own questions. Russell uses his written communication with a student to demonstrate that reflective practice can be taught. In their study, Lunenberg, Korthagen, and Swennen (2008) find modeling by teacher educators promising, but also infrequent and not always competent. In Aubusson, Griffin, and Steele (2010), Aubusson explicitly models reflection by sharing with students why he chose to use certain teaching strategies. He and his co-authors found that these explanations were less powerful for student learning than developing students’ own “contextual anchor” in students’ teaching experiences that were scaffolded for further reflection. Unanswered for us were the following self-study questions:

1. When we model reflective practice, do our students recognize our modeling without being told what it is?

2. When we share our teaching reflections with students, what attitudes or beliefs contextualize the students’ understanding of these demonstrations of reflection?

3. When we model reflective practice, how do students apply our modeling to themselves as teachers?

MethodWe consider our modeling to be a teaching intervention

designed as a “frame experiment” (Hillocks, 1995) in which we tested the hypothesis that our students will become more conscious of reflective practice as a result of our modeling of it. For this study we defined reflection narrowly as classroom-based problem solving, and in one or more episodes per course, we modeled our reflection by thinking aloud about an issue related to class.

Data came from one course for each instructor during spring and fall 2011, totaling four courses and 79 students (15 to 28 per course). Three courses were pre-service; one course was for graduate students who were mostly teachers. We asked students to complete open-response questionnaires, first to establish their initial dispositions, again following each reflection think-aloud that we modeled, and again at the end of the course. We asked initial questions such as

• When a teacher changes his/her mind about something like the course content, teaching approach, assignments, or classroom management, I think/feel:

• When a teacher explains or shows how he/she would do an assignment or think about something, I think/feel:Our think-alouds each included elements of Schӧn’s

(1987) categories (surface, pedagogical, and critical). Each model reflection began with a phrase like “I’d like to share with you some of my thinking about what happened in class last time.” We did not explicitly name these as models of practitioner reflection. Immediately after modeling, our questionnaires asked students,

• What did you notice about what I was doing as a teacher just now?

• How do you feel about it? • Can you imagine yourself doing anything like this?

Most episodes were voice recorded, and we wrote self-descriptive field notes and met for conversational reflections. We also examined one or more assignments in our courses for evidence of the kinds of reflection we had modeled. At the end of each course we surveyed students, asking questions such as

• What does the phrase “reflective practitioner” mean to you?

• How do you imagine you might use reflective practice in your future teaching?

• In what ways would you describe your professor as a reflective practitioner? Analysis involved categorizing and coding student

responses, first by the author who did not teach that class. We coded using Schӧn’s (1987) framework and looked for emergent patterns and themes. We also revisited questions and themes from our field notes and reflections. Finally, an important if perhaps often invisible step came as the co-authors co-wrote and edited this report, determining which data seemed most salient, which quotations were most

representative, and which wording most accurately presented our thinking, continuously renegotiating and interpreting in the spirit of fidelity to evidence and accuracy.

ResultsQuestionnaire responses informed us that students

typically defined reflective practice as thinking about teaching in order to improve it, and they consistently viewed this as valuable and important for teaching. Most focused on fixing something specific like a lesson, but about a quarter of undergraduates and half the graduate students defined it more broadly (e.g., “always and forever adapting”) and in service of professional growth (e.g., “learning and changing with all your experiences”). When asked how they might use reflective practice themselves, they typically answered: daily, constantly, to improve plans, to meet learning objectives. One wrote, “I will constantly need to reflect on how students are responding to certain things and how that correlates to their performance. Being a reflective teacher is a mindset that encourages personal growth.” Others stated, “Reflection should be a full time part of life” and “It comes naturally; you can’t not do it.” The graduate class’s responses differed somewhat from the undergraduates. About half planned to continue current practice (e.g., “I’m always reflecting”; “I will continue to use it as I do now”) and the other half made resolutions to improve (e.g., “I need to be more proactive, reflect after lessons, keep a journal”).

When we model reflective practice, do our students recognize our modeling without being told what it is? Mostly, no. In each course we selected a specific class activity or issue and deliberately shared with the class an oral version of our teaching reflection. Immediately afterward we asked students to write a response to the question “What was I doing just now?”

In her Children’s Literature course, Maggie recounted a minor incident from the previous class in which a playful student asked for a handout he had missed. Kidding, Maggie announced she wasn’t providing room service; he should retrieve his group folder the usual way. The next week, Maggie explained that after class she realized she had not made clear enough her procedures, also pointing out to students that they would likely need to rehearse classroom procedures many times with their future students. Teasing the student indicated her incomplete understanding of the problem as well as potentially not considering the student’s feelings sensitively enough. Afterward, nearly all described this demonstration as “apologizing and admitting you are not perfect.” Two students described this as modeling, but “modeling how to address students about something that might be considered hurtful.”

Following a class project on essays in his Teaching Writing course, Bruce shared with students, “when I see my students’ work in response to a new assignment I often learn some things about the assignment that help me think about how to make it better,” and he shared the problems he observed and the changes he envisioned making next time. He told them, “I shared this with you because you are planning to be teachers and this is how teachers think about their teaching.” To the prompt afterward, six students responded solely from a student perspective, such as “it made me nervous about my grade.” The other 13 saw the explanation as useful for their future teaching as methods instruction and as modeling traits like humility (e.g., “it was reassuring to know that you can’t be perfect all the time as a teacher. Your ideas of how you would go about it differently were also helpful b/c it gave me ideas of how I would set up a writing project

and what would/would not work”). Only one student saw the lesson as “learning to adapt and recognize when things do not go as planned is crucial.”

In his English methods course Bruce reflected aloud on the structure of a group activity during the previous class. Also modeling surface, pedagogical, and critical reflection, he identified a problem (not enough explicit application of group work), considered alternative options, embedding them in pedagogical principles (e.g., “The product had a purpose—but I don’t think I was clear and explicit about the purpose”), and then connected this to a concept of John Dewey’s presented in class two weeks earlier. Afterward, 11 students characterized his reflection as reviewing instruction, and five described it as reflection.

Despite his modeling episode three weeks before, to the end-of-course question “In what ways would you describe your professor as a reflective practitioner?” seven of Bruce’s 19 English methods students left the item blank. Most of Maggie’s Children’s Lit students said she reflects—for example, that “she checks to see how we did, what we got from it, how she can improve lessons.” However, only a minority of her graduate students characterized her reflection beyond improving lessons to things like actively listening to students, flexibly adapting course requirements and conditions, seeking innovations, and being generally thoughtful and purposeful.

When we share our teaching reflections with students, what attitudes or beliefs contextualize the students’ understanding of these demonstrations of reflection? Students predominantly interpreted our reflection modeling as “owning up to your teaching mistakes.” Only a few students were unforgiving, declaring that teachers should never make mistakes. Across the data set, nearly all the students considered our sharing our reflections about our teaching as positive, most often seen as instances that conveyed honesty, respected students, and humanized the teacher. The second-largest response interpreted our reflective modeling as re-teaching or reviewing course material or procedures, also seen as positive. We coded these as surface reflections, responses to immediate concerns with little thought to pedagogical or critical principles or reasoning patterns that could be applied by them. The majority of responses also reflected the perspective of a student rather than a (future) teacher. For example, we asked in the initial questionnaire, “When a teacher explains about changing his/her mind about something like the course content, teaching approach, assignments, or classroom management, I think/feel:”

most considered how this might affect their course work and grade, not how this might let them in on how teachers think reflectively about such things. However, about a third of the responses showed evidence of some pedagogical thinking, as in these two: “Hearing about the process of assignment evaluation is an important part of the process in learning to teach” and

I need to know because you’re the expert and I have no clue how to deal with assignments after they are turned in—as far as a thought process goes. It’s nice to know what you are thinking so I can have examples of how I should think about the grading/assignment process.

Even among the graduate students, critical responses were quite rare.

When we model reflective practice, how do students apply our modeling to themselves as teachers? Most pre-service and graduate students did demonstrate in their fieldwork journals and assignments the ability to think reflectively at least at a surface level, and sometimes at a

pedagogical level. Most of the undergraduate comments and observations referenced their own experience vis-a-vis how the lesson went, for example. Very few considered the experiences and understandings of the students with whom they interacted, a predominant theme in Maggie’s self-reflections. The question “What would you change or do differently next time?” often pushed students to consider other approaches or possibilities, but their suggestions usually referenced themselves and their experiences, rather than student results or reactions. Students in the teacher education program who have had numerous and extensive experiences with children, be it through work or family, tended to recognize and acknowledge more readily the nuances and complexities of working with a wide range of children. Graduate students were more likely to reference students’ comments, products, and actions. Maggie quite often wrote in undergraduates’ reflections, “How did your students respond to this? Give examples.” Most graduate students tended to do this automatically without prompting.

However, we found very few instances in the data of student reflective practice that could be directly attributed to or influenced by our modeling, which we attribute to imprecise data collection or too many tangled variables.

Implications for Our TeachingReflection is a very broad term with myriad facets.

Here we focused on modeling reflection on classroom-based problems. For Dewey (1933) and others, reflection begins with a problem whose solution is uncertain, from which “reflective thinking impels to inquiry” (p. 7). So we considered it natural to begin modeling by identifying a problem or anomaly. Yet doing so resulted in many students’ understanding of the event as a kind of apology, rather than a cognitive process that they would use as teachers themselves—a process of ongoing reconsideration, revision, adaptation, and change. In our think-alouds we think our students saw us more as role models than as modelers of thought processes.

In their responses, most students positioned us as the teacher and themselves as students—they were, after all, students in our classes. The problem we see is that instead of vicariously sharing in our reasoning patterns, they left the reflective practice to us. At least two thirds of our students did not appear to recognize our modeling as demonstrations of a cognitive process for them to learn. It is, of course, unreasonable to ask them to name our teaching with the word we have in mind for it; nevertheless, we think our students’ responses suggest that their learning mode remains mainly that of the apprenticeship of observation gained simply by years of unreflective school experience in a student role, not deliberate learning of reflective patterns to use in their own teaching. To put it simply: if they don’t recognize modeling of reflective practice as such, they probably are not using the modeling to learn how to practice reflection.

Our experience has not persuaded us to abandon modeling, but rather to improve it. Lunenberg et al. (2008) argue that implicit modeling may be ineffective, and our data largely supports this. Our inclination is to make modeling more explicit, partly by overtly naming what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how our students may do something similar. We both teach the assessment cycle of using students’ responses, reactions, and assignments to inform teaching. We need to more explicitly show how reflective practice is a necessary component of that cycle that seeks continual improvement, not confessions. It is crucial that we help our students understand that the point of reflection is not so much honesty as it is perceptiveness.

In addition to modeling reflection explicitly, Lunenberg et al. (2008) also recommend “explicit modelling and facilitating the translation into the student teachers’ own practice,” and “connecting exemplary behaviour to theory” (p. 597). Our reaction to our findings inclines us to consider spending more time on case studies, analyses, and problems related to the students our students will be teaching rather than verbalizing the issues and complexities we encounter as college-level teachers of teachers. The suggestion of Aubusson et al. (2010) to develop students’ own “contextual anchor” seems a similar direction, where we might forge stronger reflective links between our courses and our students’ classroom internships. Whenever we do explicitly model teacher reflection, we will now ask our students to do the same—right away, reflecting on aspects of their own early teaching experiences. We will demonstrate concrete steps they can take to analyze a situation, and again following Lunenberg et al. (2008), we will be even more explicit about linking our reflections to theoretical principles, and we will ask them to do the same.

Implications for Student Evaluations of Teacher Education Professors

It seems irresistibly logical that if it is important to teach teachers to be reflective practitioners, and if modeling is not only an important instructional tool but also important for avoiding potential hypocrisy (i.e., “teach as I say, not as I do”), then students should be able to respond positively to “The professor models reflective practice.” However, even with the kind of overt instruction and scaffolding we’ve outlined above, our data suggest that many students may still not recognize the professor’s modeling of reflective practice even as they are learning from it. Certainly our data indicate that without the sort of concerted and overt effort we have described above, groups of students like ours are unlikely to be able to fairly evaluate faculty on this point.

ReferencesAubusson, P., Griffin, J., & Steele, F. (2010). A design-based

self-study of the development of student reflection in teacher education. Studying Teacher Education, 6(2), 201–216.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath.

Hillocks, G. (1995). Teaching writing as reflective practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lunenberg, M., Korthagen, F., & Swennen, A. (2008). The teacher educator as role model. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(5), 586–601.

Russell, T. (2005). Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice, 6(2), 199–204.

Schӧn, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

It happens every summer. S-STEP members carefully prepare and submit proposals through the often recalcitrant AERA electronic system, and then wait. As co–program chairs for the past two years, we have worked with the AERA system and our S-STEP colleagues to craft the S-STEP program for the spring annual meeting. Drawing from Feldman (2003), Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009), and others who identify transparency as a key requirement of self-study research, we provide an insider’s view of program decision-making in order to demystify the program creation process and to examine our work as collaborators in a time-intensive, decision-oriented process.

Schubert and Ayers’ (1992) articulation of lore as a way of learning from and broadly sharing our own experiences frames our reflections on our own experience as we review our perceptions of one another’s actions and reactions. As critical friends we co-create the meanings surrounding program decision-making and the impact of those decisions on our colleagues and ourselves. We also draw on Moss’s (1994) discussion of validity theory in which she argues that divergent interpretations enrich our understanding of any work that is being assessed and that as differences are resolved through dialogue the assessment becomes more valid. We are not only trying to make the program construction process more transparent, we are also trying to make our collaborative decision-making process more transparent. In doing so, we draw from Clift, Veal, Holland, Johnson, and McCarthy’s (1995) notions of the necessary features that sustain collaboration and shared decision-making: structure within time and space, individual goals and interpretations, interpersonal relations, leadership over time, and synergy among the first four. Our work together has deepened our understandings of what a successful collaboration entails within a context bounded by time, distance, and pressure to produce within an inflexible system.

MethodsOur primary data sources include over 500 e-mail

exchanges between 2008 and 2011 and numerous telephone conversations, five of which were recorded and transcribed. Other data sources include our personal notes, as well as all of the proposals and reviewer comments that we received for the 2011 and the 2012 AERA conferences. We independently reviewed e-mail exchanges and notes, which included our interactions with AERA, the chair of S-STEP, and the programs we produced. To capture the essence of our collaboration we each independently proposed initial categories to sort the data, using a process of analytic induction, as described by Bogdan and Biklin (2007). Then, together, we first argued through and then reached agreement on four key areas that contained elements of both deliberative

and emotion-laden exchanges that had to be resolved in order for there to be a program. The first, establishing the collaboration, explains the ways we initially identified and then shared tasks. Increasingly the collaboration was bounded by our evolving relationship with AERA Central, our second category, and one that impacts the third: arriving at decisions about what to include or not include in the AERA program. The fourth category, our decisions’ impact on ourselves and on our relationship, is necessarily a result of the first three. Or as Clift et al. (1995) found, structural and individual factors influenced our interpersonal relations and the leadership that one or the other of us provided over time. Within each of the four categories we selected one event that, when juxtaposed against the entire data set, captured our evolving work together and our relationship with one another.

Neither of us actively sought the position of program chair; rather, we were independently recruited by S-STEP chair Anne Schulte to compete for the position—AERA Central wanted at least two viable candidates for every SIG office. Renée, who had previously served as a program chair, and Jim, who had held other offices in two SIGs, thought we were well acquainted with the structure and bureaucracy of AERA Central. Renée suggested that we run together as co-chairs; Jim readily agreed. We each knew that the position was demanding, both in terms of time commitment and high-stakes decision-making, and we welcomed the idea of sharing the responsibility with another person.

Although we had known each other casually for many years through AERA and S-STEP, we had never actually worked together, so there was an element of uncertainty in terms of what to expect. Our styles of communication, work habits, views on collaboration, and respective strengths and weaknesses led us to wonder if we would be compatible. Over time, however, we developed a highly effective working relationship that was characterized by our growing and mutual respect for one another, undergirded by our common commitment to S-STEP.

FindingsOur work and our findings are both a product of and

bounded by our previous work with one another, the AERA electronic submissions process, and the ways that AERA Central controls the process. We briefly describe this process because of the ways it defined and constrained our work. Each spring, program chairs identify potential reviewers, to be approved by the SIG chair. During the first year of our collaboration, AERA Central suddenly stipulated that every reviewer should receive ten proposals and every proposal should receive three reviews. This was a change from program chairs having a certain amount of autonomy and reviewers deciding how many reviews they could complete. As a result,

RENEE T. CLIFT JIM MUCHMORE University of Arizona Western Michigan University

The Fun, the Frustration, the Collaboration: A Collaborative Self-Study of AERA S-STEP Program Co-Chairs

seven highly-qualified people dropped out. In both years we ultimately decided to disregard the ten-proposal rule; we were concerned that asking people to review ten proposals year after year would eventually lead to burnout, and S-STEP would lose knowledgeable and experienced reviewers in future years. We assigned no more than nine proposals per reviewer in the first year, and reduced this number to seven in the second year. Thus one of our first decisions was to create a manageable work-flow for our colleagues, even though it went against some rules.

Once the reviewers were selected, AERA Central closed the reviewer assignment system until after proposals were in and they had “cleaned” the submissions. In the second year they simply removed any submission that they felt was inappropriate (with no explanation), and we were told that program chairs were not allowed to overrule Central’s decisions. After reviews were in, Central let us back into the system and told us how many sessions we could create. In the second year, Central became even more controlling by specifying exactly how many total proposals we were allowed to place in poster or roundtable sessions. In the second year, especially, we experienced the unpleasant task of having to reject high-quality proposals due to the increasingly strict policies of AERA Central.

Establishing a collaborative relationship. In order to meet the demands of our job, we deliberately began a series of e-mails and telephone conversations in which we each volunteered to complete selected tasks (such as identifying reviewers) and then did so quickly. By volunteering without being asked and then following through, we demonstrated an early commitment to one another. One key to our successful collaboration was the genuine empathy that we felt toward one another’s other commitments. Renée, as an Associate Dean, and Jim, as a parent of young children, both experienced times when we could not meet an AERA deadline without sacrificing something else. An example, which helped establish our interpersonal relationship, occurred the first year of our collaboration at the Castle Conference. In order to meet a deadline that fell in the middle of the conference, we blocked off one entire afternoon to work on assigning papers to reviewers. It was long and tedious work as we took turns entering data on Renée’s laptop. After several hours, Renée said, “Why don’t you go and spend some time with your family? I’ll finish up here.” Knowing that Jim’s family had accompanied him to the Castle, Renée assumed this was an important issue for him. Later, although we sometimes explicitly discussed allocation of tasks, there were many times when one of us would complete a task unilaterally, without being asked, always making sure to inform the other person via e-mail. Our empathetic stance toward one another solidified mutual respect, and we effectively avoided any feelings of resentment about respective workloads.

Working with AERA Central. Years ago, the work of the program chair was done entirely through the postal system. Now everything is done electronically, which has advantages and disadvantages. Although it is now much easier to manage the entire process and to keep track of all the proposals, the online system is complex, and a new program chair can spend many hours trying to figure out how to complete the most basic tasks.

In addition, AERA Central is now able to establish and enforce an ever-increasing array of rules—some of which are announced at the last minute or not at all. For example, neither of us submitted a proposal to AERA during the first year, but we both did so during the second year. In order to address ethical issues that might arise from our dual roles as

both submitters and program chairs, we had agreed that Renée would assign Jim’s proposal to three reviewers, and vice versa. We would then both work together to weigh our reviewers’ evaluations against the evaluations of all the other proposals in order to a make a fair and informed decision about whether or not our own proposals should appear on the program.

We were fully prepared to reject our own proposals if they did not measure up. However, we were unable to carry through with our plan because AERA abruptly changed the rules after the process had already begun, burying their announcement in the middle of a very long e-mail message that mostly concerned other issues. Our proposals now went to the SIG chair, who would choose three reviewers and make the ultimate decision about acceptance or rejection. We were dismayed by this new rule for several reasons. First, it had been introduced very late in the process, and AERA Central had done a poor job of informing us. Second, the decision to accept or reject our proposals was now being made in isolation from all of the other proposals. How would the SIG chair know if our two proposals were good enough to be accepted if he or she did not have access to the other proposal evaluations in order to make a comparative analysis? Third, we did not receive any reviewer feedback on our proposals, just a simple notice of acceptance. This made it impossible for us to accurately judge how our proposals might have compared with all the others, which effectively excluded our proposals from any consideration of being rejected as we made difficult decisions due to limited program space.

Making tough decisions. To make our decisions, we each independently read all of the abstracts, numerical ratings, and written comments for each proposal. When reviews were mixed, we went back and read the entire proposal. After independently sorting the proposals into three broad groups—definitely accept, definitely reject, and undecided—we compared our lists over the telephone and resolved our differences through dialogue. Some of these phone conversations lasted for several hours. In the first year, the process was relatively easy because reviewers were highly discriminating, especially with regard to symposia. In the second year, however, we experienced some difficulty. We received fewer proposals in the second year, which resulted in fewer program slots allocated to S-STEP. At the same time, the quality of the submissions was unusually high. Therefore, we found ourselves in the unenviable position of having to reject several high-quality proposals that we both wanted to accept.

Throughout this difficult experience, we noticed a cathartic benefit to our collaboration. The ability to discuss ideas, to explore possibilities, to share perspectives, and to work toward consensus helped us to feel confident that we had made the best decisions possible given the strictures under which we had to operate. We drew inner strength from our collaboration—from our ability to reassure each other after we had reached an agreement on a difficult decision.

Post–decision making reflections. Each year after our decisions were announced, we received both happy and unhappy e-mails and comments. One person, who had submitted two proposals with multiple authors on each, was despondent that neither proposal had been accepted. Others, who had been assigned to chair a session, either withdrew because their proposals were rejected or simply did not show up. In addition, several people were angry because their papers had been assigned to a particular type of session, which they deemed an insult.

We understood the anger and frustration that could be elicited by a rejection notice, and we did our best to lessen it whenever possible. For example, during the second year, we

carefully vetted all of the reviewers’ comments on rejected submissions and removed any wording that we felt might be hurtful to the author. Most of these comments were quite innocuous and would only be considered hurtful within the larger context of a rejected paper. For instance, we felt that a genuinely positive comment such as “I’m really looking forward to attending this session!” might have a cruel overtone when accompanied by a rejection notice: The authors would not only feel disappointed that their paper was rejected, but would also be faced with the fact that there was an anonymous reviewer somewhere who was looking forward to something that would not occur. Ultimately, the problem is that authors interpret the reviewers’ feedback in isolation from the rest of the proposals and do not understand how many superb proposals may be competing for a limited number of slots.

ConclusionsOur work over the past two years can be framed by

the dimensions Clift et al. (1995) identified as impacting collaboration. We consciously allocated both time and space (sometimes real, sometimes virtual) to work on our various tasks. Whenever we promised one another to complete something by a given date, we always followed through and informed each other about what we had done. We also allocated time to talk and set aside large blocks of time to confer on procedures and decisions. The importance of constant, supportive communication and updating cannot be underestimated. Our verbal and virtual, synchronous and asynchronous dialogues enabled us to be sensitive to one another’s other work or personal constraints and, also, to vent and then move on when we became frustrated with AERA Central.

As individuals, we each drew from our prior experiences with program creation, both with AERA Central and with the S-STEP leadership. We shared experiences with one another as we sought to understand opportunities and constraints and as we made decisions. We independently solicited advice from others, and we independently made first-level decisions about proposal quality. However, we never acted independently on program-level decisions. This approach led us to develop a strong, interpersonal, positive working relationship.

We built trust through action as well as words. We often volunteered for routine or information-seeking tasks before being asked to do so. We came to every assigned time for decision-making prepared, and we made sure that we double-checked all decisions with one another before acting upon them. We also listened to one another—on topics that were spoken aloud and topics left unspoken. For example, we both acknowledged that spending time with family was important, and we regularly kept each other informed about our family commitments under the unspoken assumption that when one of us took time off, the other would gladly fill in.

The leadership dimension was evidenced by the shifts back and forth as Jim sometimes proposed action, while Renée proposed action at other times. Neither of us felt that one of us was “in charge” and that the other was subordinate. We knew what tasks had to be accomplished; we made sure that they were accomplished on time; we double-checked one another’s work. Also, neither of us refrained from voicing our concerns about Central’s control directly to AERA itself. We each provided feedback to the AERA staff—verbally and in writing—as we argued for more autonomy (even though we seldom were granted that autonomy).

The synergy among the previous four dimensions we experienced was not because of a long-standing personal and

professional relationship. Rather, it stemmed from careful conscious and unconscious attendance to task, bi-directional communication, emotional support and reassurance, and our shared commitment to S-STEP. Collaboration, we feel, is a conscious and constant commitment to working toward a goal, mindful that we are responsible for the needs of our collaborator(s). When the needs are obvious or stated, such as wanting to be with family on vacation, meeting this responsibility is much easier than when the needs are more subtle, such as a long pause followed by a sigh during a discussion of an upcoming deadline within a very short time frame.

It also helped that we had agreed to write this paper early in the process. Knowing that we would be going public with our work prompted us to attend to and document nuances that we otherwise might have ignored. We hope that this paper not only assists the work of our successors, program co-chairs who will now be appointed instead of elected, but also assists any of the continuing collaborative work of the teacher educator researchers who comprise the S-STEP community.

ReferencesBogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2007). Qualitative research

for education: An introduction to theories and methods. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Clift, R. T., Veal, M. L., Holland, P., Johnson, M., & McCarthy, J. (1995). Collaborative leadership and shared decision making: Teachers, principals, and university professors. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Moss, P. A. (1994). Can there be validity without reliability? Educational Researcher, 23(2) 5–12.

Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M. L. (2009). Self-study of practice as a genre of qualitative research. New York, NY: Springer.

Schubert, W. H., & Ayers, W. C. (1992). Teacher lore: Learning from our experience. New York, NY: Longman.

ALEXANDER CUENCA TODD DINKELMAN Saint Louis University University of Georgia

In Search of Expertise Across the Continuum of Experience: A Collaborative Self-Study

IntroductionApart from absurdly reductive views of teaching that

position educators as mindless automatons, it is hard to conceptualize teacher learning in a way that does not take into account some role for experience. Experience in teaching is often intertwined with expertise in teaching. This much is clear. From here, the relationship between experience and expertise clouds. Although more experienced teachers are often able to respond and react to certain problems or situations more quickly than their less-experienced counterparts (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005), whether these responses and reactions exhibit the kind of expertise needed to further learning is a different proposition. All too often, the literature on teaching teachers leaves the complexity of teaching underappreciated and even unconsidered (Korthagen, Loughran, & Lunenberg, 2005). In some ways, the mystery of teaching and the curious confounding of experience and expertise is even more pronounced for teacher educators. Given that merit and prestige in many schools and colleges of education is tied more to published research than teaching and service (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2008; Cuenca, 2010a), the dilemmas and difficulties of developing expertise through experience in teacher education have remained in the shadows of higher-profile research activities. Both this kind of prioritization and the complexity of the work may help explain why teacher educators’ developing wisdom of practice merits little attention in many colleges and universities and in too many instances is not treated as a priority at all (Zeichner, 2005).

This collaborative self-study features two secondary social studies teacher educators in very different places on the continuum of experience—one a relatively more experienced teacher educator and a novice teacher educator—seeking a greater understanding of the nexus of experience and expertise. We both began this study with the belief that counting experience as the measure of expertise risks fossilizing the field of teacher education (Smith, 2003). So we looked to our unique positioning with different histories as instructors in the same program as an opportunity to learn more about experience, pedagogical decision-making, and, we hoped, expertise in teacher education. We saw this study as an occasion to collaboratively question the expertise of the experienced as well as the emerging understandings of a novice in order to produce insights into the work of teacher education. Accordingly, our study attempted to explore the relationships between experience and expertise with the following research question: What does collaborative self-study into expertise reveal for two teacher educators across the continuum of experience? By collaborating to examine the confluence of experience and expertise, we hoped to learn more about the ways in which time spent teaching preservice

teachers might position teacher educators to develop capacity for wise practice.

Not Knowing Enough About ExpertiseDespite the fact that teacher educators are at the center

of the experience of teacher education, several reviews of the field indicate that we know very little about the expertise needed to teach teachers (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Cochran-Smith et al., 2008). Perhaps given the variety of ideological and pedagogical commitments across institutions of teacher education, the search for expertise seems unproductive. However, with the empirical momentum created by the self-study of teacher education practices community, there is a growing literature base on the teacher education professorate. In particular, self-studies from teacher educator-researchers who have studied the crucial induction years (e.g., Bullock, 2007; Cuenca, 2010b; Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006a, 2006b) have provided glimpses into the kinds of knowledge, skills, and values needed to understand the complex relationship between the strategies, perspectives, and approaches of teacher educators and teacher candidates’ experiences of learning to teach.

What these “transition” self-studies have illustrated is that developing the expertise needed to teach teachers often involves repeated encounters with ambiguity, a continuous casting about for answers, and frequent challenges to the foundations supporting accomplished practice. Other self-studies have expressed this struggle with ambiguity as tensions (Berry, 2007), contradictions (Hartzler-Miller, 1999), and propositions (Chauvot, 2009). Unfortunately, what most of theses studies make clear is that this struggle is rarely an institutional concern. As Dinkelman (2011) suggests, part of the challenge of identifying and articulating our responsibilities as teacher educators is that looking to practice often means looking alone. If practitioners new to the field lament the ambiguity associated with developing a pedagogy of teacher education, what does this say for those with years of experience in the field? In what ways might the juxtaposition of more and less experienced teacher educators working in the same program, indeed in the same course within that program, provide an intellectual and contextualized standpoint for the consideration of wise practice?

MethodThis research draws on the methods of collaborative

self-study to investigate the nature of expertise. An intentional and systematic inquiry into practice, self-studies are capable of surfacing the complexity and tacit understandings of teacher education (Berry & Loughran, 2005; Dinkelman, 2003; Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998). However, as LaBoskey (2004) reminds us, teacher knowledge is best “understood,

transformed, constructed, and articulated by the teacher self in collaboration with others” (p. 826). Therefore, collaborative self-study provides a methodological pathway to explore the development of expertise as teacher educators.

The impetus for this study began with the careful attention Alex brought to studying a student teaching seminar Todd taught in the spring of 2010. The setting for the research was a social studies teacher education program in the United States. The student teaching seminar was the capstone course that met weekly and accompanied a semester-long student teaching field placement. The course was designed as a discussion-based seminar that drew on the experiences of student teachers in their individual school settings and also systematically explored a comprehensive framework of propositions about accomplished social studies teaching. For his study, Alex collected data on three student teachers in this course and interviewed Todd before the start of the semester regarding his intentions about the seminar. Alex’s presence in the seminar also prompted less formal conversations very early in the semester, grounded in a shared curiosity about the different perspectives each teacher educator brought to the teaching and learning in the course. The rich dialogue both seemed too valuable to let pass and became formalized that semester as it moved into data collection for this study via an online discussion forum featuring regular posts about the seminar. That semester-long discussion carried forth into the summer of 2010, and then picked up again in the spring of 2011 when Alex taught his own section of the course for the first time, at the same time that Todd taught his own section for the eleventh time.

Over 18,000 words from our online discussions formed the data set we analyzed. We used qualitative techniques to mine our data for insights (Patton, 2002). This analysis occurred in three phases. First, Alex read through our conversations and used open coding techniques (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to identify, name, and describe the phenomena in our data. As Alex coded the data, he used memos to record his thoughts and ideas about the kinds of insights his analysis was providing. He then sent the code list and memos that featured some initial thoughts about emerging themes to Todd for the second round of analysis. Todd read the data and returned to the initial code list and memos to confirm, disconfirm, collapse, and expand some of Alex’s initial thoughts about the data. After this second phase of analysis, the researchers discussed their analysis of the data and condensed the emerging themes into the three insights found below. Across both phases of data collection, the study made possible the surfacing of thinking, doubts, questions, successes, and concerns, as experienced from our different positions in the program.

FindingsThe chronic uncertainty of teacher education. As

David Labaree (2004) suggests, teaching suffers from a chronic uncertainty of effectiveness. Teachers are often unable to account for the many influences on learning in classrooms, and moreover are unable to adequately measure the effects teachers have on students. Likewise, our data suggests that our work as teacher educators suffered from a similar chronic uncertainty. Despite the “years of service,” the mystery of teacher education was frequently referenced by both participants. Why things would happen or not happen during the seminar was often mystifying for both participants. For example, when reflecting on an activity where Todd has his students read his response to the entire class on their papers

on culturally responsive teaching and then share their initial reactions, he noted the following:

I liked the sharing activity…for lots of reasons, not the least of which was my sense that the ideas were being picked up an examined. But why such examination didn’t appear to spill into 15 minutes of large group discussion is a mystery to me. I thought I was bizarre to go down the differentiation and popularity tracks when the standard in my mind should send us down more pressing tracks. Are race, gender, sexuality, and poverty too controversial to touch? Too complex to consider? Did the manifesto fail to push the right buttons? Was it simply too late in the seminar block of time to pick up on such big questions? I was disappointed in myself that I didn’t find time to word the manifesto in a more powerful way. I’m not done with this one. I’d like to spend more time with this document and do some more with it in subsequent seminars (March 11, 2010).

In another post, Alex discussed his experience grading the capstone writing assignment of the course, the “portfolio” where students were asked to intertwine their experiences during the student teaching seminar, with their overall understandings of social studies education:

Although I know there are numerous reasons why things show up or don’t show up on these portfolios, for those where the intellectual playfulness I was looking for in the portfolio was lacking, it makes me wonder about the “modeling” idea. Perhaps I have an over-simplistic view of modeling practices in teacher education, but part of what I tried to do during the seminar was showcase the kind of playfulness I wanted to see within and across the ideas we would eventually take up in the portfolio. Although I saw some of this, so far, it’s the exception and not the rule. Maybe I wasn’t explicit enough? Maybe the portfolio as an “assignment” tempers some of the playfulness I saw in class. Or maybe, it’s just one of the other innumerable reasons why it just didn’t happen (May 12, 2011). In each of these examples, the wisdom of particular

approaches to the teacher education classroom was equally as mystifying. Complicating matters, very early in the study, we realized that a good part of the problem in locating “expertise” was an assessment concern. That is, regardless of whether the question related to Todd’s decision to respond to a particular moment in seminar (during the first phase of data collection) or to the reasons each made instructional decisions in their respective seminars (during the second phase of data collection), we found our justifications were largely predictive in nature. We could articulate various reasons for what we hoped students would learn as a result of our pedagogical decision-making, but these reasons were rarely confirmed or disconfirmed as “wise” practices by an empirical cause and effect relationship between our teaching and student teacher learning. In the data sets for both semesters, this absence of visible connection to link pedagogical intention, action, and student teacher learning led both researchers to identify teaching teacher education as a largely “faith-based” enterprise.

This is not to suggest that there was nothing apparent about the influence of instructional decisions made in the contexts of our seminars. There were multiple instances of students in our seminars performing in accord with our intentions. For example, formal assessments might reveal a student’s deep reflection on a topic raised in an earlier seminar, or a student teacher might synthesize the contributions of several peers made earlier in a whole group seminar

conversation. Even in these cases, we found ourselves cautious in attributing such successes to specific moves we made in class. Our elaboration of the mystery of teaching teacher education pays careful attention to the kinds of questions we asked of our practices and each other, as these questions have much to say about the challenge of linking pedagogy and preservice teacher learning.

Foundations differ. As expected, we made sense of the seminar and of teacher education from our different experiences. Todd drew from his prior understandings of the seminar, and Alex could look only to his experiences in the secondary classroom and more limited, but still significant, encounters with other teacher education spaces in this program. Both of these experiences served as “foundations” for our inquires and how we went about making sense of our practice. For example, in an early post, Alex questioned Todd about interjecting often during a discussion on the question of how students learn:

I’ve come to predict that STs will draw on educational psychology and multiple intelligence theory when they work through this question, but I wanted them to appreciate the vitality of the standard. I just didn’t sense there was much appreciation. I felt a little on edge about the absence of enthusiasm (February 23, 2010).

Alex, on the other hand, tried to make sense of the seminar mostly through his experiences as a teacher. Many of his comments attempted to constantly tie the problems of teaching with teacher education. Alex, in one exchange with Todd over his assertion that in the seminar as teaching becomes more tacit for student teachers it becomes more difficult to explain, wrote,

In thinking about the work of teaching becoming more engrained for these student teachers, I’m thinking of myself and the things that I still can’t explain and how they became rooted in my work as a teacher. Maybe the metaphor is flawed, but somewhere along the line, with accumulated experience, I figured out (I think, in part at least) something like classroom management….When asked by a student teacher about the development of my management style, I usually respond with, I don’t know, I just did it. Which all in all, is pretty crappy advice (March 12, 2010). As both of these examples illustrate, even though we

were able to identify the grounding of pedagogical moves in different foundations of experience, the challenge of locating the expertise in these groundings remained. In other words, tracing the wellspring of decision-making to one source or another did not make a prima facie argument for expertise.

Program ends matter. Across the data, participants felt obligations to a “program.” For the purposes of this study, such a “program sense”—a view of where this course fit with the rest of the program experiences, and responsibility to program coherence—mattered as part of the frame used to conceptualize expertise. That is, what counted as wise practice was in part an argument that turned on the larger ends of the program, and the extent to which program ends accurately reflected the personal and professionals visions of effective teaching and teacher education held by both Todd and Alex. In particular, a core principle in the program—collaborative inquiry—was often invoked as a litmus test for the particular effectiveness of a moment in the seminar. In one post, Todd reflected on how his investment in collaborative inquiry as a means and end for the seminar often let the low energy, side conversations, shutting of notebooks, and lack of taking notes he observed “get to him” more than might be warranted (February 23, 2010). Similarly, the degree of collaboration

during the seminar was also a measure of the effectiveness of practice for Alex. He noted in one post, “Students were really critically examining with each other things such as the amount of faith needed that short term goals will progress into long term goals, or the role of a rationale in the education of social studies teachers” (April 14, 2011). This finding suggests that the development of expertise requires an exploration of the aims of teacher education programs as well as the degree to which teacher educators lay claim to these goals.

DiscussionFor a construct so central to the practice of high-quality

teacher education, expertise is exceedingly difficult to identify. The tentative nature of the instructional decision-making was a constant presence in the pedagogical decision-making investigated in this study. Todd stood a little more on direct experience with this particular course in support of decisions to teach one way, rather than another. Alex drew from different sources in justifying his own pedagogical moves. Yet there was little either could say for certain about the wisdom of practice at play in student teaching seminar, nor did either of us feel very grounded in predicting what would come of our instructional decision making. Humility was a recurrent theme in the face of this complexity. And that humility was shared, if present in a different shade among one experienced and one less experienced teacher educator. In our more elaborated discussion, we argue that mystery and complexity does not mean that teacher education pedagogy must necessarily be considered arbitrary. We believe the careful attention and different perspectives brought to bear on what otherwise could be described as the loneliness of the long-distance teacher educator is an opportunity that comes with some cost (in terms of time and energy). At the same time, such engagement may be required for the development of expertise, expertise that ultimately serves not just preservice teachers but the many students they will influence across their careers in the classroom.

ReferencesBerry, A. (2007). Reconceptualizing teacher educator

knowledge as tensions: Exploring the tension between valuing and reconstructing experience. Studying Teacher Education, 3(2), 117–134.

Berry, A., & Loughran, J. (2005). Teaching about teaching: The role of self-study. In C. Mitchell, S. Weber, & K. O’Reilly-Scanlon (Eds.), Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching (pp. 168–180). New York, NY: Routledge.

Bullock, S. M. (2007). Finding my way from teacher to teacher educator: Valuing innovative pedagogy and inquiry into practice. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education (pp. 77–94). London, England: Routledge.

Chauvot, J. B. (2009). Grounding practice in scholarship, grounding scholarship in practice: Knowledge of a mathematics teacher educator-researcher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(2), 357–370.

Cochran-Smith, M., Feiman-Nemser, S., McIntyre, D. J., & Demers, K. E. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of research on teacher education: Enduring questions in changing contexts (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Zeichner, K. (Eds.). (2005). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Washington, DC: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers.

Cuenca, A. (2010a). Self-study research: Surfacing the art of pedagogy in teacher education. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 3(2), 15–29.

Cuenca, A. (2010b). In loco paedagogus: The pedagogy of a novice university supervisor. Studying Teacher Education, 6(1), 29–43.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005)Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Dinkelman, T. (2011). Forming a teacher educator identity: Uncertain standards, practice, and relationships. Journal of Education for Teaching, 37(3), 309–323.

Dinkelman, T., Margolis, J., & Sikkenga, K. (2006a). From teacher to teacher educator: Reframing knowledge in practice. Studying Teacher Education, 2(2), 119–136.

Dinkelman, T., Margolis, J., & Sikkenga, K. (2006b). From teacher to teacher educator: Experiences, expectations, and expatriation. Studying Teacher Education, 2(1), 5–23.

Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (1998). Conclusions: The value and the promise of self-study. In M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education. London, United Kingdom: Falmer Press.

Hartzler-Miller, C. D. (1999). Learning to teach teachers in a standards-based program: When experience isn’t enough. Action in Teacher Education, 21(3), 88–101.

Labaree, D. (2004). The trouble with ed schools. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Korthagen, F., Loughran, J., & Lunenberg, M. (2005). Teaching teachers—studies into the expertise of teacher educators: An introduction to this issue. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 107–115.

Labaree, D. (2004). The trouble with ed schools. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Vol. 1, pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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Strauss, A. & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Zeichner, K. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: A personal perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(2), 117–124.

Strategies for developing collaborations are well-documented in education literature (Conzemius & O’Neill, 2001; Venables, 2011); however, few studies have explored how and why collaborations are sustained over extended periods. This collaborative self-study aims to reveal aspects that contributed to the sustainability of a knowledge community known as the Portfolio Group, a fourteen-year professional relationship among a group of educators in the southwestern United States.

PurposeThe overarching goal was to trace our interlaced teacher

stories, to restory our identities as teachers/researchers, and to reframe (Samaras & Freese, 2009) our understanding of knowledge communities (Craig, 2007) as they influence our practices and contribute to sustainability. Like braided rivers with strands that unite, separate, merge, pull away, and rejoin on their passages to the coast, our journeys as participants in the Portfolio Group have converged and diverged repeatedly over fourteen years. We seek to contribute to the literature regarding sustained teacher collaborations by understanding how our relationship has influenced our multiple inquiry communities.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology

Our research is grounded in self-study methodology understood as “the study of one’s self, one’s actions, one’s ideas, as well as the ‘not self’” (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998, p. 236). It further involves “the autobiographical, historical, cultural, and political and [takes] a thoughtful look at texts read, experiences had, people known, and ideas considered” (p. 236) and their connections to teachers’ practices. Integral to this study are context, process, and relationships (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001). Jointly we explored the intentionality and embedded values of our contextually situated reflective actions, as well as the implications on individual teaching and learning (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002, pp. 21–22).

Like Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, and Russell (2004), we believe that self-study needs to go beyond the telling of stories as a pleasurable act and needs to extend the narrative through rigorous and systematic probing of stories, contexts, and revealed relationships. We embrace metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) as a way to understand and represent these experiences. As such, our self-study represents “an extension of reflection on practice, with aspirations that go beyond professional development and move to wider communication and consideration of ideas, i.e., the generation and communication of new knowledge and understandings” (Loughran & Northfield, 1998, p. 15). To convey authenticity and trustworthiness, we strived for transparency in data

collection, in discussions of findings, and in the narrative exemplars (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002) utilized to illuminate and elaborate those findings.

ParticipantsThe researchers and participants in this self-study

include seven current and five former members of the Portfolio Group. Collectively, these twelve educators represent diverse roles such as elementary and secondary teacher, principal, consultant, curriculum director, and professor. Five of the participants are recent graduates or current students in a doctoral program.

ContextThe Portfolio Group joined together in a landscape

brimming with possibilities and change at the genesis of a large, grant-funded school-reform effort. As a participant/evaluator and professor/researcher active in narrative inquiry and reflective practices, Cheryl Craig spearheaded the formation of the Portfolio Group in 1998. Teachers from five urban schools in a major metropolitan area came together as colleagues with wide-ranging expertise—mathematics, language arts, dual language, art, and social studies. Members were of diverse race (white and African American), gender, sexual orientation, and years of experience in education.

From the start, participation has been voluntary with teachers meandering in and out of the group, entering, exiting, and remerging as their work and private demands allowed. As participation fluctuated and a sixth school joined by 2000, the numbers shifted between seven and sixteen members. Although the teachers represented schools receiving grant funding, the group uniquely existed (and still does) independent of any education or funding system, outside of “the conduit” (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992, p. 364) in a distinct space situated in the midlands of personal and professional landscapes.

Our initial commonality was the desire to tell individual school stories in a manner that evidenced the depth and breadth of our work in a profound way. The group’s journey evolved from portfolio-making and reflective practices to include action research, self-directed studies, presentations, publications, and self-study. Constants throughout the changes were the communal desire to understand practice through story and our shared understanding that our personal practical knowledge was embedded in the stories we lived and told.

Data Collection and AnalysisTo study the question “How and why are collaborations

sustained over extended periods?” we examined many field texts generated over our history. These included archived school portfolios, grant applications, meeting notes,

GAYLE CURTIS, CHERYL CRAIG, & DONNA REID TIM MARTINDELLUniversity of Houston Fort Bend ISD

MICHAELANN KELLEY & MARI GLAMSER PAUL GRAY Aldine ISD Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Braided Journeys: A Self-Study of Sustained Teacher Collaboration

blog entries, traveling journals, group publications, and presentations. Additionally, all participants responded to an open-ended interview protocol designed to elicit stories about entering and exiting the group and to draw out reflective responses on the challenges and benefits of participation in our knowledge community.

As qualitative researchers in a natural setting and participants in our own study, we utilized narrative inquiry methods (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Clandinin, Pushor, & Murray Orr, 2007) to analyze the development and evolution of the group and to excavate the teacher knowledge impacted by interactions of the group. Our analytical tools included broadening, burrowing, and restorying the multiple interactions of the group. Greene’s (1995) notion of seeing big and seeing small was employed to examine the group’s interactions in relation to the broader education landscape and then to focus attention to the impact of these interactions on individual practice and growth. We utilized our knowledge of actual braided rivers as a metaphoric lens to understand our changing relationships over time, the influences of the education landscape on our collaboration, and how the knowledge that we carried forward impacted the landscape. Emergent themes were identified, explored, and discussed collaboratively.

Surface FindingsRelationships. Relationships are central to the

narrative inquiry research method, and, as expected, group members point to the importance of relationships in building our community of practice. A founding story of the group indicates that members valued being in relationship instead of in competition: The professor who spearheaded the group’s formation agreed to work with the schools on the condition that teachers would work collaboratively without rivalries between schools or competition for her attention (Gray, 2008). “She wanted everyone to focus their full attention on improving schooling for urban youth, a shared enterprise that broke down school and district” (p. 17) barriers.

Even those who describe themselves as not particularly active in recent years feel “a certain kinship” (Simon), “camaraderie” (William), and “a supportive, safe, and nurturing environment . . . a peer group unlike any others that I’ve ever known” (Annie). Liz reflects, “The Portfolio Group has provided the safe environment for me to confess my greatest problems in the classroom without the fear that they will lose respect for me as both a person and as a teacher.” Even if individuals’ participation in group meetings was intermittent, relationships were sustained through interactions in multiple venues that grew out of the local school reform work, as well as through university studies.

The ongoing relationships were also instrumental in sustaining the group through personal challenges. Collectively, we have supported one another through the death of a parent, illness and death of a spouse, the birth of twins, a divorce, the break-up of a long-term partnership, and a grandmother’s becoming a mother again with the inclusion of her son and granddaughter in the household.

Gained knowledge. Near the headwaters of a river, the land is steep, the water flows quickly, and tremendous volumes of sediment and gravel are carried downstream where finger-like river channels branch away and new fertile land is created. Similarly, members of the Portfolio Group have carried forward knowledge, fresh identities, and outlooks.

Bettylu summarized, “I think the Portfolio Group has been a key factor in my growth as a teacher, researcher, writer,

and person.” Others pointed to specific strategies such as traveling journals as a “tremendous vehicle for me to push my work forward in a community which is both accepting of me and comfortable enough to ask hard questions about both my practice and my results” (Liz). Questioning, reflecting, and developing a “critical eye” culminated in Abbie writing, “Asking those hard questions, those that are not easily answered, is probably the single most important thing that I came away with—I use them in almost every aspect of my life.”

Shared reflections that looked “both inward at what I believed and outward at what made a difference for my students” led to “deep insight not only into our own, but also each other’s work” (Annie). This “allowed [us] to metaphorically see the spider web threads that connect our narratives and self-studies” (Peter). Membership in the Portfolio Group “affirmed my belief that teachers’ knowledge, skills, and experience should be valued as resources” (Allene). Finally, “It is personally and professionally an enriching experience” (Cheryl) where “I think we became better teachers” (Abbie).

Deeper FindingsAs we sought clues to our group’s longevity,

previously submerged tensions surfaced. We now delve into two exemplars that expose the complexities of navigating relationships and the undertow of unexamined assumptions and power relationships.

Negotiating centerpieces of practice. As multiple streams of a braided river flow through courses of ever-shifting bars, islands, and banks on their way to the sea, the land molds the shifting channels of water and, in turn, the water reshapes the land. Similarly, our collaboration changed directions over the years in response to both internal and external influences, sometimes bumping up against individuals’ contexts and changing practices. Reflecting on our journey together, we identified having a centerpiece of practice that provided a group purpose as key to sustainability. Determining a centerpiece of practice that resonated with all participants proved to be challenging, placing us in situations fraught with tensions that required negotiation.

For five years, the study and process of portfolio-making (Lyons, 1998) remained a strong centerpiece of practice. Our collaboration moved from compiling externally driven grant-accountability pieces to creating intrinsically-inspired reflective tools as a result of group studies in reflective practices (Schön, 1983), school reform (Eisner, 1998; Fullan, 1993), action research (Guba & Lincoln, 1994), and narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002). Conference presentations and publication writing extended our shared journey, growing out of our teacher identities and the desire to share what we had learned. Not everyone, however, connected personally to these new directions, as evident in Janie’s feeling like a “fish out of water” when we took on writing book chapters.

When the grant that brought us together ended and the compelling portfolio centerpiece faded away, the dilemma of determining an equally powerful and meaningful group focus ensued. What followed was a series of centerpieces of practice: presentations, publications, a teacher-as-researcher grant, self-directed studies, a blog site, and traveling journals on a broad range of topics. Reviewing our archives illuminated a sort of rise and fall in goal-oriented projects accessible to the public, characterized by Simon as an “ebb and flow of purposeful activity.” Deirdre restoried these fluctuations for

us as “years of sowing and years of harvest” in which the lean years were focused more on study and reflection compared to the productive years.

In the undercurrent of our collaborative efforts was the desire to keep teacher practices aimed at increased student learning at the forefront of education when the pressures of high-stakes accountability were mounting. “As the testing dragon (Craig, 2004) became more a focus of administration, I worked harder also. If I was going to get any attention, my program had to sparkle and be on top . . . something to capture the attention away from the testing areas” (Bettylu). “The dragon bumped up against our individual and communal moral compasses. Part of our push-back was to find ways of staying true to that moral compass within the narrowing walls of the dragon’s lair” (Allene). “The Portfolio Group provided us all with a place to share and create counterstories to the dominant narratives in education, especially as we progressed from 2003–present. We shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss how NCLB has impacted our school contexts—and therefore, us—and how the Portfolio Group provided us with safe harbor from things that the metaphorical dragon kept hurling towards us” (Simon).

Looking back from our current perspective, we also acknowledged the challenge in maintaining a centerpiece of practice as individuals’ participation in the group merged, diverged, and remerged over the years. This was particularly evident when members moved out of the classroom into administrative/district positions or dealt with family issues that exerted tremendous pressures:

Abbie: I thought the new position would allow me to take the work to a larger arena, but instead it isolated me from my core group. I felt my voice was no longer one that was useful.

Annie: I felt more and more on the fringe of work that once fueled my passion in education.

William: Since I was working apart from the process of teaching/administrating, I began to feel like I no longer had anything valuable to contribute.

Deirdre: When I quit teaching, I wondered what my connection with the group would be ...hiring babysitters was either impossible or cost prohibitive.

Liz: I was in and out of the group because I had so much going on at home.

Simon: The pressures of work, school, and my personal/home life all collided.

Allene: Pulling together my team amid competing hegemonies demanded all my attention.

For some, these divergences eventually became their exit-stories from the group. For others, these divergences created opportunities “for the work of the School Portfolio Group to spread to new schools and new organizations, impacting more students, teachers, and school community members” (Gray, 2008, p. 133). As their pathways remerged with the Portfolio Group, they carried with them new knowledge, stories, and revitalizing energy.

Avoiding the undertow. Exploring a second series of tensions sheds light on an underlying value to “be decent people doing decent work” (Cheryl). When two members’ career pathways took them to positions with the local education fund that had supported the original school reform efforts, tensions arose related to the interplay of changing power roles, long-standing relationships, and assumptions about influence. Around the same time that the initial large school-based grants were coming to a close, Peter left the classroom to become a program coordinator at the local

education fund. Soon after, Deirdre contracted with the same organization to lead several initiatives, including a new Teacher-As-Researcher grant—a small, two-year grant specifically developed to help small groups (rather than schools) pursue their inquiries about teaching and learning. Together, Portfolio Group members applied for and were awarded a Teacher-As-Researcher grant to study how their individual practices impacted student learning. In parallel streams, individual members collaborated with educators outside the group to investigate topics aligned with their individual and campus priorities.

Both Peter and Deirdre experienced ambivalence about their participation in the Portfolio Group during this time. Deirdre recalls, “I thought it was unseemly to apply for grants that I was administering,” and Peter shares, “At times I excused myself from ‘full’ participation to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.” Furthermore, Peter felt like “we really had to tiptoe” since he dreaded setting off conflict with long-term, close professional friends, as well as those in power within the funding organization where he worked and the university where he studied.

Over the years, when the funding organization offered new grant opportunities, Peter and Deirdre took special pains to develop impartial procedures for scoring grant applications such as developing a detailed scoring rubric, recruiting a variety of readers from the community, and removing themselves from the actual scoring process. Still, during the interview portion of this self-study, one member expressed disappointment about “when the work of various schools/people was not funded when Peter and Deirdre were in leadership roles. . . .This also was very hurtful.”

Indeed, the Portfolio Group’s application for a later round of action research grants was not funded. Yet, what one member remembers as “hurtful,” Deirdre storied as “freeing,” since the Portfolio Group could “do our own work rather than fitting our work into the professed values of the local education fund.” Deirdre finally felt like she could fully participate in the group’s activities instead of having to hold a piece of herself back.

These exemplars show how the experiences of impartiality and relationship flow counter to one another. By revisiting this portion of our shared history, we also uncovered assumptions about how influential Peter and Deirdre were within the funding organization and assumptions about how relationships should affect professional decisions. Years later, the depth of disappointment at non-funding is still evident; yet looking back, we can collectively restory the events as evidence of our shared moral stance which values ethical behavior above professional rewards. This shared moral stance contributed to the longevity of the group by allowing Peter and Deirdre to re-enter the Portfolio Group with no grudges.

ConclusionsThe image of a braided river combines the concept of

interweaving (Clandinin et al., 2006) with the longstanding metaphor of teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995). We acknowledge that a limitation of the braided river metaphor is that it assumes that all are moving in the same direction and will eventually rejoin. This is clearly not the case, since some who left the group continue in their own directions. Embracing the metaphor, however, led to a realization of how these divergent streams carry gained knowledge and values to new and different knowledge communities. It also led to a more complex appreciation of the group’s history, including previously

submerged tensions. This self-study allowed us to examine those tensions with candor and to collaboratively restory those experiences to include multiple streams of thought. As we move forward, we are strengthened by improved trustworthiness and by deeper appreciation for the unique space our sustained collaboration occupies.

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Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education requires much more than simply delivering whatever it might be that is variously described as the curriculum of teacher education. Doing teaching with students of teaching requires deep and well conceptualized understandings of pedagogy that are developed, articulated, critiqued and refined in the crucible of practice itself (Loughran, 2007, p. 14).

MARY DALMAU HAFDÍS GUÐJÓNSDÓTTIRVictoria University University of Iceland

On Fire For Teacher Education: Enacting Active Scholarship

Loughran’s articulation of the enactment of powerful pedagogies in teacher education reiterates the passionate commitment with which we began to work together fifteen years ago. From the beginning we understood that our goal was not simply to identify and transmit appropriate skills to teachers, but rather to create an environment and discourse through which teachers and teacher educators could become activist scholars. In response, we began the development of a scaffold—Professional Working Theory (PWT)—that was designed to support teachers and teacher educators to engage in this journey (e.g., Dalmau & Guðjónsdóttir 2000, 2002a, 2002b; Guðjónsdóttir, 2005; Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2007). Throughout this period we maintained two concurrent self-studies: (a) a collaborative self-study that enabled us to continuously critique and develop our own practice, theory, and ethics; and (b) shared self-studies as we incorporated PWT into local, international, and collaborative teaching, supervision, and professional development. As we worked with teachers in Iceland, Australia, North America, and Europe, these ongoing self-studies led to new understandings, and new questions, about the scholarship of teachers. Our study uses both Retrospective Self-Study and Critical Self-Study methodologies to investigate our past, current, and emerging scholarship.

Enacting active scholarship is a process of inquiry and development that, in Freire’s (1993) words, challenges us to avoid becoming “prisoner[s] of a circle of certainty within which reality is also imprisoned” (p. 21). From this stance we are able to strive for the courage and wisdom to more fully enter “into reality so that, knowing it better, [we] can better transform it—in this case to retrace fifteen years of international self-study of teacher learning and practice Our professional learning with teachers, our shared development, and a growing awareness of collegial agency have taught us that the significant change, envisaged above, will emerge through creative and meticulous work over time. Three intertwined factors emerged over time in this study. Together they raised questions about our passion for teacher education, our partnership with teachers in life-changing learning, and a deep understanding of active scholarship. These often tacit understandings merge in our combination of practice, theory and ethics (Carspecken, 1996, p. 42).

One of the less positive “myths and legends” about teachers is that they are “practitioners” who are interested only in hearing about practical ideas and who resist theoretical analysis (Ball & Cohen, 1999: Guðjónsdóttir, 2005). Our challenge has been to find ways of opening a professional dialogue with teachers that recognizes, analyses, and deepens our mutual understanding of the meaning of the living theory implicit in their practice and includes courageous questioning of evolving professional roles and identities (Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005). We therefore prepared for this study by

articulating the questions, principles, and methodologies that have guided our work.

Questions. These questions have emerged in the preliminary data and become significant throughout the journey:

1. Persistent learning over time: What is different when we pursue knowledge over years—how do teacher learners join the community of discovery and become leaders in an emerging world?2. Critical pedagogy of self-study: How do significant questions and self-study methodologies and methods form a process of learning and becoming through authentic questions, rigorous inquiry, situated interpretation, and lifelong learning? How is such learning created, shared, enacted, and sustained?3. Becoming a scholar: Scholarship described as the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the world as valid and trustworthy as possible, and to make them known to the scholarly public (“Scholarly method,” n.d.). As we prepared for this study we also recognized with joy the expanding scholarship of teachers as well as our own. What does becoming a scholar mean? What is the scholarship of teachers?Principles. As we planned the study we identified values

or principles that are critical to the integrity and justice of our commitment to all learners. These include

1. Becoming a teacher: Placing more focus on who we are becoming, rather than simply measuring what we can do.2. On fire: Driven by a passion for teacher education, inspired by democratic and reform agenda, a strong commitment in all self-study.3. Passion for all students: “Inclusive education needs to be incorporated as a goal and strategy in the overall reform agenda for education. The measure of education needs to be broadened to reinstate value for socially connected learning, for innovation, for creativity, for critical understanding, for mutuality in learning processes, for connected and thematic teaching and learning, for ongoing assessment and compiling portfolios in preference to high-stakes testing.…Inclusive education should be seen to be everybody’s business in the school.…Building an understanding of education and schooling as a democratic apprenticeship will necessitate schools rethinking approaches to curriculum planning, pedagogy and decision-making” (Slee, 2011). 4. Pedagogy that envisions and creates teacher education that “help(s) prospective teachers to understand deeply a wide array of things in shared development about learning, social and cultural contexts,

and teaching and be able to enact these understandings in complex classrooms serving increasingly diverse students” (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 10).Methodologies. The nature of the life-changing

experiences reported throughout the years of the project led us to base our methodologies on a stance that (a) recognises and values the life experience, discourse, and professional contribution of both teachers and teacher educators; (b) adopts an organizing system based on the fundamentals of collaboration, critical self-study, and the capacity to bring together retrospective data and continuous learning and authentic change; and (c) systematically investigates the theory. We have therefore developed Retrospective Self Study and Critical Collaborative Self-Study (Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2007; Rios, Montecinos, & van Olphen, 2007).

From the Beginning to the Future: Making Sense of the Data

Our data collection included the study of the development and usage of the PWT over fifteen years (Retrospective Self Study), general study of our engagement and change by ourselves and the teachers with whom we worked (Critical Collaborative Self-Study), and the analysis and interpretation of the findings. These stages were not linear but rather interwoven as new understandings began to emerge.

Profession working theory: A summary of ongoing development. Handal and Lauvås’s (1987) model of a pyramid to describe personal theory-, practice- and ethics-based arguments and Whitehead’s (1993) “living theory” informed our conceptualization of “Professional Working Theory” as professional understanding that evolves through the constant interplay of professional knowledge, practical experience, reflection, and ethical or moral principles. Supported by collegial dialogue, Professional Working Theory develops through systematic and comprehensive critical reflection, contributes to the construction of professional identity, and offers teachers (and academics) opportunities to frame their reflection on the living theories implicit in their practice.

Through a process of partnership with teachers (undergraduate, graduate, practicing, and leadership) we have shared a continuous self-study that has enriched our development as educators. We supported this process through the construction of scaffolds, development of support materials, focus on responsive pedagogies and partnership in learning, extension of critical, theoretical, and ethical reflection, and introduction of praxis and interpretive methods into planning, research, and action (Dalmau & Guðjónsdóttir, 2002a)

As the teachers began to use the PWT instrument, we found that they engaged in the theory-ethics-practice discussion in new ways, and their reflection became more systematic and critical. However, our discourse was still bounded by the classroom. Consequently, after the first stage of the study we extended the PWT instrument to systematically explore socio-cultural and historical influences on the practice of teaching. Three levels of reflective questions encouraged the inclusion of perspectives from outside the classroom. For each component, three additional levels of reflective questions were provided to cover close/local, medium/distance, and broad/societal.

General sources. Through these years we have collaborated and supported each other in our work and development as self-study researchers. In doing so we have kept research portfolio containing 1) our research journal

including our notes on class activities, questions from students, reflection thoughts about our practice and the development of the PWT protocol, 2) notes from class observation, Skype meetings, other meetings and events, 3) examples of course material and students’ work, and 4) recordings from meetings and classrooms.

This collection has become our data as we reflect on the development of the PWT protocol, document the turning points, and reflect on our struggle to get our teacher learners to deepen their thinking or relate practice and theory or to understand what it means to become a teacher. Additionally, we collected data with teacher learners. This data came from four sources:

1. Interviews with teacher learners using the PWTI as a framework for a dialogue. Interviews were recorded and transcribed.2. Portfolios from teacher learners as they used the PWTI as a guide.3. Teacher learners’ statements of who they want to become as teachers.4. Reflections related to large questions voluntarily shared with us by request.Making sense of the data. The analytical process

has been ongoing, and at certain turning points or when we experienced a problem or a gratifying surprise we have stepped back, critically reflected on our experience, and created a dialogue around our work or written about our learning and development. Looking back at these data sources, we found that they allowed us to see the development from different stances as we look through the lens of critical self-study methodology.

Learning Together—Pathways to Active Scholarship

The initial findings of this retrospective self-study can be seen in the articulation of the three phases below. They incorporate technical, ontological, and epistemological understandings via the initial engagement of the authors and the many international educators from Iceland, Australia, Latvia, and the US (as reported previously: Dalmau & Guðjónsdóttir, 2000, 2002a, 2002b; Guðjónsdóttir, 2005; Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2007). In addition we are able to report continuance and new development of previous use of the PWT to facilitate plus a strong engagement in active scholarship.

In the beginning. We were puzzled about why students or teachers failed to see beyond the classroom. We asked ourselves why they rejected theory. Our collaborative reflection and the works of Handal and Lauvås (1987) and Whitehead (1993) led us to develop the PWT (Dalmau & Guðjónsdóttir, 2002b).

Sharing the discourse. Through sharing of tacit ideas with colleagues or groups of students/teachers and thinking of the separateness and connectedness of their experience of practice, theory and ethics supported them to frame their thinking and their communication about their work. The outcome was active classrooms encouraging participants to explore beyond what they do or expect to see in their classrooms. The initial PWT Manual enabled educators and students/teachers to reflect on, articulate, and act upon their understanding of their professional and make changes.

Becoming educators and scholars. As we worked on the three PWT gears (practice-theory-ethics) with students and teachers, we gradually began to change ourselves—we asked who we were becoming as citizens and educators. Although finishing her PhD, Hafdís still thought of herself as

a classroom teacher: “I knew about the knowledge teachers possess – how can we get them to share it – talk about or even just realize it?” We began to discuss these awarenesses as well as brainstorming ideas and tasks and critically reviewing outcomes.

Going beyond the classroom. During these years we have tried to meet at different places for our collaboration. Conferences have been great forums for our meetings; we met once in Montreal at AERA, and we always think of it as one of the turning points. As we drove along the river to Montreal we understood that when channels are opened we can see beyond the classrooms. As we see our personal/professional lives in a new light, we are able to create new opportunities for scholarship.

Teachers learn to see themselves not as “received knowers,” (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986) but as agents of their own school. In other words.… The teachers are seen not only as users and dispensers of knowledge, but creators of knowledge as well. Part of the work of teaching is constructing new knowledge in a vitally dynamic system of change. The process requires asking powerful questions and searching for equally powerful answers. (Richert, 1997, p. 79)The outcome of this meeting was the expansion of the

PWT. It now includes extended scaffolds at three levels. For example the “Practice” element of the PWT now includes reflective questions related to

• Close/local: What educators see in their daily work.• Medium distance: Factors that directly affect the working environment.• Broad/societal: Societal/global connections that affect practice.Sharing the discourse. Going beyond the classroom

was initially countercultural to teachers’ experience or expectations. This was the most difficult step, and we and the students needed support to gradually begin to work together and to grapple with these new understandings. The stories of practice, of their teaching and their students’ teaching, became richer and new questions began to emerge. Professional statements began to integrate broader elements of their work, and learners began to own their PWT work as theirs rather than as a task given by a teacher.

Becoming educators and scholars. As we re-developed and re-created the PWT we noticed our teaching also changed. Over and over again we shared knowledge, contradictions, and dilemmas with teachers as we asked each other who we were becoming as educators. We became more truly researchers and began to explore the pedagogy of self-study.

Who are we becoming as educators? The question “Who are we becoming as educators as we live our learning?” emerged. We embedded theory and ethics in our practice and articulated individual and shared professionalism as a lifelong work in progress. We demonstrated strong integration of ethics, theory, and practice in our teaching and developed partnerships beyond the class and the school. The understanding of our ethics became clearer and we worked passionately towards learning for all (Guðjónsdóttir et al., 2007).

Sharing the discourse. We turned our teaching around, and instead of beginning with our presentation on a specific topic we began with students’ questions. Their experience and knowledge opened a new and responsive form of dialogue. Students map and assess their knowledge, experience, and beliefs and end with their statement about who they want to become as teachers.

Becoming educators and scholars. Responsive educators and students began to take responsibility in their communities and focus on creating learning environments for all. We strive to practice what we are teaching in our work and focus on ongoing shared and purposeful educative and/or formative assessment. We have recognized that this journey is not a tool but a way of learning that is embedded in social justice, peace, self-study and active scholarship. Thus, our question is “Who are we becoming as we enact active scholarship within the core of our personal/professional life and learning?”

Lived Learning This study extends the work of professional working

theory into the related areas of professional identity and scholarship in such a way that all teacher learners have the opportunity to develop new pathways for the future. Teachers have a valuable role to play in the educational discourse, and it is important to recognize and value their unique knowledge. It is also important that space, collaborative opportunities, and a frame for the dialogue are created in collaboration with them. As research findings lead to new insights in practice and open up new ways of perceiving the educational knowledge, action of the community is extended and enriched. We have found that international scholars informed by this body of work have used these ideas and understanding to develop their own commitment to teacher education (e.g., Sowa & Schmidt, 2008).

In the words of Freire (1993), we continue to pursue authentic and transformative scholarship:

The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainty” within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. (p. 21)

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developing practitioners: Toward a practice-based theory of professional education. In G. Sykes and L. Darling-Hammond (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice (pp. 3-32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Carspecken, P. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Fries, K. (2005). Researching teacher education in changing times: Politics and paradigms. In M. Cochran-Smith & K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education (pp. 69–110). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Dalmau, M. C., & Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2000). The professional working theory instrument. Reykjavík, Iceland: Hafdal.

Dalmau, M. C., & Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2002a). Professional working theory revisited: International self-study conversations. In C. Kosnik, A. Samaras, & A. Freese (Eds.), Making a Difference in Teacher Education Through Self-Study. Proceedings for the Fourth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 92–95). Toronto: OISE, University of Toronto.

Dalmau, M. C., & Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2002b). Framing professional discourse with teachers: Professional working theory. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study (pp. 102–129). London, United Kingdom: Routledge Falmer.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future (multicultural education). New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed (20th anniversary ed.) (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum.

Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2005). Researching with teachers: Making responsive professional practice visible (and viable). In F. Bodone (Ed.), What difference does research make and for whom? (pp. 161–176). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Guðjónsdóttir, H., Cacciattolo, M., Dakich, E., Dalmau, M. C., Davies, A., & Kelly, C. (2007). Transformative pathways: Inclusive pedagogies in teacher education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education (ISTE), 40(2), 165–182.

Handal, G., & Lauvås, P. (1987). Promoting reflective teaching: Supervision in action. London, United Kingdom: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Loughran, J. (2007). Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships and practices (pp. 1–15). New York, NY: Routledge.

Richert, A. E. (1997). Teaching teachers for the challenge of change. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Teaching about teaching: Purpose, passion and pedagogy in teacher education (pp. 73–94). London: Falmer Press.

Rios, F., Montecinos, C., & van Olphen, M. (2007) Lessons learned from a collaborative self-study in international teacher education: “Visiones, preguntas, y desafíos.” Teacher Education Quarterly, 34(1), 57–74.

Scholarly method. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_method

Slee, R. (2011). The irregular school: Exclusion, schooling and inclusive education. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Sowa, P., & Schmidt, C. (2008). The professional working theory: A self-study of scaffolding reflective practice. Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning, 3(1), 57–71.

Whitehead, J. (1993). The growth of educational knowledge: Creating your own living educational theories. Bournemouth, United Kingdom: Hyde Publications.

RONNIE DAVEYUniversity of Canterbury

Walking the Talk While Struggling to Stay Upright

ContextIn February 2011, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on

the Richter scale hit Christchurch, New Zealand, the second largest in five months in an ongoing sequence of new earthquakes and aftershocks that continue to rock the city even now, more than 17 months on. The February earthquake, the ground speed of which was 40 times faster than the 7.1 in September the previous year, resulted in the deaths of 187 people trapped in collapsed buildings or crushed by falling rocks and devastated much of the city’s infrastructure. Many parts of the city have been red-stickered as uninhabitable; several hundred buildings in the CBD have been demolished including most of the city’s historic buildings and Victorian icons like our Anglican Cathedral and Catholic Basilica. The shocks have also rendered unliveable much residential housing and land in the eastern and southern suburbs of the city, where over two thousand home sites have been designated “irredeemable” because of liquefaction, and thousands more houses will have to be demolished due to structural damage. In one or two suburbs, whole communities are faced with the prospect of either moving temporarily to other parts of the city while their houses are rebuilt or moving permanently to other cities because they have lost their jobs or because their land cannot be built on again.

The collateral damage to education has been similarly traumatic. Seven months on from February, it was predicted that around 300 teachers would lose their jobs as school enrolment fell, in some instances by up to a third in the eastern suburbs. Since February too, six secondary, five primary and one intermediate school have had to relocate and site-share elsewhere. For all but one of the secondary schools, this has meant one school operating in the morning and another one in the afternoon on the same site.

The same damage, dislocation, and sense of displacement have affected tertiary institutions in the city, including my own university. It has spent over five weeks closed this year because of damage to plant and buildings. Many of these have been high-rise blocks, housing the university administration space, the library, and, at the College of Education, most classrooms and staff offices. Hundreds of staff studies, seminar rooms, and teaching spaces have been out of action, some permanently lost. To enable lectures to continue, staff had initially to switch delivery methods, often without resources since they were unable to access their old offices and teaching areas in cordoned-off buildings. In their place a temporary tent city arose, and then, to replace these, there are now expanses of “re-locatables” in place to take us through the rest of the year. These are (not so) affectionately tagged our “stalag,” for their liquefaction-grey, row-upon-row, barrack-like appearance.

A year on—at the time of writing—these relocatable buildings are now our main teaching and office “space.” So

we continue to “make do,” “camp out,” “get by,” and “remain flexible” as we deal with the consequences of what are now euphemistically called “events” and adapt to what is being called the “new normal” in our professional lives. Even our language has changed.

Theoretical FrameThere is a silencing process that goes on in institutions pushing neo-liberal accountability: the stated or unstated implication that critique is nonproductive and unscientific, that foundational questions are irrelevant to the realpolitik of systems reform. … It is testimony to the fact that the normative, the ethical, the cultural—matters of value—have quietly slipped from policy discussion (Ladwig, 2010), overridden by a focus on the measurable, the countable, and what can be said to be cost efficient and quality assured. … There is ample evidence that the actuary’s approach can make for a reductive educational science, short-term orientations, and a plethora of unwanted collateral effects at the school and classroom levels. (Luke, 2011, p. 368)Recently, in a comprehensive study of teacher educators’

professional lives (Davey, 2010), I discussed the post-structuralist lenses on teacher educators’ professional identity: a contradictory concept best described as in a state of flux, open, shifting, ambiguous, fragmented and uncertain, unfixed, and requiring constant negotiation (e.g., Gee, 2000; Wenger, 1998; Sachs, 2001). Now I am struck by the ironic parallels between such descriptions of a career in identity crisis and the unpredictable movements (over 9,000 of them to date) of our local tectonic plates and, what is more, the impact of these literal and figurative tectonic movements on our own professional identities. As Allan Luke implicitly asks in the quotation above, who are we now as teacher educators and academics—in an institution, in my case, that faces massive challenges in terms of income streams, physical infrastructure, staffing, and future planning as a result of a combination of realpolitik reformism and natural disaster? This year of emergency and crisis has led me to think about the challenges and tensions that I have been facing more generally as a teacher educator and that have led to my seeing myself and doing my work differently. This self-study uses the literal and metaphoric symbolism of seismic disruption to explore some of the uneasy tensions and shifts in my own sense of professional self and identity over the year, and the factors that continue to shape these, serendipitously and otherwise.

MethodsThe data. The data set for this self-study is drawn from

multiple sources. It draws on an examination of my own core values as a teacher educator as they have been foregrounded

for further examination because of the exceptional circumstances in which I have found myself in this “brave new world.” This has taken several forms: my journaling and found poems; regular conversations, both formal and informal, with colleagues in the corridor; ongoing daily conversations with my critical friend (or, as he has dubbed himself with typical lightness, my critically-ill friend) and partner Vince; and numerous student reflections and evaluations of their year in retrospect. In this way, although it is an individual self-study, I carry the collective voices of others with me in my head and as a touchstone against which to weigh my own experiences (Kelchtermans & Hamilton, 2004).

My narrative draws on critical incident literature at both the macro and micro levels. Increasingly researched in the literatures of reflective practice and self-study, Kelchtermans and Hamilton (2004) argue that analysing critical incidents provides a means of moving reflection on practice from a descriptive process to one which represents deeper analysis, and it is through this deeper analysis that one comes to understand more about assumptions and beliefs in teaching and learning (Kosnik, 2001). Typically, critical incident techniques are used to highlight how individuals and organisations respond to events and to isolate some the tensions that reside within a social system. It does this by an analysis of the facts and origins of the incident or incidents with a particular focus on how participants felt during and after the incident(s), what actions they and the organisation took, and what, if any, tensions in the organisational culture or system are so revealed. With this framework in mind, and using associated seismic metaphors, I explore how Luke’s characterisation of the “collateral effects” of a sea change in higher education policy is being played out in, and exacerbated by, a year of crisis in the professional life of one teacher educator.

The incident(s): My year in brief. This timeline is constructed by summarising the main work-related events, topics and activities that I journaled about and discussed with my critical friends over the year—the professional “incidents,” if you like, that have preoccupied much of my professional thinking and emotional energy over the last academic year.

• September 4, 2010: A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits Christchurch. No deaths or significant injuries; some CBD buildings damaged; university and schools closed for several days while engineering inspections held; normal service resumed within a week.

• September 2010–February 2011: Ongoing aftershocks, including a 5.3 aftershock on December 26, 2010.

• February 22, 2011–March 2011: Two weeks into the first term of the academic year. A 6.3 earthquake epicentred directly under the city hits. “The big one.” Massive damage to CBD and suburbs; 187 deaths, including two partners of former colleagues; schools and university closed for a month; power, water and sewage facilities destroyed for large parts of the city for weeks, and in some cases months; all three major buildings on the College of Education site closed indefinitely; staff work from home without access to office resources; secondary pre-service students completing only one week out of five weeks of scheduled face-to-face classes before embarking on their first practicum placement; all courses to be put online without access to resources, including computers, causing the need to recreate from scratch; using borrowed resources from ex-students, 10-point grading system made compulsory for teacher education courses which were previously competency based.

• May 2011: Building work begins to create a “village” of temporary classrooms and offices on the College of

Education sports fields. New fault-lines discovered; ongoing aftershocks. Occasional supervised “raids” (with hard hats and search and rescue staff) into the cordoned-off buildings are permitted in order to rescue some resources; offices reallocated for some staff; classes resume; most College of Education students remain, but university as a whole loses c.3,000 students; several more buildings on campus “red stickered”; many administrative staff made redundant.

• June–November 2011: Further major quakes (5.9 and 6.1 on Richter scale) close schools and university for a week mid-term; many major buildings remain inaccessible, even tighter security and restriction on entry. Compulsory and voluntary redundancy rounds announced for College of Education staff; College and departmental budgets slashed for 2012; PBRF research assessment trial began; some habitable parts of College of Education leased out to businesses and schools; Education staff reallocated to temporary offices and classrooms on the sports fields; “the new normal”; university makes special plea to government for an exemption to per capita funding for 2012; courses cut; class sizes increase. Teachers Council declares that only registered teachers will be allowed to supervise student teachers on practicum (most teacher educators’ formal registrations have lapsed over time).

• February 2012: Timetable chaos; student enrolments higher than expected in Education but lower in university overall. Workloads inconsistently applied; more academic staff redundancies (primary); creation of non-academic and part-time positions for practicum visiting and marking, etc.; remaining teacher educators often allocated to courses outside their normal areas of expertise. Student-teacher ratio increased (my curriculum classes c.40 for first time).

Reflections/AnalysisReflecting on the year and these professional

preoccupations, I came to realise that throughout I have tended to conflate the impacts on my practice of the geologically driven disaster that was the earthquakes with those of the policy-driven disaster of institutional reformism that is occurring at the same time. Redundancies were now by association partly explained by the drop in overall student numbers even though no such reduction occurred in the College of Education. Moving the teacher education staff from their physical places in new buildings into temporary buildings has reopened a longer standing discussion of increasing income from the former College buildings by renting them out to local businesses and moving teacher education off its separate campus. Increases in class sizes and workloads, achieved through a combination of changing the per-student staffing and workload formula, extensive staff cuts and “farming out” practicum visiting to many part time, non-expert teacher educators, had been institutional policy for some time, but were now moves connected by association with the “emergency situation.”

A second realisation is that the combination of natural crisis and reform has thrust me into a kind of professional “survival mode” in terms of my own pedagogy and practice. It has meant that I have had to question what is really important in my teaching as I have both significantly less time for preparation and up to a third less face-to-face class time than before. I have, as I wrote in one journal entry, “had to decide what is the icing and what is the cake.”

A study of Christchurch school teachers’ responses to the loss of up to a third of their teaching time in 2011 found that they too often reverted to “survival teaching” in the post-quake scenario, and for many this has meant that their

pedagogy has became less student-centred, less focused on relationship building, less pastoral, and less individualised than would be ideal (Ham, Cathro, Winter, & Winter, 2011). By contrast, both my own pedagogical instinct and an analysis of my own students’ course evaluations has indicated that their need for pastoral, face-to-face, and personalised attention has been if anything made greater by the disruptions of the disaster, rather than less. A content analysis of my students’ course evaluations for 2011, for example, shows that there were twice as many comments from students about aspects of my personal qualities and especially my “ethic of care” (e.g., comments about my “rapport,” “supportiveness,” “flexibility,” “our safe and caring environment,” “being compassionate to us all in this difficult year,” and “going beyond the call of duty to help us in a taxing year”) as there were comments about the more technical qualities of my knowledge and teaching (e.g., comments about being “well prepared,” “brimming with useful knowledge,” “providing strong links with classroom applications,” or “used a good mix of textual/oral/visual media”). For me, then, these former were the elements of my practice that seemed most important to retain, even though they seemed the ones most put at risk by both institutional reforms and the quake situation. I was determined to retain them somehow, so I found myself holding supplementary classes and social gatherings at my home despite being told by the College that we were “not allowed” to do that, I offered extra classes in the weekend at College despite the College buildings now being locked down out of daytime hours (they had always been open and used at all hours of the night and weekends before), and I spent many hours putting resources online (though my students reported that their use of these was much less than I had expected it to be). For me, at least, the “cake” very much included “the ethical” and “the cultural,” as Luke phrases it, as much if not more than ever, and despite the fact that these seemed to conflict more than ever in the emergency situation with the institutional politics of compliance and constraint.

In summary, then, the direct impacts of the earthquakes on my practice have been extensive, ongoing, and largely negative. In activity theory terms (Engestrom, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999), the greatest of these direct impacts has been on the “artefacts” element of my practice, but with flow-on, collateral effects on most other elements as well, especially those of “community” and “rules.”

More significantly, perhaps, the experience of the earthquakes and their aftermath stands in some symbolic way as a useful metaphor for the effects of the re-formation of teacher education that is occurring in my own and others’ jurisdictions generally. It has thrown into sharp relief the identity crisis that seems to be occurring in pre-service teacher education internationally, and which is highlighted not only by Luke (2011) and Zembylas (2003) but by numerous presentations over the last couple of S-STEP conferences and a recent special issue of STE on teacher educator identity (Erickson, Young, & Pinnegar, 2011).

First, the quakes stand as a recurring reminder that the current reformation of teacher education, at least at my own institutions and in my own country, is potentially of “seismic,” or even “tectonic,” proportions. It threatens to challenge many of the most fundamental beliefs and conceptualisations that I have of effective teacher education practice, and it has “cracked” some of my faith in the system to self-correct the less desirable effects of neo-liberal reformism and fiscal retrenchment that has characterised teacher education policy over the last half-decade. In our context this has been exacerbated by the fact that colleges of education have been

merged with universities at a time when universities are being funded less for student numbers and more on the basis of staff research outputs.

Secondly, arguably the greatest of these challenges has been the realisation that the aspects of effective teacher education practice most put at risk by reformism and the culture of constraint are the very aspects that seem to be most valued by my students and myself—the notion of teacher education as essentially a question of relationship building, and the priority given within that to the ethical and pastoral aspects of that relationship; Luke’s (2011) “matters of value.” In so many ways the ground is shifting with respect to “walking my own talk,” and the predominant theme of my professional story for the last few years has been one of increasing difficulty “staying upright” on such shifting foundations. Implementing what I believe to be sound teacher education practice has increasingly been done despite, or even as a direct challenge to, the institutional culture within which I work.

And thirdly, the quakes have been a reminder that the flow-on effects of such change and reform are going to be ongoing and long-lasting. Professional cultures and professional identities do not change overnight; they change over decades. Just as, eighteen months on from the first earthquake, we are still experiencing geological aftershocks as daily events, so too have all the aftershocks of recent teacher education reform yet to be felt, and indeed they may have only just begun.

ReferencesDavey, R. (2010). Career on the cusp: The professional

identity of teacher educators (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Engestrom, Y., Miettinen, R., & Punamaki R.-L. (Eds.) (1999). Perspectives on activity theory. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Erickson, L. B., Young, J. R., & Pinnegar, S. (Eds.). (2011). Teacher educator identity: Emerging understandings of person, positioning, roles and collaborations [Special issue]. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 105–216.

Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. In W. G. Secada (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 25, pp. 99−125). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Ham, V., Cathro, G., Winter, J., & Winter, M. (2011). Evaluative study of co-located schools established following the Christchurch earthquake. Wellington, New Zealand: NZ Ministry of Education. Retrieved from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/topics/research/52109

Kelchtermans, G., & Hamilton, M. L. (2004). The dialectics of passion and theory: Exploring the relation between self-study and emotion. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), The international handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 785–810). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Kosnik, C. (2001). The effects of an inquiry-oriented teacher education program on a faculty member: Some critical incidents and my journey. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 2(1), 65–80.

Luke, A. (2011). Generalizing across borders: Policy and the limits of educational science. Educational Researcher, 40(8), 367–377.

Sachs, J. (2001). Teacher professional identity: Competing discourses, competing outcomes. Journal of Education Policy, 16(2), 149−161.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Zembylas, M. (2003). Interrogating teacher identity: Emotion, resistance, and self-formation. Educational Theory, 53, 107–127.

SUSAN E. ELLIOTT-JOHNS & MARY LYNN TESSARO Nipissing University

Storied Course Outlines: Uncovering and Understanding Assumptions About Teaching About Teaching and Learning About Teaching

ContextThis paper describes ongoing efforts to improve our

practice as teacher educators while acknowledging the complexities inherent in educating teachers. We work on two campuses of a small Ontario university and are engaged in a collaborative self-study involving an in-depth exploration of our respective course outlines. Participation in different self-study projects led to discussing potential avenues of interest we might pursue collaboratively. Discussion and written reflections began to focus our attention on course outlines prepared for classes in Language Arts teacher education. Conversations evolved into the conceptualizing of an examination of stories of those course outlines from the perspective of our research and practice as self-study researchers (Berry & Kosnik, 2010; Mitchell, Weber, & O’Reilly-Scanlon, 2005). Four questions guided our study:

1. What does a reading of the course outline say about me, the author, as a teacher educator?2. What does it say about my inherent values?3. Does it imply anything about how teacher candidates will be treated in the class?4. What actions, understandings, and issues/questions are there here for teachers and teacher educators?Our work is situated within the theoretical framework of

social constructivism and acknowledges that our beliefs and understandings about teaching are socially constructed and incorporate multiple truths and perspectives (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). As co-researchers engaged in self-study, our work has assisted us in re-contextualizing our assertions for action and understanding within the larger research conversation of teacher education (Loughran, 2007; Pinnegar, Hamilton, & Fitzgerald, 2010). We were interested in moving well beyond the surface-level story the course outlines might tell (e.g., course expectations, organization of content and assignments, required resources), towards beginning to “seriously differentiate between the doing of teaching and the knowledge of practice underpinning that teaching” (Loughran, 2010, p. 224), thus deriving principles that might also be useful to other teacher educators.

Aim of the ProjectThe central aim of this self-study was to uncover and

examine the stories of our course outlines. By rigorously examining our course outlines, we were looking for and discussing a) hidden assumptions b) taken-for-granted aspects of both the course set-up as a whole and required assumptions, and c) ways to make the tacit more explicit, thus increasing understanding of practice as both problematic and dynamic. This work would involve taking a critical stance in relation to our own practice and course design, as well as the development of trust as collaborative colleagues. While we

were well aware of potential and inherent risks in collaborating in this work, we were also interested in navigating the tangible risks in sharing our thinking and initial attempts at critical friendship.

MethodsInitially, we discussed the demands of teaching our

literacy courses and that there is often little or no opportunity to discuss what happens in these classes with colleagues. The study’s focus was thus sharpened to take an in-depth look at assignments in our course outlines. Assignments are a significant component of coursework in teacher education as a whole. At surface level, teacher candidates complete course assignments and we, as teacher educators, evaluate them, but, we also ask, what are the stories behind the assignments in a course outline?

After sharing our course outlines, a guideline for thinking was created, enabling us to explore and discuss responses to the following:

1. Take a look at your course outline. For each of the assignments, think about the following:• What is the history of this assignment? Have I changed it?• Why is it of benefit for the teacher candidates?• What benefit is there for me in giving this assignment?2. Take a look at your colleague’s course outline and think about the following questions:• Are the assignments clear? • What questions do you have about these assignments?Informed by the work of Brubaker (2010), whose

self-study examined the negotiation of authority in an undergraduate teacher education course through the design of individualized grading contracts, we began to consider how assignments and grading practices might be seen to contribute significant chapters in the stories of our course outlines. As Loughran (2007) reminds us, “a central purpose in self-study is uncovering deeper understandings of the relationships between teaching about teaching and learning about teaching” (p. 12).

The first major data source was, inevitably, our course outlines. These provided rich sources of data which fueled discussions and promoted reflection on the four guiding questions outlined earlier. The second major data source derived from individual reflective journals we both kept, thus documenting our thinking, questions, insights gained, and reflexive responses to insights as the study progressed. The third source of data derived, in part, from the organizational framework of monthly meetings established to consistently communicate with each other, either through face-to-face meetings or via telephone/Skype. Following each meeting,

detailed minutes were e-mailed and shared. Data in minutes provided an ongoing record of ideas, suggestions, and next steps.

As self-study researchers, our work is characterized by a qualitative approach, since our goal was to identify and explore the interaction of multiple factors (Creswell, 2002). Themes and patterns were identified in data related to the four guiding questions that emerged from our course outlines, written reflections, discussions, and meeting minutes. We also attended to issues of trustworthiness (Pinnegar, Hamilton, & Fitzgerald, 2010; LaBoskey, 2004) by establishing clear procedures to guide and examine our work with a commitment to honesty in responses and our emerging critical friendship. For example, as indicated in this excerpt from minutes, we shared and helped each other clarify evolving understandings of our course outline stories:

Monday April 25, 2011: Skype meeting as part of our ongoing collaborative, self-study project. Discussion of initial drafts of course outline stories. Susan’s formulated questions, the process of sharing course outlines, earlier discussions, reading related to self-study (and Susan’s review of her journals from previous years) were considerations as we composed drafts. (Minutes, April 26, 2011)

OutcomesFindings resulted from iterative analyses of content

in our course outlines as we examined these outlines, both separately and together, looking for patterns and themes in the stories of course assignments, notes on dialogue during research meetings, meeting minutes, and written reflections in our research journals. Initial key findings, illustrated by data segments, have been organized under the four guiding questions, as follows.

What does a reading of the course outline, and specifically the required assignments, say about me, the author, as a teacher educator? Probably not surprisingly, shared examinations of our course outlines resulted in the identification of several similarities, differences, and other interesting overlapping ideas and content (albeit seemingly similar design elements with different purposes in mind). Findings from analyses of data also illuminated narratives in the construction of our course outlines, clearly identifying them as draft narratives or works in process. From Susan’s perspective, her storied course outline represents someone who delights in living a literate life that includes teaching. A close reading reveals a road map to success, with clear expectations of professional conduct and shared responsibilities for learning:

As someone taking this course I’d have all the instructor’s contact information, required resources are listed, schedule of course topics, outlines of assignments, due dates, indicators of assessment and evaluation … . What does this say? It says an organized individual, pays attention to detail, someone who believes in shared responsibility for learning, someone who writes a lot and uses big words, someone who expects students to read—and ask questions!

Mary Lynn’s course outline also offers a clear pathway to success with similar types of details (e.g., instructor contact information, assignment descriptions, and required resources). In September, when distributing her course outline, she noticed that teacher candidates tend to focus intensely on course expectations and assignments:

I tend to be oriented towards the practical, and so my focus is—“What do I want them to do in this course?” I have spent considerable time designing the outline and it has been revised in each of the four years I have taught the Language Arts course. I continually revisit central questions such as, “Does this assignment work for the teacher candidates?” “Does this assignment work for me?” As we explored the inclusion of rather typical

information in our course outlines, it became apparent that our beliefs about teaching prospective teachers were beneath the surface, and the stories related to these beliefs began to emerge in our discussions. For example:

I am conscious of assisting teacher candidates in forging connections between theory and practice. Each assignment has a doing followed by a reflection component. Language about building a professional learning community is present in the outline and there are attempts during the year to build this community. I value collaboration and opportunities to collaborate are embedded in the course. (Mary Lynn’s course outline story)

In another example, an excerpt from Susan’s journal reads,I think it also says that, as a teacher educator, I integrate collaborative, interactive, inquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning in planning for instruction, with the provision of numerous examples of literacy resources relevant to J/I grade levels….strive to demonstrate how to integrate language/literacy across the curriculum, prioritize the development of critical thinking, and encourage teacher candidates to forge links between their own literacy lives and their work as teachers….this is a major chapter in the story of my course outline. What does the course outline say about my inherent

values? As research partners, we discussed how we project values related to professional respect throughout course planning and approaches to teaching teachers. One major difference appeared to be in the grading of assigned work and class participation, and this became a focal point for discussion early in the study. For example, Mary Lynn’s course outline was extremely detailed in terms of evaluations with numerous templates and school-based style rubrics included; Susan’s outlined only necessary information on evaluations to satisfy university regulations, and candidates were told that “Further details will be shared at a later date.”

The design reflects beliefs that climates conducive to learning require self-respect, a genuine respect for others, knowledge, understanding, sensitivity, effective communication skills, recognition of diversity, and the ability to nurture relationships between all participants in a classroom learning community… thus explicitly modeling and demonstrating how learning about teaching can, in turn, be enacted in their own developing pedagogy for J/I classrooms...(Susan’s course outline story)Another difference was that Susan’s outline provided

a detailed schedule of assigned readings in the course text, related class discussions, due dates for assignments, and dates of practicum weeks. There was an absence of a weekly schedule of topics and readings in Mary Lynn’s outline.

In my first year of teaching the Language Arts course, I gathered a wide range of articles from well-known literacy journals written by recognized experts in the field (Booth, Cunningham, Allington, Cambourne, Peterson, Fountas & Pinnel, etc.). Teacher candidates in my course must have completed a prior year of

Language Arts instruction with another instructor and purchase a core Language Arts text, and I decided to compile a coursepack rather than require the purchase of a second core text. Although coursepack readings are incorporated into the course, there are no specific assigned readings for each class. (Mary Lynn’s course outline story)Mary Lynn elaborates further on the decision to leave

out a weekly schedule of predetermined topics:Initially, I built the course, to some extent, as I went along and found the process extremely daunting—a common experience for teacher educators new to an institution and course. I also came to realize I had a great deal of flexibility by not including a weekly schedule of topics and could introduce topics based on what I perceived to be teacher candidate readiness. This flexibility meant I could adapt or add new material as the year progressed. For example, during my second year, I learned a great deal about the role of graphic novels and manga in the Junior/Intermediate classroom and included a class about this. A portion of this class was dedicated to exploring various graphic novels and manga while discussing whether or not this type of text would be used in teacher candidates’ future classrooms and, if so, how? (Mary Lynn’s course outline story)Values related to our approaches to teaching were

gradually uncovered as we collaboratively examined similarities and differences in our course outlines, with particular attention to implicit values articulated as our work progressed.

Does the course outline imply anything about how teacher candidates will be treated in the class? The importance of treating teacher candidates as professionals who bring diverse prior experiences to the classroom was a theme that recurred across our discussions and stories. In Mary Lynn’s outline the use of inclusive language is evident:

As teachers it is essential we continue to develop cultures that are supportive and collaborative. In professional learning communities, teachers share resources that are useful in negotiating the complex process of teaching…(Mary Lynn’s course outline)Susan’s outline was crafted to reinforce the idea that

teacher candidates would be treated as colleagues with professional standards and expectations in place:

Intentional choice of terminology in my course outline and during professional seminars (for example, I prefer to use seminars than “classes.” This term conceptualizes a different mindset and related expectations for “professional (teacher) behaviour” as compared with “university student” behavior). I am a passionate advocate for teacher candidates becoming more critically aware of the myriad ways of knowing, being in the world, and understanding. I endeavour to treat them as adults, colleagues, and encourage them to be critical thinkers who recognize and acknowledge diverse ways of knowing in their own lives and in their work as teachers. (Susan’s course outline story)What actions, understandings, and issues/questions

are there here for teachers and teacher educators? Teaching and learning about teaching occur as relationships develop between teacher educators and their students. In our experience, course outlines can be utilized as vehicles with which to explore complex issues related to developing and enacting a pedagogy of teacher education. Furthermore, storied course outlines, as a teaching and learning artifact, have potential to generate rich, critical discussion. As trust

is developed between self-study researchers, the uncovering of course outline stories can assist teacher educators in answering pivotal questions such as “Are my beliefs, values, and practices aligned, and if so, how?” It is helpful to take a critical stance in examining our own work and the work of colleagues to see what can be learned and acted upon. Inevitably, by sharing stories in these outlines, noting similarities and differences, and talking about our assignments, the discussion delves beneath the surface and offers a window into our teaching and learning. Prior to engaging in this self-study, each of us had spent time thinking about, crafting, and re-crafting course outlines. They are important documents in that they provide a template or guide for the course; but, we suggest, opening up critical discussion of deeper structures in storied course outlines may also contribute to increased understandings about effective teacher education design and implementation.

Conclusion and ReflectionThis study has contributed to enhancing our approaches

to designing course outlines that meet the needs of our teacher candidates and has also enabled us to further develop and articulate a pedagogy of teacher education. Taking time to read, deconstruct, and discuss the stories of our course outlines assisted in attending to an important aspect of our own professional development. These stories (and our own stories as teacher educators) are still under construction. For example, Mary Lynn responded to the work for this study by completely changing an assignment on her course outline mid-way through the course she was teaching; Susan found it increasingly insightful to filter the story of her course outline through another lens: that of observing a new colleague adopting and teaching the same course outline Susan had designed and developed. The perceived significance of these outcomes offer enticing directions for further exploration, including efforts to resolve dilemmas related to grading assignments in teacher education and, instead, to work towards “a purposeful pedagogical partnership that helped us transition from an authoritarian reality to one that reflected a more balanced sensitivity to human dignity” (Fernandez-Balbao, 2006, p. 265).

Our Own Learning: The Story So FarRegarding our learning as teacher educators, it has

proved beneficial for us to engage in deep examination and discussion of critical issues related to our pedagogy of teacher education as well as subject-specific knowledge (language arts). It was enriching to explore literacy issues we are both passionate about. While Susan had been thinking, reflecting, and writing about her course development for some time, Mary Lynn was new to the process. However, the stance we each took—a commitment to sharing, questioning, and learning—clearly facilitated the collaborative research process. We continue to negotiate tensions as they arise, but regard these as inevitable if critical issues related to an authentic examination of our teaching and learning are to be addressed and resolved. As evidenced in the language of our course outlines, we highly value collaboration and, therefore, have worked hard throughout this self-study to ensure professional collaboration is part of our lived experience.

Studies of this nature offer valuable contributions to the broader field of self-study and teacher education. For example, close examination and interrogation of assignments in course outlines, resulting in the uncovering of inherent assumptions

(and stories therein), has the potential to provide springboards to further discussion and critical reflection around the construction of these assignments. In turn, studies may inform and assist other teacher educators in the development of their own pedagogies of teacher education and ongoing self-study research and practice.

ReferencesBerry, A., & Kosnik, C. (2010). A story is not just a story:

Many ways to go beyond the story in self-study research. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 217–220.

Brubaker, N. D. (2010). Negotiating authority by designing individualized grading contracts. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 257–267.

Creswell, J. W. (2002). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Fernandez-Balbao, J. M. (2006). Dignity and democracy in the college classroom: The practice of student self-evaluation. In R. Goldstein (Ed.), Useful theory: Making critical education practical (pp. 105–128). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (1st ed.) (pp. 105–117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Loughran, J. (2010). Seeking knowledge for teaching teaching: Moving beyond stories. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 221–226.

Mitchell, C., Weber, S., & O’Reilly-Scanlon, K. (Eds.). (2005). Just who do we think we are: Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching. New York, NY: Routledge Falmer.

Pinnegar, S., Hamilton, M. L., & Fitzgerald, L. (2010). Guidance in being and becoming self-study of practice researchers. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 203–206). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

LYNNETTE B. ERICKSON, STEFINEE PINNEGAR, & JANET YOUNGBrigham Young University

A Programmatic Self-Study of Practice: Exploring Teacher Educator Knowledge

ContextThe authors of this study, Janet, Lynnette, and Stefinee,

are the voice of this study. However, since we report on a programmatic self-study of practice, the use of “our” and “we” in this document includes all of our faculty members who intentionally or inadvertently participated.

Our elementary education program generally graduates 200 teachers every year. During a typical semester, we have approximately 1,000 elementary education majors in our program. At the time of this study, our elementary preparation program was strong, we had consistently, since 1956, received accreditation from National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Educators (NCATE), and our graduates were in high demand locally as well as nationally.

The conceptual framework of our current program was based in the Moral Dimensions of Teaching (Goodlad, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990a), and, as a college and department, we took seriously the notion of simultaneous renewal put forth by Goodlad. Our yardstick for student performance was NCATE Unit Standards (2008) and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC; 1992). We had every reason to continue business as usual. However, in our program self-assessment document we puzzled about what more we could be doing to improve and strengthen our program by “apply[ing] current research, professional literature, and evidence-based innovations related to preparing competent and caring teachers” (Teacher Education Department, 2006, p. 1).

Over time and many conversations, both formal and informal, we decided to reconsider our program and potentially introduce some changes. Based on student input and our own understandings and experiences, our program goal was to create a more inviting, more balanced program that allowed more autonomy for both students and faculty—all this while maintaining the high quality of teacher preparation we currently enjoyed. This decision started a cycle of reading the research on teacher preparation, comparing it to our experience and tacit knowledge as teacher educators, considering clinical practices, and then discussing how those played out in a preparation program, and then repeating the cycle over and over again.

Literature Review We began with an understanding from Goodlad, Soder,

and Sirotnik’s (1990b) study of the education of educators, which suggested that all programs are shaped by cycles within the context where they are created. While the influencing factors are usually the same from one institution to the other (e.g., size, commitment to research, leadership, licensure requirements, accreditation, and economic climate), “no two programs for the education of educators, even in colleges or

universities in the same state, have been shaped in precisely the same fashion and form” (p. 17). Therefore, as we read and reviewed teacher education research, we constantly discussed findings and recommendations in relationship to the affordances and limitations of our own context.

Looking across a variety of research publications, we found recommendations for the knowledge and skills new teachers need as they enter the teaching profession, such as knowledge of subject matter, characteristics of students and their learning, instructional strategies, and pedagogy for teaching specific content. Typically, these publications also provided recommendations for practices that new teachers should be able to enact: for example, lesson planning, developing personal relationships with students, managing and arranging classrooms, assessment, and reflection on their practices to improve their teaching (see Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Gore, 2001; Korthagen, 2004; Reynolds, 1992). While the publication dates spanned more than a decade, the recommendations for what teachers should know and do remained largely consistent across publications and time. Interestingly, Darling-Hammond and Bransford (2005) fairly recently echoed recommendations made by researchers in these previous publications.

After looking at what prospective teachers should know and be able to do, we examined reports on a variety of teacher education programs across the United States. We looked at both critical analyses of research on learning to teach (e.g., Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998) and program designs for preparing teachers (e.g., Risko et al., 2008). In addition, we reviewed research studies that focused on theory-practice relationships (e.g., Goodlad et al., 1990b; Korthagen & Kessels, 1990) and others that made recommendations concerning clinical experiences (Clift & Brady, 2005). We considered policy-oriented summaries of research (e.g., Allen, 2003), as well as relevant chapters from Studying Teacher Education: The Report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). Using the information about specific programs published in the reviews and critiques, we were able to carefully scrutinize the features and designs of programs referenced in various analyses.

Our deep engagement and discussion of the teacher education research literature positioned us so that we realized that our own experience as teacher educators was the lens through which we were interpreting what research said about teacher education. We realized that we were continually drawing on the group’s tacit knowledge of teacher education but we did not have access to a more formal or systematic account of that knowledge.

Aims/ObjectivesThe purpose of this self-study was to make explicit

the knowledge teacher educators on our faculty had about preparing preservice teachers to assume the role of elementary teachers. Our aim was to explore the question “What do we collectively, as a faculty of elementary educators, know about the knowledge and practices that elementary preservice teachers need in order to be well prepared to teach elementary grade students?”

MethodsThis study was self-initiated, self-focused, and

improvement aimed (LaBoskey, 2004). The study was initiated at our annual back-to-school faculty meeting. We asked all those who worked in the elementary teacher preparation program to articulate their opinions of the knowledge a preservice teacher would need to successfully enact the role of teacher. We used the Teacher Work Sample (TWS; Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality, 2002), our capstone assignment, as the context and prompt for what teacher candidates should leave our program knowing. The TWS is a performance assessment tool used during student teaching to measure teacher candidate learning. It enables teacher candidates to demonstrate their ability to plan, implement, and evaluate a unit of instruction for a specific class of students and to facilitate learning for all students. Thus, the TWS is used as a proxy for teacher knowledge in this study.

We expected to use the analysis of the data generated at that meeting to help us make decisions about our program. Since we worked collectively, every aspect of the study was interactive (LaBoskey, 2004), including the review of the literature, development of procedures, and data collection, analysis, and interpretation. What we are reporting in this paper is the first cycle of analysis. Subsequent articles will focus on further analysis of the data.

Participants. The participants in this study were the members of our department who work directly with our elementary teacher candidates. One of the unique features of our program is the makeup of the elementary education faculty: tenure-track faculty who serve as content area specialists and others who act as liaisons between the department and the public schools, and clinical faculty associates on loan from the surrounding school districts. These individuals represent a range of ages, educational backgrounds, professional responsibilities, years of service, types of teaching experiences in public schools and universities, and roles as teacher educators.

Procedures. To collect data for this study we grouped participants according to the roles they had in the program and distributed copies of the TWS, which included the same prompts given to teacher candidates. Each group was directed to respond to the prompt “What would a teacher candidate have to know to successfully complete each section of the TWS?” and given a stack of cards on which to record each response. From there, each group was instructed to start at a different place on the TWS, listing each idea generated by the group on a separate card. In this way, we gathered data about teacher educators’ collective knowledge of what was required of teacher candidates to demonstrate their teaching knowledge. The cards generated by the groups served as the data for this study.

Data analysis. Analysis of the data was done in two iterative cycles. In the first cycle, a representative team of faculty individually examined the data, seeking emergent

themes and categories (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The team met to compare findings and discovered we had faced similar challenges with portions of the data. In the course of the discussion, two broad categories emerged: content and delivery system. We generated definitions for these two categories, with content being what preservice teachers needed to know or learn to do, and delivery system referring to ways in which experiences were structured to engage candidate learning at the course or program level. In the second cycle, the team worked in pairs to code the data as either content or delivery system using the definitions we had developed. Finally, we traded data sets with each other to verify the coding across pairs. Trustworthiness of the analysis was established through this process.

The basis of our decision-making and realization of the two categories of content and delivery system were the dialogues (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) and discussions the team had over the course of the two cycles of data analysis. This dialoguing refined our understanding of the categories and shaped them as findings for this self-study.

OutcomesOur analysis of the data in this programmatic self-

study of practice uncovered a separation in teacher educators’ knowledge. We found a distinction between (a) what teacher educators thought the content knowledge for preservice teachers should be and (b) how they used their knowledge to orchestrate experiences both in and beyond the classroom to teach what we labeled content to the preservice teachers—in other words, their delivery systems.

Content. Content knowledge for teacher educators in this study was knowledge of what a teacher candidate needs to know and what a teacher candidate needs to do in order to be a good teacher. Our responses as teacher educators included references to both content knowledge and process knowledge and the meta-cognitive understanding of knowledge of processes. For example, when we talked about assessment, we recognized that beginning teachers would need to know some basic things about assessment, such as the definitions and types of assessments that teachers can use (content knowledge). They would also need to know how to construct and conduct informal assessments within their own classrooms (process knowledge). Then, if they were constructing and using informal assessment, they would need knowledge about the processes as well as knowledge of the processes that would guide their action (metacognitive knowledge of processes).

Delivery systems. Delivery systems include teacher educators’ knowledge of the orchestration of the program or courses in preparing teacher candidates. This was demonstrated by the responses of the faculty members when they articulated how and when to schedule courses and clinical experiences, identified appropriate activities to engage students in the content of individual courses, listed what grade levels would be best for each clinical experience, specified how literacy content should be divided across three literacy experiences, and so forth.

DiscussionTeacher educators easily slide between dialoguing about

content and processes of what preservice teachers need to know and about the delivery system through which they are given the opportunity to learn those things. This makes the distinction between the two blurred in their conversations and, in our opinion as authors, in their understanding of the distinction between them.

Content. In asking our faculty to respond to the question of the study, we found that teacher educator knowledge about what teacher candidates should know is focused on content, which includes knowledge of processes. Through our conversation, what we initially thought was a simple concept soon became conceptually complex. As we worked to understand and interpret our (teacher educators’) content knowledge, we realized that our traditional notion of what comprised content knowledge actually contained within it content knowledge, process knowledge, and the interplay amongst them.

This led us to conclude that there is a subject matter of teacher education. This is often represented as the knowledge base of teaching; however, we also came to understand that the content included knowledge of how to enact the processes that are involved in better teaching practices and the metacognitive knowledge necessary to enact those practices. In addition, as elementary teacher educators, we recognized that we held tacit assumptions that teacher candidates’ content knowledge is dependent upon specific subject matter knowledge, which we expect them to bring forward into their teacher preparation courses and program. This indicates, to us, that the content knowledge for elementary teacher education involves several kinds of knowledge complexly interwoven and which collectively constitutes the content for teacher education.

In connecting our finding to the larger research, we considered Shulman’s (1987) conception of the categories of knowledge that teachers used in teaching. In relationship to his ideas, our results led us to see that the content knowledge teacher candidates need to be taught did not represent categories of knowledge, but an interwoven system. The complexity and organic nature of the system that emerged from our findings led us to consider Clandinin’s (1985) holistic notion of personal practical knowledge as a more helpful concept. Our perception is that content knowledge for teacher education can be segregated into courses with labels such as multicultural education, reading methods, practicum, and others. However, various kinds of knowledge, which we categorized as content, must be integrated similar to the way Clandinin characterizes personal practical knowledge. When knowledge becomes integrated, content taught in teacher education programs becomes helpful to teachers, not only in their preparation, but also in their professional teaching.

Delivery system. As our notion of delivery systems versus program content and process knowledge emerged, it became obvious to us that in talking about a teacher preparation program, teacher educators did not distinguish between content and logistics of enacting a course or program. We labeled responses that articulated how to orchestrate the development of teacher education content knowledge as delivery system knowledge. For teacher educators, this type of knowledge is very much intertwined and interdependent with the content knowledge for teacher education, previously discussed as content. This distinction in our knowing between content and delivery system is hidden from us, as teacher educators, and appears to be tacit knowledge, similar to Polanyi’s (1967) description of tacit knowledge. In our case, as teacher educators, we may attend so intently to what our teacher candidates need to know and do right now in order to get to the next step in their development as teachers, that the basis on which we act is obscured from us. Perhaps this is why research in teacher education (Allen, 2003; Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) often does not provide a strong foundation for practice or direction for policy. In order to develop more powerful teacher education programs, making the tacit explicit

could contribute new understandings and ways of orchestrating teacher education programs, as well as raise new questions for research.

ConclusionAs a result of this study, we are more focused on

understanding how we talk about content and delivery systems. In attempting to understand our discourse, we feel hope that we will develop better programs and ways to administer them for the benefit of our teacher candidates.

We continue to puzzle about how we, as teacher educators, can better unpack our tacit and holistic knowledge of the relevant variables embedded within categories such as content and delivery systems that were uncovered in this study. We wonder if this knowledge might be called personal practical knowledge for teacher educators (Clandinin, 1985). We also realized that making a distinction between content and delivery system could help us, as clinical and content-area teacher education faculty, interact and make program decisions. We hope to explore how attention to this distinction might result in fewer occasions where practicing teachers say to our candidates, “Just forget what you have learned at the university,” since attention to delivery systems in relation to content situates field experiences more fully within the bounds of teacher preparation. This would also allow us to attend more carefully to what supports and sustains candidates in teacher education and as teachers, as suggested by Bullough (2008).

Further, understanding the complexity of content knowledge held by teacher educators helps us understand the ways in which we may currently be teaching content, process, and metacognitive knowledge as separate and independent from each other, rather than attending to the ways in which they should emerge as a common whole. Further, careful consideration of delivery systems in teaching course content, as well as in orchestrating a program, may help teacher educators develop new strategies for approaching and responding to teacher candidates’ resistance to particular teaching practices or academic content included in preservice courses (e.g., literacy practices, reformed mathematics, multicultural education). Perhaps content and delivery system are related to and lie in tension with curriculum and the pedagogy of teacher education. Attending to this complexity could facilitate the integration of content, process, and metacognitive knowledge.

ReferencesAllen, M. B. (2003). Eight questions on teacher preparation:

What does the research say? An ECS teaching quality research report. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.

Bullough, R. V., Jr. (2008). Counter narratives: Studies of teacher education and becoming and being a teacher. New York, NY: SUNY.

Clandinin, D. J. (1985). Personal practical knowledge: A study of teachers’ classroom images. Curriculum Inquiry, 15, 361–385.

Clift, R., & Brady, P. (2005). Research on methods courses and field experiences. In M. Cochran-Smith & K. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (pp. 309–424). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Zeichner, K. (Eds.). (2005). Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (Eds.). (2005). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Goodlad, J. I., Soder, R., & Sirotnik, K. A. (1990a). The moral dimensions of teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Goodlad, J. I., Soder, R., & Sirotnik, K. A. (1990b). Places where teachers are taught. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Gore, J. M. (2001). Beyond our differences: A reassembling of what matters in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 52, 124–135.

Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium. (1992). Model standards for beginning teacher licensing and development: A resource for state dialogue. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.

Korthagen, F. A. J. (2004). In search of the essence of a good teacher: Towards a more holistic approach in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 77–97.

Korthagen, R. A. J., & Kessels, J. P. A. M. (1990). Linking theory and practice: Changing the pedagogy of teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(4), 4–17.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). London, United Kingdom: Kluwer.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Polanyi, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. London, United Kingdom: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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Reynolds, A. (1992). What is competent beginning teaching? A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 62(1), 1–35.

Risko, V. J., Roller, C., Cummins, C., Bean, R., Block, C. C., Anders, P., & Flood, J. (2008). A critical analysis of the research on reading teacher education. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(3), 252–288.

Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22.

Teacher Education Department (2006). Teacher Education Department self-assessment attachment: Targeted areas of improvement. Provo, UT: Department of Teacher Education, Brigham Young University.

Wideen, M., Mayer-Smith, J., & Moon, B. (1998). A critical analysis of the research on learning to teach: Making the case for an ecological perspective on inquiry. Review of Educational Research, 68, 130–178.

Mentoring Teacher EducatorsIn universities, traditional mentoring relationships

typically consist of an experienced, senior faculty member whose responsibility it is to socialize a new, junior faculty member into the norms of their institution. Mentored faculty generally report higher career satisfaction, feel more confident, and are more effective teachers and researchers than their non-mentored peers (Zellers, Howard, & Barcic, 2008). Yet the nature of traditional mentoring relationships has been called into question due to the distinction between participants based on status and power, which can limit the potential for reciprocal learning and transformation (Diamond & Mullen, 1997). Collaborative mentoring may address the shortcomings of the traditional approach because it “[provides] an opportunity for professionals to become directly involved in each other’s learning and to provide feedback while developing along an agreed path” (Mullen, 2000, p. 5).

Because of the contextual nature of any relationship, claims about the effects or potential of mentoring relationships for beginning teacher educators need to be situated in the context of teacher education courses and programs. Studies of new teacher educators suggest that they experience little in the way of mentoring or other formal types of support (Lunenberg & Willemse, 2006), instead relying on learning-by-doing (Murray, 2005). For the few new teacher educators who are mentored, the structures in place often do not meet their specific needs (Murray & Male, 2005).

As such, the questions that guided our self-study were• What are our assumptions about collaborative mentoring and how did self-study help to challenge these assumptions?• Based on our self-study, what elements do we believe are important for improving the mentoring of beginning teacher educators?

MethodsWe used self-study to explore and understand the

initial processes and challenges of a collaborative mentoring relationship between Tim (a beginning teacher educator), Clare, and Shawn (two more experienced teacher educators), who are located at three different universities across Canada. This relationship was informal and voluntary, as Tim was not provided with formal support upon taking on his new role, and we each viewed the relationship as a way to learn about our practice and ourselves.

Setting and participants. We felt that our particular mentoring relationship might be of mutual benefit because we had known one another for several years, held similar beliefs about teacher education, had engaged in collaborative studies

prior to this research, and were not formally appointed as mentor/mentees (Pask & Joy, 2007). Tim began a position in physical education teacher education at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in August 2011. As a beginning teacher educator, he felt he would be faced with many “questions, problems, tensions, and dilemmas that so often cause one to ponder the problematic nature of practice” and which provide a starting point for many self-studies (Loughran, 2006, p. 174). Because he was not formally appointed a mentor, he invited two teacher educators whom he had known for several years to informally take on the roles of mentors and to engage in a self-study of the processes of the relationship. Clare is professor in literacy teacher education at University of Toronto, and Shawn is an assistant professor in science teacher education at University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Clare has been the formal mentor for several faculty members in her department; however, few had specific interests in teacher education or in self-study. Shawn has been in his role for three years, and he was not appointed a mentor when he was inducted into his current position. Despite what he learned in his doctoral program, his learning about becoming a teacher educator largely occurred by actually doing the job, which taught him the questions he needed to ask. Tim had felt that because Shawn had recently experienced the transition into academia, he would be in a good position to shed light on some of the challenges faced by new faculty members. For Clare and Shawn, who are both committed to self-study, there were also promising avenues for engaging in the research. For example, they would be able to learn more about mentoring of beginning teacher educators and engage in conversations that would lead to new understandings of self and practice (Samaras & Freese, 2009).

Data gathering and analysis. Our locations across Canada led us to rely on various technologies to collect data. We agreed our busy schedules might delay responses to e-mails or reflections, and we established early on that we should not take any delays personally. We feel it is important to note the contrast between the initial intent of our data gathering and the actual processes of data gathering, which reflects the flexible and adaptive approach that self-study researchers may often need to take.

We had three data sources:1. Reflective journal entries. We initially intended to

submit two journal entries each per month. However, our reflective journal entries did not constitute as large a portion of our data as we had originally foreseen. This was partially due to Tim feeling overwhelmed in his first term due to a heavy teaching load, and his reflections were not as frequent as he had intended. Over 7000 words from reflective journals

TIM FLETCHER SHAWN M. BULLOCK Memorial University of Newfoundland University of Ontario Institute of Technology

CLARE KOSNIK Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto

An Investigation Into Collaborative Mentoring Using Self-Study: Our Processes and Our Learning

contributed by all three participants over a six-month period were used as data.

2. Conference calls. Once per month we called each other and recorded the conversations. On several occasions where only two of us were involved in the conversation, we used digital formats such as Skype™. However, when all three participants were involved we used conference calls conducted by telephone. Originally it was intended that we would rely mostly on the digital formats to collect conversational data, but several limitations to the software and the lack of compatibility between our three computer systems led us to mostly use the telephone. Discussions were largely open-ended so that the conversations could lead to new and unexpected areas. Over six hours of recorded conversations gathered over a six-month period were used as data.

3. E-mail correspondence. Any of us could send an e-mail at any time and on any subject. Throughout the year we regularly contacted one another by e-mail and these correspondences were transferred to a word processing document and used as a data source.

To address trustworthiness, we made efforts to be honest and explicit about the discrepancies between our intentions and the realities of the data gathered, because this is critical to the value of our findings for other teacher educators (Feldman, 2003). We also tried to identify moments that “rang true” for each of us, with the assumption that others may also relate. These moments highlighted tensions, insights, or contradictions in our thoughts and conversations (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001). To locate these moments, data were read and coded using inductive and deductive coding (Patton, 2002). Following coding, initial themes were developed and modified until we found mutual agreement. Specifically, we analyzed data searching for “turning points” (Bullock & Ritter, 2011), moments when we came to understand mentoring differently as the result of experiences that challenged our prior assumptions. Turning points must demonstrate these characteristics: (a) the data have an affective (e.g., emotional or motivational) element, (b) the data frame a problem of practice, (c) the author of the data is implicitly or explicitly asking for help from the critical friend, and (d) the data allow time to take action on the problem.

OutcomesTwo key outcomes of our collaborative mentoring

relationship are addressed: (a) the role of identity in challenging our assumptions and (b) reframing mentoring as a learning community.

Challenging our assumptions: Identity and becoming a teacher educator. According to Jenkins (2008), identity is not a thing but a process of being and becoming. Initially, Tim and Shawn assumed that, as junior faculty, they would experience the most changes in their identities of becoming teacher educators; however, even as someone who had been involved in teacher education for more than 15 years, Clare revealed moments of “becoming” throughout the study. This finding supports the shifting, nuanced, and contextual nature of one’s professional identity (Clift, 2011).

For example, Tim was still coming to terms with what his identification as a teacher educator meant to him, his students, and his colleagues. Because he was now housed in a department of kinesiology and not a faculty of education, the tensions about where he “fit” in the broader context of the university and how this impacted his practice came to light throughout the study. He also struggled to find a balance between developing his pedagogy of teacher education in an

elementary physical-education methods course and teaching courses that were not teacher education-focused, such as Sociology of Sport. In his new department he was not exposed to the everyday discussions of issues that had been influential in shaping his understandings of teacher education as a doctoral student, and he was at first nervous that he might lose touch with the teacher education community that was central in shaping his emerging professional identity. However, the professional relationship with Clare and Shawn proved crucial in helping him feel connected to important issues in teacher education and led him to apply aspects of his teacher education practice to other courses he taught.

Shawn had come to be more certain in his identification as a teacher educator than Tim, but he felt somewhat uneasy about his role in this relationship as a mentor. As the study progressed and as our views about mentoring were challenged by the collaborative nature of our self-study, Shawn came to feel more comfortable about his role in supporting the development of new teacher education faculty. Tim found Shawn’s views and recent experiences of being inducted into academia especially helpful in addressing the challenges he faced as a beginning teacher educator. Several times Shawn revealed that he faced similar circumstances to Tim, and both were able to engage in an open conversation about the struggles they faced, which enabled both to gain insights into what being a teacher educator meant to them. In the first weeks of the study, Tim said:

I felt so much better about my concerns and thoughts after speaking with Shawn... [he] noted his “confusion” about his role as mentoring (or about seeing himself as a mentor) in his earlier reflections, however, following our conversation yesterday I thought the position he took was exactly what I would hope a formally appointed mentor would [take]. We were able to discuss our challenges, he could relate to them, and he did not tell me how to address them but together I felt like we thought through those challenges (with examples of personal success and/or failure) to come to possible solutions or ways forward. One of the concrete examples of this was Shawn encouraging me to have conversations with the teacher candidates about the thought processes and dilemmas I went through to come up with the course assignments. Of surprise to Tim and Shawn was that as a senior

professor, Clare also displayed instances of “becoming” a teacher educator. Although being a teacher educator had been part of her identity for several years, there were allusions to Clare’s processes of becoming a new type of teacher educator, one who infused technology into her classes. Acknowledging the importance of keeping up with innovations in practice, Clare was making concerted efforts to integrate technology into her course. She had taught the literacy course for over a decade yet still spent large amounts of time and faced challenges making decisions about course design. The value of constantly seeking ways to improve one’s practice challenged Tim’s initial assumptions that practice was little more than teaching several courses. Instead, he came to learn that one’s practice was representative of a broader approach to teaching, learning, and students that went well beyond a series of classes strung together. The enthusiasm that was evident in how Clare went about designing her courses and experimenting with ideas showed commitment to her students and to improving her practice. “Being a teacher at heart I love teaching and I love the prep. One of the joys I am finding this summer is being able to spend time on my courses, my course wiki…

It is so long since I have had time to fiddle with my courses. I cannot get over how satisfying it is.”

The differences in the tasks we were engaged in (due to our content areas) and the contexts in which we worked might lead one to think that as teacher educators we were more different than similar; however, a common thread that connected us was our views about being lifelong learners. While each of us revealed frustrations with some of the more mundane administrative tasks of our jobs and of the politics that pervade any occupation, the passion and dedication to being open to learning new things and to seeing things differently in our practices was evident throughout our conversations. It was also this view that ultimately challenged our views about mentoring as a top-down, transmissive process to one that could work well when conducted collaboratively and with an aim to be beneficial for all involved.

Collaborative mentoring or a learning community? It became apparent that our initial view of our relationship as one of collaborative mentoring could have similarly been viewed or thought of as a learning community (Kitchen, Ciuffetelli-Parker, & Gallagher, 2008). As explained earlier, traditional mentoring relationships are often represented by intimate conversations between two people where there is a clear power dynamic (Diamond & Mullen, 1997); however, our analysis supports the limiting nature of traditional mentoring relationships. We benefited from having three people whose experiences we could draw from, relate to, or identify with, and these diverse experiences helped to crystallize the problems we faced in our practice.

During the fourth month of our self-study and despite the challenges of being in different institutions and time zones, we began to realize how our conversations were becoming an important part of our learning about becoming teacher educators. We also came to identify key elements of what was making our relationship enjoyable and beneficial:

Shawn: I think the glue that is holding all of this together, from my perspective anyways, is the shared commitment to making this work even with time differences and different institutions, and all of those kind of things.Clare: Isn’t it interesting that, you know, I get an e-mail from the two of you and I get excited, as opposed to the gazillion other e-mails I get. This is something that is such a different part of my work and is so enjoyable. I think part of it is that we are not at the same institution and it is truly something we self-initiated and self-selected to do. Tim: I’m actually seeing how this could make an impact on more than just the three of us.In addition to helping us discuss and confront the

challenges of our roles, we also felt that a strong foundation for mentoring rested on each person in the relationship having a strong and personal knowledge of working in the contexts of teacher education. Upon discussing the role of university-wide teaching and learning centres or institutes, Shawn and Clare recognized the ineffectiveness of generic approaches to university teaching:

Clare: One of the things I had heard at a conference was that these sessions for new faculty tended to be generic, and what new faculty often need was something very targeted, for you know, teaching physics in teacher ed., as opposed to how to use the library.Shawn: Yes… I had someone come in and observe my teaching in the first year, twice, and it was someone from the Teaching & Learning Centre. It was non-evaluative

(apparently)… They did send somebody out to come and view any class you wanted and to provide some feedback, and again, it’s an interesting comment you make, Clare, about specificity. It would have been more productive for me to invite another teacher educator into my class as opposed to somebody coming in who has never taught a teacher education course before. Clare: …Yes, you really need support in specific areas. We all do. I know now what I need support in; so generic workshops aren’t necessarily helpful for new or experienced teacher educators.

It became clear that having the emotional support of friends and colleagues was a valuable aspect of this relationship, and we feel that is a valuable aspect of any mentoring relationship where honesty and trust are central features. We each felt that we could discuss issues that were important and sometimes sensitive on personal and professional levels, and these discussions helped us learn more about the emotional dimension of being and becoming teacher educators.

ConclusionAlthough we are only several months into our self-study

of a collaborative mentoring relationship and our findings might be considered preliminary at this stage, we have found the relationship to be mutually beneficial in terms of the way we go about our professional lives—in particular our teacher education practices. Moreover, we are beginning to come to some more concrete suggestions for other new and experienced teacher educators in how they might go about fostering similarly beneficial relationships. This includes being open to shifts and changes in one’s professional identity and practice, being open to learning from each other regardless of status and experience, and working with mentors/mentees where the structures of the relationship are informal and occur in the context of teacher education programs. These suggestions may prove to have important implications for universities as they consider implementing programs aimed at improving the quality of teaching across faculties. Fostering relationships where the participants may mutually benefit from being involved may lead to more positive and sustainable outcomes for new faculty development programs. As our study continues throughout this academic year and into the following two, we imagine that our ideas about mentoring, collaborating, and studying our teacher education practice will continue to change and shift, as will our identities and practices.

ReferencesBullock, S. M., & Ritter, J. K. (2011). Exploring the transition

into academia through self-study. Studying Teacher Education, 7, 171–181.

Clift, R. T. (2011). Shifting roles, shifting contexts, maintaining identity. Studying Teacher Education, 7, 159–170.

Diamond, C. P. T., & Mullen, C. A. (1997). Alternative perspectives on mentoring in higher education: Duography as collaborative relationship and inquiry. Journal of Applied Social Behaviour, 3(2), 49–64.

Jenkins, R. (2008). Social identity. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Kitchen, J., Ciuffetelli-Parker, D., & Gallagher, T. (2008). Authentic conversation as faculty development: Establishing a self-study group in a faculty of education. Studying Teacher Education, 4, 157–171.

Loughran, J. J. (2006). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Lunenberg, M., & Willemse, M. (2006). Research and professional development of teacher educators. European Journal of Teacher Education, 29, 81–98.

Mullen, C. A. (2000). Constructing co-mentoring partnerships: Walkways we must travel. Theory into Practice, 39, 4–11.

Murray, J. (2005). Re-addressing the priorities: New teacher educators and induction into higher education. European Journal of Teacher Education, 28, 67–85.

Murray, J., & Male, T. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: Evidence from the field. Teaching & Teacher Education, 21, 125–142.

Pask, R., & Joy, B. (2007). Mentoring-coaching: A guide for education professionals. Maidenhead, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Samaras, A. P., & Freese, A. R. (2009). Looking back and looking forward: An historical overview of the self-study school. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 3–20). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Zellers, D. F., Howard, V. M., & Barcic, M. A. (2008). Faculty mentoring programs: Reenvisioning rather than reinventing the wheel. Review of Educational Research, 78, 552–588.

RACHEL FORGASZ MANDI BERRY ICLON Monash University Leiden University

Exploring the Potential of Boal’s “The Rainbow of Desire” As an Enacted Reflective Practice: An Emerging Self-Study

ContextAs teacher educators and self-study researchers, we are

deeply committed to the crucial role of reflection in developing and improving the professional practice and learning of our students and ourselves. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to find effective methodological approaches for engaging in deep, authentic, and critical reflective processes. This paper describes our efforts to address this situation, through the performative model of Boal’s The Rainbow of Desire (Boal, 1995), as a form of enacted reflective practice. We report our initial experiences as a group of teacher educators participating in an introductory The Rainbow of Desire (TROD) workshop and the implications of this process for our self-understanding, our work with preservice teachers, and our self-study practice.

Developing as a reflective practitioner is claimed as a key goal for teacher education. In self-study, too, reflection occupies a central role. Yet the conceptualization and fostering of reflection remain problematic since it is typically concerned more with cognitive processes and “less with experiences, feelings or interactions” (Illeris, 2007, p. 65). Jordi (2010) argues, “the concept of reflection needs to [overcome its] reputation for distilling rational knowledge from the mess of human experience” (p. 182) and calls for an “embodied” approach, to “get in touch with its bodily held feelings, its discomforts, emotions, intuitions, and imagination” (p. 184).

Given the cognitive emphasis of much reflective practice, the development and refinement of methodological approaches designed to focus reflection on the felt—emotional and embodied—dimensions of experience are warranted. To this end, the techniques and processes of Augusto Boal’s The Theatre of the Oppressed (1979) (TO) may have generative potential. The applied theatre processes of TO are intended to provoke transformation by providing individuals and communities with opportunities to “rehearse” their liberation from “oppression” in the relative safety of the aesthetic space in order that they might enact that liberation in the contexts of their daily lives. Originally designed to explore political and material oppressions (poverty, hunger, violence), the TO performance suite was eventually expanded by Boal to include TROD, a branch of TO envisioned to expose and explore those immaterial, or personal, oppressions (e.g., emotions, attitudes, assumptions) that impede our action but which are internalised and therefore largely invisible, to others and even to ourselves.

TO has been taken up across a diverse range of disciplines and contexts, including education, for example, to teach critical literacy to low achieving middle school readers (Rozansky & Aagesen, 2010), to encourage reluctant adult learners to overcome their anxieties about writing (Creel, Kuhne, & Riggle, 2000), and to engage teaching staff in explorations of the challenges of cultural diversity in their classrooms (Burgoyne et al., 2007; Burgoyne et al., 2005).

In teacher education, Placier, and colleagues (Placier, Burgoyne, Cockrell, Welch, & Neville, H., 2005; Placier, Cockrell, Burgoyne, Welch, Neville, & Eferakorho, 2006, Placier, Cockrell, Cockrell, & Simmons, April, 2005) have published widely on their collaborative TO explorations, including self-study–focused projects. But whereas Cockrell, Placier, Burgoyne, Welch, and Cockrell (2002) present a self-study of a teacher educator’s experience of facilitating preservice teachers’ engagement in TO processes including TROD, we present a self-study of teacher educators’ own participation in TROD. Furthermore, in the TO/TROD work of Placier and colleagues, the teacher’s role as oppressor was interrogated; in our study, the TROD process invited critical reflection on teacher educators’ experiences as the oppressed.

PurposeOur decision to introduce colleagues to TROD emerged

from Rachel’s experiences of developing this process with preservice teachers early in 2011 and Mandi’s experiences of observing parts of this process. The powerful insights preservice teachers drew from their participation in TROD encouraged us to pursue this process with teacher educators. The workshop that forms the basis of this study was, therefore, designed with two purposes: to experience for ourselves the potential for personal professional development of engaging in TROD and to consider the potential of this approach to reflection in our work with preservice teachers. Given the limitations of the current paper, we focus our discussion on the first purpose.

The following questions guided our study:• How does TROD offer insights into the fears and desires experienced by us as teacher educators in particular moments of oppression? • How can our insights shape how we conceptualise and enact our practices as teacher educators?• How can the use of Boal’s TROD as a critical performative approach provide a unique contribution to self-study methodology?

ApproachSelf-study, “a methodology for studying professional

practice settings” (Pinnegar, 1998, p. 33), aims for the improvement of practice through refined and reframed understanding in order to “maximise the benefits for the clients” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 820). Boal’s TROD techniques offer an example of an “arts-informed method” (Weber & Mitchell, 2004) of self-study. Such methods provide powerful alternative means for learning about the self through creative approaches to interrogating assumptions and challenging deeply held beliefs about practice that comprise our implicit theories about teaching and ourselves as teachers. In particular,

they distinguish “the capacity of performance to represent self-study in an embodied way” (Weber & Mitchell, 2004, p. 987).

Rachel used the applied theatre processes of Boal’s TROD in workshops with preservice teachers because of the potential she saw for performance to enable embodied reflection on the emotions of teaching. In particular, she was interested in the “multiple mirrors” of Boal’s collaborative performance processes, through which participants could observe simultaneously how the multiple and often conflicting aspects of ourselves affect our interactions with others in moments of teaching and learning. Mandi observed a workshop in which preservice teachers were engaged in “The image of the rainbow of desire,” one of nine performance techniques that comprise the “introspective techniques” of the TROD system. This technique invites interrogation of the dynamic tensions at play within one participant in a past experience of “oppression.” Those tensions are exposed and interrogated in performance as that experience is framed and reframed (Schön, 1983) through the various stages of the technique.

From the learning potential that Mandi saw in the TROD process, she requested Rachel run one of these workshops for teacher educators in their faculty. Via personal e-mail and a posting on the faculty’s website, we (Rachel and Mandi) invited teacher educator faculty to attend a three-hour workshop to learn about enacted reflective practice using “The image of the rainbow of desire.” We indicated that this workshop might be interesting for promoting teacher educators’ personal professional learning and self-study research. Ten teacher educators chose to attend.

Rachel facilitated the workshop (29 July, 2011), following Boal’s procedure (1995, pp. 150–156). “The image of the rainbow of desire” is a ten-stage technique, although facilitators are encouraged to adapt the technique to suit the needs of their participants.

Of the ten stages, we used the following:1. The improvisation: the protagonist (Mandi ) relays the narrative of her experience of oppression and re-enacts it opposite another participant who plays the role of the antagonist. 2. The rainbow: the protagonist is asked to identify all of the fears, desires, states of mind, and forces at play within her during the moment of action by embodying each one in a frozen bodily image. The other participants are asked whether they identify with a particular image, and if so, they take over its embodiment, until the whole spectrum of the protagonists’ emotional states is occupied.3. The part takes over the whole: the scene is re-improvised but, instead of playing herself, the protagonist sends on the individual images in whatever order she chooses. Here, we glimpse the potential impact of each voice/emotion/fear/desire if it was unleashed fully and uncensored.4. The whole rainbow (actual): the protagonist arranges all individual images like a constellation around the antagonist at centre. The placement of each voice/emotion/fear/desire is indicative of how “loudly” or dominantly it figured in the actual interaction. The scene is replayed but each “voice” may interact with the antagonist only according to its relative placement. The voices interact with the antagonist in various combinations and sometimes all at once.5. The whole rainbow (internal) (our adaptation): The protagonist reconfigures the constellation to reflect

how “loud” or dominant each voice was in her internal dialogue.6. The discussion: all participants—protagonist, antagonist, individual images, facilitator and spect-actors (participants who did not play any of the active roles)—debrief and discuss pertinent aspects of the experience. In our adaptation, discussion also occurred at different points during each stage.In the week following the workshop, Mandi and Rachel

debriefed their experiences in an audiotaped conversation. Two weeks later (17 August, 2011), we e-mailed participants, inviting them to share their responses to any, or all, of a series of specific prompts:

• Your experiences during the workshop; • What you understood to be its purpose; • Your experience of the process; • Whether and how this work contributes to your existing understanding of/engagement with reflective practices (your own or in your work with preservice teachers); • Usefulness of this approach in your work as teacher educators; • Potential problems/dilemmas posed by this work.Five of the ten participants responded to our prompts,

either via reply e-mail (2 spect-actors) or via audiotaped interviews (antagonist, individualised fear/desire), according to participant convenience. Through this process, we gathered responses representative of all 5 participant roles in TROD (protagonist, antagonist, individualised fear/desire, facilitator and spect-actor).

We (Rachel and Mandi) analysed the complete data set in the following way. We independently read and coded the data according to the three research questions, then met to discuss our interpretations and negotiate a shared understanding (Cresswell, 2002). We identified two main themes: (1) what was revealed for participants from the specific nature of the TROD process and (2) what TROD offers as a self-study method. Subthemes related to teacher educator as learner (subtheme i) and dilemmas and challenges of the use of the TROD (subtheme ii). Inductive coding followed, whereby the identified themes and subthemes were related to key features of reflective practice. Member checking and review by colleagues involved in the study was employed to enhance the trustworthiness of our findings. Our findings document our deeper understanding of the key features of the process and the particular contribution of TROD, as an arts-based form of enacted reflective practice, in making them powerfully manifest.

OutcomesDue to space limitations, we present a partial account

of our findings, focusing on aspects of the learning of the two authors; —the facilitator (Rachel) and protagonist (Mandi); )—and the use of TROD as a reflective self-study tool. Our learning emerged through the multiple processes of participating in the workshop, collecting and analysing the data, independently and together, and reflecting on our analysis with colleagues. From this, we contend that the TROD process is both ‘a “means and ends”’ tool of self-study, in that in itself, it contributes to enhanced understandings of self and practice, and, at the same time, stimulates possibilities for self-study.

Facilitator. For Rachel, a new teacher educator positioned as “leader” and “expert” in the workshop and taking a group of very experienced teacher educator colleagues (including the dean of the faculty) through a complex and

unpredictable process, intense feelings of vulnerability emerged. These feelings of vulnerability re-surfaced through the post-workshop interview when she was offered feedback about her facilitation role by the dean. Experiencing vulnerability in these authentic ways, she found herself in the unusual situation of re-experiencing the more painful aspects of learning to teach, specifically:

1. performing publicly the role of “expert” in a high-stakes environment (the workshop), all the while feeling little confidence about what one is doing or how to do it, and 2. during the interview, whereby feelings of insecurity limit one’s ability to receive valuable insight offered through critical feedback. In this sense, the most valuable insight gained from

the workshop for Rachel’s work as a teacher educator was sympathy for the preservice teachers with whom she works. Crucial to her insight was the semantic distinction between empathy (the ability to identify with and understand somebody else’s feelings) and sympathy (the ability to enter into, understand, or share somebody else’s feelings). The temporal gap between Rachel’s teacher-educator self and her novice-teacher self meant that previously, she had felt only empathy for her students. But this experience of the vulnerability of high stakes performance in the context of her own uncertainty and insecurity led Rachel to embark on her future teaching with genuine sympathy for preservice teachers. With this sympathetic insight, she was sensitised to the need to create a safe and compassionate environment so that deep and powerful learning might be enabled.

Protagonist. The most valuable insight to emerge for Mandi, whose conflict situation was enacted, was a felt realisation of the self as multiple, with multiple voices that each speak more or less “loudly” in a pedagogical situation. First making explicit, then seeing the range of fears and desires as physically embodied in others (stages 2 and 3, above), and then arranging them as a constellation (stage 4) enabled Mandi to step out and look at herself from a new perspective. The individual enactment of these composite parts illuminated those aspects she tended to silence or privilege and helped her to recognise and explore herself as a “living contradiction.” She saw that “the noise of frustration and anger makes it hard for me to think about desire…This [role] gave me the chance to see the bits of [me]—which I really appreciated—and think about the parts that I hadn’t considered and to think about the interaction of those bits and the noise that those bits create that lead to certain [teaching] decisions compared to other decisions, for example” (Mandi [protagonist], interview).

Additionally, hearing the antagonist’s perspective of the interaction created insight for Mandi into how particular voices can distort an educational interaction (Brookfield, 1995) and can work against desired outcomes. She explained, “I wrote down what [the antagonist] said about somebody’s desire to get you to do something and [how] if it’s greater than your desire, you’re in such a powerful position. And I went, ‘yes, I get that, I’ve never thought about it before.’ …so that was a really nice insight for me that came from him being in that role” (Mandi [protagonist], interview)

The embodied experience of self as multiple, with multiple voices, meant that Mandi embarked on her subsequent teacher education work with a sharpened sensitivity to the range, loudness, and merit of these voices in order to develop greater coherence between her actions and her intentions.

TROD as powerful enacted reflective practice and self-study tool. Our collective data and its analysis revealed

the nature of the TROD process as offering participants opportunity for considered and deliberative reflection into their professional and personal knowledge and experience (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004). The structure of the process enabled a “patchwork of experiences” to be articulated and shared, which yielded both individual and collective learning. Participants could develop their understandings of practice through making problematic their own knowledge and practice, as well as learning from and building on the knowledge and practice of others.

In being put on the other side [in the role of the student], I can see how those things happen… I really thought it highlighted strongly the whole Schön thing about reframing and reframing. I thought it made really clear the notion of “problem,” what a problem is, and I also thought what it did was it created a sense of the need to test and retest, not “solve” but you know, I’ve got an idea I just need to try that. (Antagonist, interview)Further, the central processes of TROD, in challenging

assumptions and encouraging a focus on self in relation to other, highlighted the critical dimension of reflection. One participant reported the powerful effect for her, of making real the abstract notion of the individual and the collective.

When I teach about Paulo Freire and any kind of radical pedagogies the idea is to get individuals to essentially change the world and to act upon the world. I’ve felt there’s an idealistic thing, yes, they might see the world differently but how can they actually move into the world together?... There was something [in the workshop] that made you feel a little bit that it’s not about you and that actually made material and real for me the very thing that I’ve always felt that has been idealistically portrayed, but I could see it happening. I was quite amazed by it and also intrigued because I’ve never been able to imagine how that could happen. (Participant, interview)As a tool for self-study, TROD appears to offer a useful

means of surfacing the problematic (via the enactment of an oppression) and seeing into, interpreting, and reframing experience (through employing a variety of view points). The nature of the TROD process afforded both Mandi and Rachel (at least) opportunities to make visible not only their “thoughts present”, but also, “the understanding that resides in our actions [and] our body knowledge” (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2009, p.162). Similar to Cockrell et al.’s (2002) self-studies, we became more conscious of our performances with others and how we might address discrepancies between our beliefs and actions.

ConclusionBerry (2009) argued that one aspect of developing

expertise as a teacher educator “means building, and being able to draw upon, increasingly sophisticated understandings of reflection” (p. 308). Feedback from participants illustrated that Boal’s TROD offered these teacher educators one such opportunity to build their understandings and experiences of reflection to encompass its felt dimension, as well as the cognitive and critical dimensions which form the focus of more traditional reflective practices. A tool for considering multiple perspectives within a real-time interaction, TROD provided each individual a unique perspective which, when shared, enabled collective learning to emerge from a shared experience.

We believe that TROD offers a potentially significant contribution to both reflective practice and self-study through

opportunities provided for challenging taken-for-granted and routine ways of speaking and acting in teacher education. Through collaborative practices and multiple perspectives, participants are afforded new ways of re-framing practice. We are in the process of further expanding this work.

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CHARLOTTE FRAMBAUGH-KRITZERUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

A Retrospective Self-Study

ContextApril 2005. As I prepare for my class teaching pre-

service teachers in literacy methods, I carefully fill my rolling handcart with over a hundred different picture books. A bungee cord is required to securely hold all the books in place. Additionally, I fill my tote bag with various handouts and overhead transparencies. I am tired of having my classroom on wheels; yet, my experience tells me that providing picture books for read-alouds and readers’ workshop is essential to effectively teaching this course. Book reading and sharing greatly facilitate and enliven my instruction throughout the 16-week journey I share with the pre-service teachers. I know that books are vehicles to literacy learning and that the variety of quality books provides more literacy options for diverse readers. I also believe that access to books is one of the keys to closing the achievement gap. Or do I?

April 2007. As I prepare for class teaching pre-service teachers in literacy methods, I load my rolling cart with my laptop, data projector, external speakers, extension cords, and DVDs. On my laptop, I have saved various multimedia PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, wikis, digital story websites, blogs, scanned stories for read-alouds, and useful websites. I also carry a binder of overhead transparencies, should my computer somehow fail. I still bring books for the pre-service teachers to read and sample, but somehow I don’t feel as excited about the usefulness of the books or print-based materials compared with all the new digitally based teaching tools offered on the Internet. This semester, information communication technologies (ICTs) dominate my instruction. These digital tools are used to help prepare pre-service teachers about new literacies so that they can prepare children for the 21st-century learning environment. The potential for ICTs seems enormous and I am excited. I am starting to feel convinced that ICTs can close the achievement gap. Or am I?

April 2010. As I prepare to teach pre-service teachers in my literacy methods class, I pack my bag with my USB flash drive for backup in case I can’t access my digital files in the digital drop box I have set up online. I carry few items to class because the classroom I have been assigned to teach in has all the technology equipment I need. Yet, I’m not so worried about the technological components. Instead, I am focused on making sure I will have enough time to implement the discussion strategies I prepared so that pre-service teachers engage in meaningful and critical discussions as they socially construct their interdisciplinary unit projects. I hold the pre-service teachers accountable to demonstrate how they will create unit plans that connect literacy learning and ICTs for their future students. Prior to class I check my cell phone, and two pre-service teachers have texted me that they will be late to class due to a car accident. I quickly text them back, “thks 4 letting me know, be safe.” I start class by instructing the pre-service teachers to take out their cell

phones and to answer some questions to an anticipation guide I set up on www.polleverywhere.com. They text message their answers, and the results appear on display. These responses become a springboard for them to participate in a small group discussion.

These three vignettes highlight some of the explicit changes I have made in in my pedagogy to create space for ICTs’ integration associated with the new literacies in teacher education over the last six years. The first vignette, from April 2005, is taken from my 2005 detailed lesson plans coupled with my best recollection prior to rarely implementing ICTs in my pedagogy.

The second vignette is taken from my 2008 dissertation after I re-conceptualized my literacy methods curriculum to make space for the ICTs. Specifically, this vignette sheds light on how I brought the “technical stuff” to my curriculum, yet I failed to include the “ethos stuff” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 7). What do Lankshear and Knobel mean by ethos? In short, they describe two different mindsets surrounding the new literacies: (1) “The old wine in new bottles syndrome” and (2) “new wine and new bottles syndrome” (p. 29). My dissertation revealed that I made instructional decisions with an “old wine in new bottle” mindset because I really didn’t do anything new; instead I kept implementing my same long-standing literacy assignments, simply tacking on technology. Therefore, my first attempt with ICT integration in 2008 proved to be superficial because I sectioned off my technology as a distinct topic (Labbo & Reinking, 1999).

The third vignette is an accurate representation from my 2010 data for this retrospective self-study where I sought to rectify the tensions I faced when implementing ICTs from my dissertation study. This vignette represents my undertaking to shift from an “old wine” to a “new wine” mindset as I tried to figure out how to comprise both the “technical stuff” and “ethos stuff” into my curriculum (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 7). And since the new literacies are deictic—meaning they regularly change as the defining technologies change, constantly reshaping technologies and social literacy practices (Gee, 1996; Leu, 2000)—I had the challenge of staying on top of the new ICTs emerging daily.

AimsWhy did I make these deliberate changes to the

literacy methods courses I taught in the teacher education curriculum over the years? Back in 2006, I could see in my professional experiences that there seemed to be a gap between technological innovations and literacy teaching practices in teacher education (Kellner, 2002; Warschauer, 2006). Accordingly, I worked vigorously to integrate ICTs with literacy methods, which transformed the curriculum, practices, and goals of my literacy methods class, resulting

in new pedagogy for the spring 2007 semester that produced my 2008 dissertation. Today, there is still an urgent need for teacher educators to address the information explosion and to adequately prepare teachers for the new literacies; yet prominent discussion still exists in how best to clearly attain this goal (Guo & Kraines, 2009; Wilson, 2010). This self-study seeks to investigate this goal.

One of the four assertions that emerged from my 2008 dissertation data was that “I was not successful in fully implementing or aligning the new literacies associated with the ICTs to my own philosophy of literacy learning theory” (Frambaugh-Kritzer, 2008). This particular assertion serves as the impetus for this self-study as I continue to make sense of what successful ICT integration looks and sounds like in my literacy methods course. Aptly, I went back to the drawing board to re-conceptualize my 2010 curriculum with the intent of improving my practice and generating knowledge that is potentially useful in reforming teacher education programs (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001; Dinkelman, 2003; LaBoskey, 2004).

My research questions are 1. How have I applied the knowledge I gained from my 2008 dissertation findings to my current pedagogy towards integrating the new literacies in my literacy methods courses? 2. What issues did I have to overcome to transform my practice?

MethodsFor this study, my data sources included a researcher’s

journal (Richardson, 2000), observations (Schmuck, 1997), and artifacts such as my syllabi, lesson plans, student correspondences, assignments, and course evaluations from 2007 and 2010, coupled with my 2008 dissertation findings (Manke & Allender, 2006). Maintaining my researcher’s journal was imperative as it allowed me to document my understanding of the events while simultaneously writing reflections about those events (Richardson, 2000; East, 2006; Kroll, 2006; McNiff & Whitehead, 2006). From these journals, I wrote several vignettes as illustrated in the introduction. To analyze the data I systematically compared them with other data sources (i.e., researcher’s journal, artifacts) to reveal contradictions, parallels, and specific details. Additionally, as I read across all data sets to identify these details, I used systemactic open, axial, and selective coding to generate themes (Strauss, 1995).

ParticipantsAt the time I collected my data for this study, I was

a full-time Clinical Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. From fall 2002 to spring 2011, I taught similar literacy courses that were part of the education teacher certification program. Prior to fall 2002, I taught language arts in a California middle school for seven years.

When I began my doctoral studies in 2002, I began reading about digital literacies and I noticed a personal disconnect between what the literature was reporting and what I was observing in the K-12 schools. The innovative teachers I read about seemed distant from my reality (Alvermann, 1998). Additionally, I was not addressing new literacies in my own K-16 teaching practices. Being that I am a digital immigrant (Huntley, 2006) this lack of experience challenged my credibility with the 32 pre-service teachers in my classes, who were nearly all under age 25 (91%) and who are known as

digital natives (Twenge, 2006). Therefore, I actively sought to learn more about new literacies.

Research ProcedureUsing my theoretical framework, I briefly share two

critical findings from my 2008 dissertation that launched and informed my 2010 self-study.

As stated earlier, my first attempt with ICT integration proved to be superficial because I sectioned my technology off as a topic (Labbo & Reinking, 1999) promoting an “old wine in new bottle” mindset (Lankshear and Knobel, 2003, p.29)

One of the consequences I faced by implementing an “old wine” mindset meant that I compromised what I philosophically believed about literacy learning. This mismatch resulted in me offering fewer socio-constructivist learning opportunities in my curriculum design. For instance, my analysis showed that using PowerPoint made my pedagogical methods more reductionist and teacher-centered (Tufte & Photo, 2003). And sharing Quia (www.quia.com) promoted behavioristic understandings of literacy, which clashed with own views of literacy. This became problematic as I realized ICT integration does not guarantee authentic literacy learning.

The findings above gnawed at me for some time. This concern brought me back to the drawing board as I embarked on the search for a “new wine in new bottles” mindset (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 29).

Findings and Insights Indeed, self-study led me to transformative teaching

(East, 2006; Kroll, 2006; Samaras, 2002). Three specific themes emerged.

The new wine in new bottles mindset is necessary if one is to integrate ICTs authentically. For me, resolving my goal to take up the “new wine in new bottles” mindset (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 29) required implementing two robust self-studies in the new literacies. How did I arrive at this mindset? First, I turned to writing as a method of inquiry, which also allowed me to work from Richardson’s (2000) validity metaphor of crystallization. Crystallization is a geological process producing gems with inconsistent patterns representing multiple dimensions. When placed alongside Labbo and Reinking’s (1999) multiple realities perspective, crystallization is an apt description that provides possibilities for complex views on the new literacies associated with ICTs. During this process, I was able to see the relationships between all of my data sources, especially my 2007 and 2010 researcher’s journal, in complicated ways. This process also revealed that my “old wine in new bottles” mindset caused me to pay attention only to the “technical stuff” when I originally overhauled my 2007 syllabus and lesson plans without deeply considering the “ethos stuff” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007, p. 7). Interestingly, I naively thought that I had taken care of the ethos stuff by entering my 2007 self-study with an expanded definition of literacy. Yet, this was not sufficient. My writing helped me to tease out my understandings and conceptualize the ethos on a practical level.

This reflection and writing resulted in significant curriculum changes evident by comparing my spring 2007 and spring 2010 syllabi and lesson plans. In 2010, I continued to imagine how to situate new literacies in my literacy course differently from before, constantly considering the ethos stuff. This is when I decided to frame the course around interdisciplinary unit planning, a time-honored curriculum practice (Fitzharris, 2005; Kerekes, 1987; Strubbe, 1990),

as a way to position new literacies in a robust manner with pre-service teachers. This unit planning became the context for how pre-service teachers learned ICTs along with all other literacy topics and concepts for the course. Additionally, I made certain to align my ICT integration with socio-cultural and constructivist methods. At the end of the semester, each interdisciplinary team was successful in constructing creative unit plans that demonstrated a range of innovative and meaningful ICT integration that supported essential and enduring understandings (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).

Although the pre-service teachers were different, comparing my 2010 course evaluations to my 2007 evaluations verified that a shift occurred. Anonymous 2007 course evaluations typically read, “I think this class focused a little too much on technology; we already have a specific course for technology.” Additionally, some pre-service teachers viewed my teaching and technology requirements as add-ons to my courses by writing, “Less technology requirements” and “Too many technology readings, we take a technology course and learn the same things” (Course evaluations, spring 2007).

On the contrary, my 2010 evaluations expressed comments such as “This class opened my mind to the many possibilities of what literacy and technology could be,” “Best instructor I’ve had yet, loved the integration of technology. Hands-on,” and “I learned more about how to integrate technology in this class than my technology class” (Course evaluations, spring 2010). The comments surrounding technology and literacy demonstrated that I had moved from an “old wine” mindset to more of a “new wine in new bottles” mindset.

If you want pre-service teachers to take up new literacies in meaningful ways, they need class time. Another lesson learned from my 2007 study was if I want pre-service teachers to value ICTs, then they need class time to learn and socially construct ideas. I had failed to make space for these learning opportunities in 2007. I also required students in 2007 to embed ICTs in their assignments that they (1) did not know how to implement, (2) did not care about, or (3) did not have access to. For this reason, I advise less breadth and more depth with ICT implementation, which I also came to realize is how one acquires a “new wine” mindset. These findings informed this self-study which caused me to provide 12 hours of workshop time for pre-service teachers to become knowledgeable about ICTs and work in interdisciplinary teams to create meaningful unit plans. Moreover, I no longer required that any particular ICTs be included in their unit plans. Instead, I gave students a menu of ICTs to select from. I am certain that the workshop time coupled with my non-particular ICT requirement was essential for the new literacies to transpire in authentic ways (Albers, Vasquez, & Harste, 2008). The pre-service teachers wrote positive evaluations, for example, “Being able to work together and create our own interdisciplinary unit was priceless . . . [Sharing] comments about other groups on-line was valuable in thinking of other variations and ideas about how interdisciplinary units could be used.” From this feedback, I now realize less can be more, and the pedagogical practices I implemented the second time around (i.e., time and space to design, produce and critique ICTs) helped foster the new mindset needed for the new literacies (Brown & Warschauer, 2006; Lankshear & Knobel, 2007).

Teacher educators must have critique tools when evaluating new literacies associated with ICTs. Another major finding in this study is that one must learn how to critique ICTs’ utility in the classroom. In 2007, my journal entries reflect insecurities and my carelessness in

implementing the ICTs, meaning I implemented the latest and greatest ICT for the sake of saying, “Yep, I create podcasts and have my students blog.” However, by 2010, my journal entries indicate my maturation towards the ICTs. One critical step I made was by developing my own comprehensive rating/criteria chart to make sure I could weigh the pros and cons of the particular ICT up for consideration. Most importantly I challenged if the ICT promoted a literacy definition that was from a socio-constructivist theory that honored the ethos stuff Lankshear and Knobel profess (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2007). This is also critical to understand if one is to develop a “new wine” mindset. For example, in 2009 I attended a Twitter workshop for teacher educators. I wrote in my journal that the old me in 2007 would have immediately implemented Twitter without a second thought. The new me in 2010 decided not to implement it because I did not think this particular ICT guaranteed meaningful learning opportunities. Additionally, I did not think Twitter was doing anything new that I was not already doing, such as sending e-mail announcements to the class, making Twitter an “old wine in new bottle” experience (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007). Furthermore, I worried that taking an unsanctioned literacy practice like Twitter and making it a sanctioned classroom practice would become problematic (Dressman, 1995; Moje & O’Brien, 2001; Voss, 1996). Yet, to complicate things, I recognize due to my own knowledge limitations that the pre-service teachers may consider Twitter for their future classrooms. Ultimately, I caution not to jump on the ICT bandwagon without careful consideration.

Concluding Remarks At the outset of this paper I described how I transitioned

my practice from packing plastic crate boxes with children’s books to filling my cart with state-of-the-art technology. My first dissertation investigation did not yield the student-learning breakthrough or advances that I had hoped.

As I reflect on the “so what” aspect of the benefit of my retrospective self-study, hindsight, tempered with time to reflect and review, made apparent that this self-study achieved noteworthy milestones since the beginning of my new literacies journey in 2007. Moreover, I now realize that instruction of the new literacies associated with the ICTs requires a comprehensive approach which is particularly difficult to map due to the rapidly changing nature of the developmental process, both for teacher educators and for pre-service teachers. Yet, I am hopeful that my three themes allow other teacher educators who are starting or are already on their new literacies journey to glean from my lessons learned, especially as they strive for the “new wine in new bottles” mindset.

ReferencesAlbers, P., Vasquez, V. M., & Harste, J. C. (2008). A classroom

with a view: Teachers, multimodality, and new literacies. Talking Points, 19(2), 3–13.

Alvermann, D. E. (1998). Imagining the possibilities. In D. Alvermann, K. Hinchman, D. Moore, S. Phelps, & D. Waff (Eds.), Reconceptualizing the literacies in adolescents’ lives (pp. 353–372). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Brown, D., & Warshauer, M. (2006). From the university to elementary classroom: Students’ experiences in learning to integrate technology in instruction. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14(3), 599–621.

Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. (2007). Handbook of research on new literacies. Retrieved from http://ctell1.uconn.edu/coiro/erlbaum.pdf

Dinkelman, T. (2003). A means and ends tool for promoting reflective teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 6–18.

Dressman, M. (1995, April). Discussant comments. Presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

East, K. (2006). Diversity: One teacher educator’s journey. In D. Tidwell & L. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Self-study and diversity (pp. 153–172). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Fitzharris, L. (2005). Making all the right connections: Curriculum design helps teachers see the bigger picture that students experience, then see the logical connections. Journal of Staff Development, 26(1), 24–28.

Frambaugh-Kritzer, C. (2008). Beyond books: Making room for the new literacies in teacher education (Doctoral Dissertation). Dissertation Abstracts International, 69 (07), (UMI No. 3319477)

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Huntley, R. (2006). The world according to Y: Inside the new adult generation. Sydney, Australia: Minion by Bookhouse.

Kellner, D. (2002). New media and new literacies: Reconstructing education for the new millennium. In L. A. Lievniour & S. Livingstone (Eds.), Handbook of new media: Social shaping and consequences of ICTs (pp. 90–104). London, United Kingdom: Sage.

Kerekes, J. (1987). The interdisciplinary unit: It’s here to stay! Middle School Journal, 19(4), 12–14.

Kroll, L. (2006). Learning to address issues of equity and access through inquiry in a study teaching seminar: A self-study. In D. Tidwell & L. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Self-study and diversity (pp. 133–152). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Labbo, L.D., & Reinking, D. (1999). Negotiating the multiple realities of technology in literacy research and instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 34(4), 478–492.

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2003). New literacies: Changing knowledge and classroom learning. Buckingham, United Kingdom: Open University Press.

Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2007). Sampling “the new” in new literacies. In M. Knobel & C. Lankshear (Eds.), A new literacies sampler (pp. 1–24). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Leu, D. J. (2000). Literacy and technology: Diectic consequences for literacy education in an information age. In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. III) (pp. 743–764). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Manke, M. P., & Allender, J. S. (2006). Revealing the diverse in self-study: The analysis of artifacts. In D. Tidwell & L. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Self-study and diversity (pp. 249–265). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

McNiff, J., & Whitehead, J. (2006). All you need to know about action research. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Moje, E., & O’Brien, D. (2001). Constructions of literacy: Studies of teaching and learning in and out of secondary schools. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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ANNE REILLEY FREESE AMBER STRONG MAKAIAUUniversity of Hawaii Kailua High School

Negotiating the Diverse Multicultural Landscape Through Self-Study and Our Students’ Voices

ContextIn this paper, we (Amber, a high school teacher, and

Anne, a university professor) discuss our collaborative experiences developing and teaching multicultural education courses in our respective contexts. Our study had two interrelated goals. By studying our teaching and our students’ learning, we hoped to improve our teaching and at the same time gain a deeper understanding of how to help our students and ourselves explore our multicultural identities.

Teaching about multiculturalism in Hawaii provides a unique opportunity to draw upon the rich diversity of cultures, ethnicities, religions, and languages. We wanted to develop and implement a curriculum that that allowed the students and us to wrestle with and unpack tensions and stereotypes and arrive at new understandings of our multicultural identities. We wanted to implement a pedagogy that was appropriate to our multicultural context because we found that texts from the mainland were not particularly relevant to the unique characteristics of our students’ diversity. We also wanted a pedagogy that challenged us, and our students, to take risks, critically inquire into our assumptions and biases, and not gloss over the sensitive issues. We did this by incorporating a series of assignments that included aspects of self-study. This paper focuses on the students’ multicultural personal identity narratives, a requirement for students in both of our classes. The criteria for the personal identity narratives required that the students critically reflect on and write about how the characteristics of ethnicity, social class, gender, sexual orientation, exceptionality, language, and religion impacted their sense of identity. We wanted to understand our students’ lived experiences as multicultural persons immersed in a setting in which no one ethnic group is the majority. We wanted to hear their voices, co-inquire, and learn ways we could improve our teaching practices.

Theoretical FrameworkWith an emphasis on a “personal-constructivist-

collaborative” self-study approach (Beck, Freese, & Kosnik, 2004), we started with ourselves (the personal aspect) and reflected on our own multicultural identities. In both of our classes, a personal narrative assignment dealing with multicultural identity was incorporated to address the personal aspect of self-study. The activities and assignments required the students to reflect and write about their experiences, to inquire into themselves and their identity. The narratives were personal in that they focused on ours and the students’ unique multicultural experiences. The “constructivist” aspect of self-study was addressed within a safe community of learners. We had our students engage in constructing their new understandings through ongoing dialogue and inquiry. Finally, the self-study was collaborative and acknowledged

“the important role of the social construction of knowledge” (Samaras & Freese, 2006, p. 14). We engaged in ongoing collaborative dialogue as a way of understanding how their backgrounds and experiences have shaped their identity. Drawing upon the work of Clandinin (2000), we used the students’ narratives as a way of helping them “raise their own questions about identity….through stories of their own” (p. 20). The multicultural identity/personal narratives provided us and our students with the opportunity to critically reflect and inquire into our assumptions, biases, and beliefs (Knowles & Cole, 1998; Zeichner, 1989). We believed that new insights and reframing one’s thinking may arise as one inquires into issues of race, ethnicity, and gender.

The personal narratives also allowed us and the students to go inward and reflect on our multicultural identities. However, over time, constructing the knowledge moved from an individual activity to a social one through discussions and the sharing of their collected stories in an anthology. We acknowledge the value of collaboration by turning to the work of Connelly and Clandinin (1995) who concluded “that the possibilities for reflective awakenings and transformations are limited when one is alone” (p. 13). We found that our constant conversations and note taking, as well as the large group discussions in the class community circle, created a culture of reflection and inquiry and resulted in framing and reframing one’s thinking and acknowledging multiple perspectives. In these groups the topics were collectively negotiated (Davey & Ham, 2009) and the students arrived at deeper understandings of their multicultural selves and others. The narratives were collected together into an anthology that all the students read and analyzed for similarities and differences in terms of multicultural characteristics. There was great value in having our students read and systematically analyze each other’s stories. Since risk taking, openness, and vulnerability are critical aspects of self-study, intellectual safety was introduced and reinforced from the first day.

Over the course of designing and teaching our courses, we conducted our own self-studies parallel to the students’. Through our collaboration we acknowledged that we carry around with us our own unique beliefs, assumptions, and biases. We shared our personal histories and identified tensions, different points of view, and dilemmas related to teaching, with the ultimate goal of growing personally and professionally. In addition to our self-study approach, we incorporated elements of Philosophy for Children (Jackson, 1984) to build a community of learners and foster intellectual safety.

Aims/ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to examine the impact

of self-study in our classrooms as we positioned ourselves

as co-learners with our students and viewed our students as informants into our teaching. The study explored the following questions: What happens when we implement a self-study–like approach in our multicultural classrooms? What is its impact on us? And in what ways can using self-study strategies help our students critically engage in exploring their multicultural identities? We wanted to see how self-study can promote critical reflection, dialogue, and collaboration in our students and ourselves.

MethodsThe participants in our study included the two authors,

89 students in the high school ethnic studies course, and 28 students in the university multicultural education course. Data came from our personal multicultural narratives, reflections, discussions, and the students’ work. Using the method of constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) we analyzed our students’ work and our reflections, looking for recurring themes. In order to decrease researcher bias, we served as critical friends (Miles & Huberman, 1994) who reviewed each other’s data and student writings.

FindingsThe findings from this study suggest that using aspects

of self-study can be a valuable approach for helping both the teachers and the students learn about themselves. Another important outcome was that the students began to understand that multicultural education is not just about “other people” (Hollins & Guzman, 2005, p. 489). Through the self-reflective journeys, we and the students gained empathy and an increased understanding of people who are different from us.

The discussion of our findings includes a brief overview of the themes that emerged from analyzing our students’ narratives. Our collaborative analysis resulted in the following themes: challenging one’s assumptions, complexities of identities, and self-study as a multicultural pedagogy. However, due to space constraints we can include only a limited number of the students’ voices that convey the depth of their thinking and the framing and reframing of their views.

Challenging our assumptions. The students’ stories helped the students and us challenge our assumptions. Their voices convey a deeper understanding of the impact of racism and discrimination on their own and other people’s lives.

Christian commented on how his “self-search” awakened in him the assumptions that his peers had about him:

In the beginning of this class, it was one of the first times I became aware of what it feels like to be discriminated against. We were going around the circle talking about ethnicity and one of my classmates said to me, “I thought you were Asian.” This bothered me because he assumed that I was just Asian when in my own mind I was thinking of myself as Hawaiian… I realized it hurts to be discriminated against.

Christian challenged his classmates’ assumptions. He asked, “Who defines who we are? Ourselves? Others?”

Jason, a preservice teacher, questioned his prior assumptions.

When I first stepped into this class back in January, I had a general idea about what the term ‘multicultural’ meant—I thought to myself, I’m Asian—I’m a minority, I know what multicultural means. Boy was I wrong. The anger and the irritation that I felt, as shown in one of my earlier papers was directed at the wrong audience. I thought my perspective was always right when it came to racial issues and discrimination because I am

Japanese-American and I experienced prejudice for myself. But what I had failed to do—I failed to see through another person’s eyes.Brandy, a preservice teacher, recognized the value of

exploring one’s assumptions and biases and stated, “It is a process of self-reflection and personal thought that we must go through to change our ideas or biases that we hold.”

The complexity of identity. Self-study helped raise ours and our students’ awareness about the complexity of multicultural identification and the value of multiple perspectives.

Chad, a self-proclaimed “Spanglish” ethnic studies student examined the impact of the social context on his ethnic identity. He wrote, “In a way, where you are determines who you are, at least what people think you are.” He noted that “Here in Hawaii, I ‘look’ like your ‘ordinary Haole,’ but in South America people can tell I am Hispanic, and also people on the mainland notice that I am Hispanic.”

Through reflection, inquiry and discussions, both we and the students began to see ethnic, cultural, and racial identification as multifaceted and difficult to pin down.

The students taught one another and us about cultural nuances and the pitfalls of overgeneralizing about individuals based on appearances and within identity groups. As a result, the high school students critically reflected and wrote about how they were working to overcome their prejudices about their peers. Pua wrote,

Based on everyone’s assumptions, not everyone likes me. I forgive them because I was once the same. I remember sitting at Makapu’u beach and telling all the Haoles to go home just because I didn’t like them. I came so far from that, I’m not the same any more….I assumed that White people were bad, so I hated all white people.…Being racist creates racism....Racism lives off of the racist remarks we make towards others. The students’ stories helped provide new insights. A

university student commented on how another student’s story provided a different perspective from his own.

Reading about some of the struggles and pain that he had been through really shattered some of the generalizations I had held about “local boys.” His honesty and vulnerability made it such a powerful story.Amber’s student recalled the impact of reading another

student’s identity narrative during a peer-editing activity. In an interview conducted two years after she took the course, the student reflected on how deeply she was moved and impacted by the story.

I remember talking to my parents about that, about how I thought it was really strange that as we were trying to realize that people were being racist a lot, a lot of it was socially constructed. I also talked with my parents about how stereotypical people can be, like when I was reading that paper it reaffirmed how stereotypes, racism, and prejudice affects everyone.The collection of personal histories opened the students’

and our eyes to the variety of challenges and racial tensions the students have encountered. The students’ personal narratives, so honest and soul searching, opened them up to confronting their assumptions and biases. They revealed that stereotyping and discrimination often take on different forms by marginalizing people who look or act different, in other words, “the others.” We saw the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that individuals marginalize one another. Their stories provided a window into the complex process of “letting go” of our preconceived biases and prejudices and provided insight into the value of sharing these authentic stories. In addition,

the stories resulted in students reframing their assumptions about others by realizing that “the others” were right there in our classrooms. These issues were very meaningful because they involved the personal stories of people they came to know and care about.

An appropriate pedagogy for multicultural education. What came out of reading the stories was the ability to see different perspectives, to see beyond one’s own unique experiences and interpretations. The students in the university classroom wrote about how they expanded their understandings about the diversity of students in their future classrooms. Evan stated,

I learned that one’s own story is an integral part of how and what one comes to believe and teach....Reading the personal narratives of others made me realize that I need to be aware of the degrees of difference within any classroom and to be mindful and respectful of them. Also I realized that I need to be aware of my own biases towards the differences around me …. I must also realize and recognize the diversity surrounding me and acknowledge that diversity as I teach my students.

Malia reflected, I realize that multicultural education is in fact a central element of my journey as an educator. It is much more than teaching ethnic tolerance to students; rather, multicultural education is something that can transform student, teacher, and perhaps by extension, society itself. Throughout the semester, this class has led me to adjust the way I thought of multiculturalism and to reevaluate not only what multicultural education means, but my entire identity as a potential teacher as well.

Their writings capture the complex process of helping students examine their multicultural identity, question their biases, and increase tolerance and understanding of those different from themselves.

What did we learn? Our collaboration pushed us to step out of our own solitary perspectives and to engage in conversation about our multicultural views. Our stories helped us see the relevance of this approach in our classrooms. Drawing upon the work of Davey and Ham (2009), we saw how we benefited from the assistive collaborative role of being critical friends. Sharing our challenges and breakthroughs gave us confidence to keep trying. We shared our beliefs, personal experiences, and biases. We did not always agree, but we had one another to use as a mirror to challenge our assumptions about Hawaii as a racial paradise. As teachers we made ourselves vulnerable and emphasized intellectual safety, and over time the students felt safe to share their personal stories of racial slurs and discrimination due to disabilities, gender, ethnicity, or race, which helped them see multiculturalism “with new eyes.” We listened more and learned to be patient with the process. Over time we found that there was a dynamic, collaborative learning process involving teacher to teacher, teacher to students, and students to students. We witnessed how the students were teachers and informants to us, as well as to each other. Rather than try to have students leave the class thinking the way the instructor believes they should think, the students experienced one another’s stories, put themselves in another’s shoes, and began to see the complexities of discrimination. We learned that each class has its unique culture, and every teacher who is willing to listen will continue to learn about multicultural education from each and every class.

Through this study we developed a keener awareness of how our “lived stories” and those of our students are “bounded, influenced, and shaped by our personal, institutional

and cultural stories” (Clandinin, 2000). Our students’ stories and the findings from our study have had an impact on us personally and professionally. The brutal honesty of our students in disclosing life experiences that we would not have imagined allowed us to gain powerful insights into the things one reads about but doesn’t think happen in the lives of those one teaches. We read many of the stories with heavy hearts and experienced a different, more personal connection with our students. We learned how their lives, their struggles, although different from our own, provided an increased understanding of their needs and how to support them. Through our increased awareness we can be better positioned to assist our preservice teachers to meet the needs of their students.

ConclusionIncorporating aspects of self-study in our classrooms

challenged us to think about our practice and our multicultural identities differently. As we immersed ourselves in our ongoing study of our practice, we learned more about ourselves as well as new ways to encourage a “personal, constructivist and collaborative” approach with our students. This approach helped the students frame and reframe their assumptions about “the others” by realizing that issues of drugs, racial biases, violence, disability, and marginalization are not somewhere else, but are right in our own classrooms. Such insights broadened their thinking in terms of how we need to confront our biases and help our students better understand themselves and others. We learned how aspects and characteristics of self-study can have a significant place in our teaching about multiculturalism, particularly because it creates a direct, personal connection to us and the students. Most importantly, we learned that self-study is not an additive to our teaching, but rather it is an integral part of what we believe and how we teach.

Finally, the collection of students’ stories served as an authentic multicultural text. For the preservice students, the stories gave them an idea of the diversity they will likely encounter in their future classrooms, and the personal narratives of the high school students we will share with the preservice teachers will serve as a window into the lives of secondary students they may be teaching.

In conclusion, we both found that reflecting on our personal narratives and examining our practice has allowed us to grow personally and professionally. We believe that effective teachers make their practice meaningful by studying themselves, and when teachers make their work meaningful through self-study and aligning their beliefs with their practice, the students benefit. Overall we found that incorporating aspects of self-study provides a valuable way of being, thinking, and relating to one another.

ReferencesBeck, C. Freese, A., & Kosnik, C. (2004). The preservice

practicum: Learning through self-study in a professional setting. In J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 1253–1259). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

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RODRIGO FUENTEALBA JARA TOM RUSSELLUniversidad San Sebastián, Chile Queen’s University

Self-Study of a Dean’s Professional Learning-In-Action With a Critical Friend From Another Culture

Context The Ministry of Education in Chile is promoting a

national plan to improve quality in the teacher formation process and this initiative includes four basic elements:

1. Setting standards, mainly related to understanding of the discipline (MINEDUC , 2011).

2. Evaluation of disciplinary content, based on existing standards; this evaluation is applied to teachers who have just graduated from university. 3. Support through competitive funding for the universities to redesign and adapt the curriculum of their teacher education programs. 4. Strengthening the professional induction of new teachers, with emphasis on practical experiences during initial teacher education as well as support provided during the first years of teaching. The literature on the topic is extensive and states certain

regularities that indicate which aspects are central to guide the different levels of quality (Auguste, Kihn, & Miller, 2010; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 2011; Schleicher, 2011; National Institute of Education Singapore, 2009; Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005).

Within this context, it is important to note that there is empirical evidence (Galaz, Fuentealba, Cornejo, & Padilla, 2011; Reyes, Fernández, & Fuentealba, 2009) consistent with the work of well-known teacher educators (Korthagen, Loughran, & Russell, 2006; Korthagen, 2010a, 2010b; Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005). These researchers indicate that while it is urgent to improve teacher education processes, it is essential to focus on teachers and on teacher educators not as objects during the process of change but as central participants in those processes. The focus should be on what it means to be a teacher educator (Montenegro & Fuentealba, 2010; Dinkelman, Margulis, & Sikkenga, 2006; Swennen, Jones, & Volman, 2010), on the processes and contexts that link theory and practice (Loughran, 2006; Russell, 2005), and on the development of teacher educators’ professional knowledge.

As a new (2011) dean of education in Chile, the tasks to be accomplished were complex. There were challenges in the urgent need to improve levels of quality in the teacher education programs in Chile, but there was also a need to find new perspectives for addressing the challenges. Thus self-study, with its inherently critical character (Schuck & Russell, 2005), is an important method for making explicit the responses to questions about enacting and supporting renewal processes in an education department (Kennedy, 2007). Keeping in mind the collective character of a dean’s work, one must also develop processes within the group of professors who are most active in the department.

Aims/Objectives This self-study addresses the following questions: How

does Rodrigo’s actual work as dean stress and support his own professional learning process? In particular, what patterns appear in the various actions taken as a new dean and where are the inconsistencies in those actions? The broad objectives of the self-study are to analyze Rodrigo’s professional learning process during the earliest months as dean of an education department and to identify patterns in the process of leading an education department.

MethodsThis self-study recognizes and strives to follow the five

guidelines offered by LaBoskey (2004) for high quality self-studies:

• self-initiated and self-focused; • aimed at improving one’s own practice; • collaborative and interactive; • employ multiple, primarily qualitative, methods; and • use exemplar-based validations to establish trustworthiness. (pp. 842–853)During the first phase, empirical data for this self-study

(Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001; Russell, 2002) were collected in the form of notes and commentaries on a range of meetings in which Rodrigo participated. These records provide evidence of the ways that Rodrigo began the process of leading the department. They also provide evidence of his interpretations of his early leadership.

During the second phase of the study, Rodrigo analyzed the records by identifying patterns, commonalities, and differences. He then shared the records with Tom, who provided feedback as a critical friend, emphasizing those aspects that seemed most central in the analysis (Schuck & Russell, 2005). Data collection spans the period from April to December 2011 to permit analysis of a variety of situations and to provide data over a significant period in Rodrigo’s professional learning as a new dean.

Analysis of the insights developed in this self-study of a new dean’s early months of leadership suggests interpretation using three dimensions: personal, professional and political-institutional. Within the personal dimension (Bullough, 2005; Day & Gu, 2010) is the role a new dean gives to experience, emotion, commitment, and authenticity in his work. On the professional dimension, based on analysis of the different tasks carried out, we looked for regularities related to how the theory-practice relationship is conceptualized, to the teacher educator role, and to elements of the underlying theories that guide the practice of a dean of a department that prepares new teachers. Finally, on the political-institutional dimension (Martinic & Elacqua, 2010), evidence was analyzed for factors that place high stress on the work of a dean.

DataExamples of journal entries and a critical friend’s

comments. The first example illustrates a problem-solving meeting with students. The second and third examples illustrate news ways of interacting, first with students and then with faculty.

An early meeting with students to solve a problem. Soon after taking up his appointment, Rodrigo was called on Saturday, April 9, 2011, to meet with several groups of students who were experiencing difficulties because their program was not what they had expected.

The problem, according to the students, was a change in the initial conditions of the course: they were not receiving their progress reports and the teaching processes were not clear. After considering their views, I realized that they were right, and that after they met with the vice-dean, they had achieved some progress but not enough. The scenario was not very encouraging, but I got the first meeting with the students started. I listened to them and felt a lot of anger on their side; as they put it, they were discouraged about continuing in the program. When I started speaking, I remembered the several meetings I have had with students, from which I have learned the value of giving students security and certainty. As I continued, I saw their faces nodding, asking for explanations, but all within a context of respect. After an hour, we reached an agreement where they understood my observations and opened up to the actual possibilities for real solutions from the faculty.With the second group of students something similar happened and, paradoxically, although it was the more difficult group, it took a lot less time. I think I was able to understand their difficulties more quickly this time, and so we were able to organize things more quickly. How important it is to transmit confidence to students! That allowed me to move from an initial distance to a less formal interaction with them, and so we made better progress. (April 9, 2011)

Tom offered these comments early in the self-study:I saw in December how good your listening skills are. It occurs to me that I don’t think you focused on listening in the other meetings you write about. I expect listening is even more important with faculty, because those are long-term relationships. Faculty members also need that sense of security! (April 20, 2011)Interacting with students in new ways. On June 9, 2011,

Rodrigo organized an opportunity for a guest speaker to talk to eight physical education students, himself, and the physical education director. Four students had high marks, two had average marks and two had low marks. Rodrigo described the meeting in these words:

We all started a bit nervous. The director was concerned about the students, the students were concerned about the reason why they had to attend and I was anxious about how this whole thing would work out. We introduced ourselves and I asked the students to follow two rules. The first rule was that we wouldn’t have formalities; we would address each other by first names. The second rule was that they wouldn’t ask questions about their program, but only talk about the topic presented in the meeting. I encouraged them not to hold anything back, to be open and honest, and even to disagree. The guest speaker started by telling us about his personal motivations, and I looked at the students’

faces: they were really getting into it and soon started asking questions. After a while the conversation became fluid and something very interesting happened: as time went by, it was impossible to tell who were the students with higher or lower grades, because they all gave their best and backed their opinions effectively. When we finished, the students were grateful and we promised to repeat the experience the next month with other students so that more people could get involved. The students were happy because they had been included. (June 28, 2011)

Part of Tom’s response involved encouraging this inclusive approach to leadership:

This is very impressive leadership. I love the way you are challenging assumptions and expectations in such positive and constructive ways. I’ve underlined a few phrases and put some of your sentences into uppercase because I think they are so central. I have to assume that both your students and your colleagues are challenged to think in new ways by the structure you have created. (July 11, 2011)Interacting with faculty in new ways. In November

2011, when Rodrigo decided to work with practicum supervisors at one of the faculty’s three locations, a changed perspective in the time between two meetings made a significant difference:

When we got together initially, I told them that it was time to meet with other teams from other universities to share their experiences. They seemed to reject my proposal. They argued that it was not the right time and they did not have time for a meeting; they even disliked the idea of having to publish what they were doing. I left the meeting with a negative feeling because I thought that we were working well but might have to face a problem that could set us back in our relationship.During the 3 weeks between meetings, and in order to understand what could have caused this rejection, I talked individually with some members of the team and learned that one of the main reasons, not made explicit, involved their lack of experience of writing about what they are doing. Thus my new focus was to support and not to challenge or confront them. I asked them to only bring a critical episode to be analyzed. Once the meeting started, I commented that after our last meeting I was convinced that even though we faced some difficulties, I was certain that the team could achieve the task of writing a paper based upon analysis of the critical episodes of the students they supervise.When the meeting was over, their faces and attitudes were different. One of the supervisors said, “We are learning with these changes we are implementing,” and another said, “I think it will also help with the idea of how we see the critical episodes. We will also assess the way in which we face them and what suggestions we give.” It is interesting to see oneself challenged, a bit at a loss when facing a situation that at some moments I could not control. I can now say that I feel more relaxed. The question that arises now is “How are we supposed to work so that this becomes the logic in our activity?” I’m working on that now.

Tom responded by interpreting Rodrigo’s behaviour as an instance of reflective practice:

This strikes me as an excellent example of reflective practice. You faced a problematic response from the people you invited to write about their work. You went away and considered the problem from different

angles and then went back with a new perspective that produced a different response from the team. Where they at first saw a task that seemed too big and unfamiliar, you showed them how to approach it differently and you got better results. I’m impressed that someone at the level of dean is showing such strong day-to-day leadership to his staff. It would have been easy for you to accept their initial concerns and walk away; instead, you gave it more time and the results were positive.Insights inspired by critical friend’s comments. After

reviewing all the data exchanged with the critical friend, Rodrigo developed the following insights from this self-study of his early months as dean:1. Give everyone the opportunity to share and defend various

positions, and permit all faculty members to have the opportunity to be a significant actor in the development of improved program patterns and structures.

2. The goal is not just for people to do their work well; everyone needs opportunities to analyze how we are doing our work as teacher educators.

3. In the Chilean context, it is not unusual to see students as the only people who are learning. Despite a focus on Freire’s (1994) principles, it is common to avoid applying them to the actions of academics. Our view of learning in the teacher-student relationship needs to include academics’ learning as well as students’ learning.

4. The comment “Take your time” is a constant reminder that the colleagues I am leading also need time. I am working with my colleagues as well as for them. When I do take my time, have am able to consider situations in new ways, develop new approaches, and construct possibilities I had not anticipated from my personal perspective.

Collegiality as focus and process. Collegiality needs to be not only the focus of our interaction but also the process by which we address our challenges. Self-study of early experiences as dean has generated the following insights about collegiality:1. When people talk with each other and genuinely listen

to each other, and when people share the different ways in which they resolve problems that we all share, then a common discourse begins to develop that supports the improvement process.

2. When I share my writing about my experiences as dean with other individuals, they reply not only with comments but also with questions. Such questions help me to develop practical arguments that help others to understand the rationale for new approaches.

3. Sense of purpose is critical. Helping our students develop better knowledge and have more productive experiences is not an end in itself; the broader goal is to help them acquire knowledge and experience that enables them to improve the quality of their students’ learning.

Critical friendship across cultures. Tom and Rodrigo first met in December 2010, when Tom was invited to work with Rodrigo on a special one-week project in Chile. During that week, Tom introduced Rodrigo to the literature of self-study of teacher education practices. When Rodrigo took up the appointment as dean at another university in March 2011, he invited Tom to collaborate as a critical friend in this self-study. Between April and November, Rodrigo sent accounts of a number of different experiences and Tom responded by highlighting specific features of each account and adding comments about what appeared to be happening and what insights might be drawn. Working across languages has been challenging at times, but we share a friend who is fluent in both languages and has helped with translation. Rodrigo’s

fluency in English has improved dramatically as a result of the collaboration. An opportunity for both of us to attend an international seminar in September 2011 also enriched our understanding of each other’s contexts. When two individuals make personal commitments to a critical friendship across cultures, language barriers become less significant. We both gained new perspectives by coming to understand better each other’s working culture.

OutcomesWe hope that the evidence analyzed here helps to

strengthen the development of self-study as a method for developing a better understanding of the sometimes silent world of teacher educators and the leadership they experience from their dean. The three examples included here illustrate the personal tensions felt by a new dean in the context of face-to-face meetings that offer important opportunities for leadership. Interactions with students and faculty are inherently political, and the problems faced by students in the first example illustrate the significance of the institutional dimension of a new dean’s work. The examples of new ways of interacting with students and faculty illustrate the professional dimension of a new dean’s work. In both examples, Rodrigo enacted his own sense of the theory-practice relationship, first by creating a new dynamic for interaction between students and a visiting speaker and second by challenging faculty to write about their work in new ways. The most obvious pattern in the data is Rodrigo’s ability to interact with an unfamiliar group and bring the discussion to a productive conclusion, either immediately or by giving people time to consider the implications of his request. No obvious inconsistencies were identified. Careful listening and the ability to suggest new patterns of interaction for both students and faculty emerge as central features of Rodrigo’s early work as a dean.

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DAWN GARBETTUniversity of Auckland

Promotion via Teaching Distinction: Developing Resilience for a Track Less Travelled

The Long and Winding RoadIn a research-intensive institution such as a university’s

faculty of education, promotion through distinction in teaching is a less-common route than one driven by research. The context for this study is a relatively new faculty of education which was created in 2004 through the amalgamation of the former Auckland College of Education (College) and the University of Auckland’s School of Education. In this self-study I examine being a teacher educator in a university setting and how professional practice is enabled and constrained through different institutional practices. In particular, I examine my attempts to gain promotion with the aim both to understand how to represent teaching as a valued activity and to reflect on my own ability to successfully manage and negotiate changing academic workplaces.

I am a teacher educator in a university culture where research is quantified, quality assured, and part of a national system where research funding is performance based. This places the institution under pressure to successfully compete for research funding and throws up many of the issues so powerfully recreated in Sparkes’s (2007) imaginary university. The current six-yearly Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) round closed on December 31, 2011. Immediately after amalgamation and, again, prior to the closing date of the PBRF, voluntary severance options were made available to all staff who had been previously employed by the College. In these two rounds, more than 50 experienced teacher educators took severance. A similar number of teacher educators, whose positions remained graded as Senior Lecturers (SL) post-amalgamation, were under increasing pressure to complete masters and doctoral qualifications. College staff had regularly taught eight or nine classes of 15 students per year. Between 14 and 16 hours of face-to-face contact time per week had been the norm. There had been little opportunity or incentive as College staff to be research active. Classroom teaching expertise and experience were highly valued commodities.

However, well before the merger, some staff had recognized the need to increase their qualifications and contribute to the academic field in a changing educational environment. I completed my Masters in Science Education in 2001 and my doctorate in 2006. In 2005, after more than 20 years in teacher education, I applied for a Principal Lectureship (PL) for leading curriculum change through research and scholarship of teaching. This was the highest rank in the College and I was one of the last two people to be promoted. Principal Lecturer translated to SL6 (above the hard bar) when the respective salary scales were merged in 2006. All other ex-College senior lecturers moved to below the hard bar on the university scale—a contentious point with the university academics since some of the senior lecturers from College did not even have masters qualifications. At the time of the merger, teaching expertise had been put forward

by the negotiating team as an alternative promotion pathway. Ex-College staff were naively confident of our continued value to the faculty of education and the continued importance of teaching.

Although teaching quantity and quality are less easy to measure than research, there are national systems in place to reward tertiary teaching excellence. Shephard, Harland, Stein, and Tidwell (2011) compare and contrast international tertiary teaching excellence awards. It was through meeting the University of Auckland criteria that my teaching portfolio gained a university-sustained teaching excellence award in 2007 and a subsequent New Zealand Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2008. This was also contentious. Several people within the faculty queried my claim to excellence based on the assumptions that my student evaluations were not perfect and that teaching well was what everyone was expected to do in a faculty of education. I knew that my portfolio had demonstrated a sustained commitment to researching and improving my practice through self-study, and so I did not react outwardly to these comments.

At the beginning of 2008, I took on a significant four-year service role as the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning—a role with responsibilities to monitor and report on the quality of courses and teaching and to support high-quality, scholarly teaching within the faculty. Through this role I became fully aware that there was considerable bitterness and dissatisfaction amongst ex-College staff as research appeared valued and acknowledged while teaching did not. I was seen by my peers as championing teaching to little avail in the faculty. Even though I believed that tertiary teaching was valued and should go hand in hand with research to inform and underpin our practice, my peers felt under increasing pressure to devote time to research. Discussions with heads of departments highlighted that many of my colleagues were “getting out of teaching to free up time for up-skilling their qualifications and research” in order to be better positioned for continuance, promotion, and the Performance Based Research Funding round. In this associate dean position, I was also privy to some exemplary teaching practices in the wider university and so realized that high-quality teaching was not the purview of teacher educators.

DestinationWhile there is considerable literature in higher education

outlining barriers and supports for career advancement (e.g., Cantwell & Scevak, 2010; Lumpkin, 2009; Santo, Engstrom, Reetz, Schweinle, & Reed, 2009; Youn & Price, 2009), little is written in the self-study genre. I suspect this is because self-study is more often intrinsically motivated rather than for the purposes of promotion (Berry, 2004). The aim of this self-study is to explore how I have developed the resilience

and cache necessary in a research-intensive culture to promote high-quality teaching practices and myself as a teacher educator.

ModeUsing qualitative and biographical approaches, I have

reconstructed my experiences of applying for promotion as a context for understanding and reframing my own experiences as a teacher educator in a research intensive institution. I utilize Korthagen and Vasalos’s (2005) reflection model to analyze my applications for promotion in 2008, 2009, and 2011. I begin with the question “What happened?” I have answered this through analyzing the one-page statement outlining the grounds on which promotion is sought in each of the applications. What was the tenor of each page? How much space was devoted to teaching, research and service? What was foreground, what was background? Reading through the documentation surrounding each application and reconstructing the events that followed through my journal, e-mail messages, and remembered conversations with numerous others enables me to move to an awareness of essential aspects (i.e., What was important?). The next step was to use this knowledge to create an alternative method of action and to ask “To what conclusion does this lead?” Finally, how has this self-study influenced my identity?

Data sources include the documentation I provided to the Departmental Staffing Committee (DSC) in 2008, 2009, and 2011, which I have analysed in terms of the actual word count and words used in each of the three sections: teaching, research, and service. I have also reconsidered my response (from journal entries and documented discussions with others) to the DSC’s recommendations. I sought advice in the process from ex-College and School of Education senior academics (2008, 2009 applications) and from outside the faculty of education (2011 application). A colleague has acted as a critical friend and confidante throughout the process (Samaras, 2011). Our conversations have been wide ranging as together we have sought to gain a perspective which did not position me as a victim of institutional processes beyond my control. A critical friend’s capacity to listen thoughtfully, to discuss experiences objectively, and to help the other reflect critically has been crucial for me.

The JourneyThe outcomes from this deeply reflective and personal

process provide a meaningful way of understanding the changing institutional culture of my workplace and indicate positive ways I can be proactive about improving identity as a teacher educator in that culture.

For my initial application in 2008, I sought advice from two senior academics. My head of department (ex-College) thought an application was four or five years premature because, in his opinion, teaching was not valued in the university system and also because any number of ex-College staff could put forward a case for teaching excellence. However, a professor (ex–School of Education) thought my chances of promotion were reasonable.

In the 2008 one-page statement, I relied heavily on my Principal Lecturer status and university and National awards as evidence of sustained excellence in teaching. The 654 words were long on promise, hope, and aspiration but short on facts. I gave very little evidence of the impact of my teaching (357 words) or of a developing research platform (38 words) except to claim that it was being built on a commitment to improve my practice. I excused a patchy research record as a result of a

higher-than-normally-expected teaching load and service (103 words). I wrote of my intentions to build a community that collectively created and maintained an outstanding teaching and learning environment. I ended the statement full of hope.

I believe that my promotion to Associate Professor on the strength of my commitment to excellence in scholarly teaching, underpinned by quality assured research… will signal an exemplary standard for colleagues in the Faculty of Education to aspire to. (Application, 2008)The promotion process to Associate Professor across the

whole university is a three-step one. Applications are read by the Departmental Staffing Committee (DSC), which makes a recommendation to the Faculty Staffing Committee (FSC), which recommends to the University Staffing Committee (USC), which then makes a final decision. Applicants must meet Distinction in one, and Merit in two, of the categories Teaching, Research, and Service. My first application was unsuccessful. I presumed it was because the USC considered my research below Merit level. I had fully expected my application to be supported by the department. However, I was mistaken. As part of the process, applicants are entitled to read a copy of their DSC’s report. My colleagues had not supported my application on the grounds that my teaching portfolio was largely based on self-reporting and self-selected commentators; that my teaching was restricted to classroom performance with little or no evidence of innovation; and that I had no evidence of post-graduate supervision. My performance at Senior Lecturer level in the areas of research and service was also debated.

I was so affronted when I read the comments that I requested a meeting with the dean and the professor who had chaired the FSC. With my critical friend’s support, I prepared a document which refuted what I considered to be “inaccurate and defamatory” statements (e-mail communication, July 23, 2009) and asked whether my professional aspirations would be curtailed by the DSC’s report. Given that at this point I had another year of service, and four more quality-assured research outputs to my credit, I was advised to re-apply. I had the sense that I was on some cusp.

The second application described my contribution to teaching, research, and service in a more measured way. The front page statement (708 words in total) served as an entrée to the application. I professed to “constantly seek evidence” about my teaching (221 words); that I was committed to researching my practices and sharing them with the wider teacher education community (211 words); and that I was in a leadership role (108 words). I ended with a curt “I trust there is sufficient detail and evidence in the following application” (2009, Application for promotion).

This application was also unsuccessful. The DSC was unanimous that merit level had not been sustained over time in research or service and that my teaching lacked post-graduate supervision. The comments were less inflammatory than those from 2008. However, the dean told me that the FSC had also not supported my application based on a lack of evidence regarding the impact of my teaching or service and my inability to articulate how self-study research was any more robust than mere reflective practice.

I requested a meeting with a representative on the USC. For the first time I was made to understand the importance of the first page, which should state the reasons why the committee should promote me. The rest of the application (21 pages including an academic CV and supporting information) reinforced the statement. I was also told that my referees should not be anyone I had collaborated or worked closely

with. The USC representative was adamant that teaching was valued in the university but acknowledged that the USC was more au fait with judging a Distinction in research and Merit in teaching than vice versa. In the representative’s opinion, staff in the faculty of education were misguided in thinking that teaching was unimportant in the wider university.

In 2011, I e-mailed my first-page statement to three senior academics from outside the faculty of education. As a result of their feedback, the 2011 statement is 923 words of fully substantiated claims. “Student evaluations of my teaching over the last 3 years have averaged ‘x%’ satisfaction” (236 words in the teaching section). “I have a total of ‘y’ peer reviewed research outputs… The quality of my research has resulted in…” (313 words in the research section). “My support of Heads of Departments to identify and address teaching related issues ... resulted in …” (351 words in the service section).

The DSC and FSC supported this application. The USC recommended my promotion to Associate Professor and valued my “many contributions to this University and the scholarly world.”

Am I There Yet?When I started writing this paper, I was unsure of

the final decision or the impact it would have. Had I been unsuccessful a third time, would I have persevered for the sake of raising teaching as a valued aspect of being an academic? I doubt it very much; but there is no way of knowing that now. My hard-won promotion to Associate Professor has not sent the signal to my faculty of education colleagues that scholarly teaching, underpinned by research, is highly valued and respected. This was an important motivator for my 2008 application when I had wanted to promote self-study research as a rigorous base from which to improve teaching and for the scholarship of teaching and learning to be an acknowledged route to promotion. In 2009, I was belligerent. In 2011, I was doggedly determined.

By the time I finally cleared the promotion bar and met the department’s, faculty’s, and university’s criteria, I felt oddly discombobulated. It is taking time to piece myself together and stitch me into a new role. The position I held as Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning has been subsumed by the newly created Deputy Dean (Academic) so I no longer have any official capacity to champion teaching in the faculty. It has slipped lower on the collective horizon as a priority.

Analyzing my applications and my responses has led me to ponder how we differentiate between high-quality, theorized pedagogy (which I aspire to exemplify) and good teaching which is stimulating and engaging. Good teaching should be minimum standard practice. Unfortunately, with the push towards large lecture delivery and research as a priority, teaching quality is diminished. It is hard to claim with authority and on the basis of hard data that there are varying degrees of teaching prowess when teaching is done largely without peer critique and evaluation by students is dismissed as a popularity contest. When I compare this to a researcher’s ability to claim that they are an A-ranked researcher because their work is scrutinized through the blind-review process and published in journals where the rejection rate is highest, I recognize that they have a quantifiable mark of distinction which escapes me still.

Promotion through teaching in a university culture was always going to be difficult, but I was naïve not to realize that my greatest hurdle was from within the new faculty of education, which was struggling to meet university colleagues

on an equal footing. We felt it necessary to prove ourselves as able researchers in an academic institution and were prepared (or forced) to forgo our teaching mores. This self-study has provided me with the resilience to see past my own personal setbacks and to see my struggle as indicative of our collective struggle to value and acknowledge that teaching is a worthy academic practice. We are our own worst enemies in this regard. I stake a claim for self-study research to be recognized as more than reflective practice and for theorized teaching to be accorded status. I am committed to “teaching and teacher education as simultaneously the thing we know about, the thing we do and the thing we research” (Ham & Kane, 2004, pp. 103–104). Sadly, though, I am worried that I have set a high precedent. The fact is, teaching awards and service positions are few and far between, so research increases its face-value as an attainable and quantifiable commodity.

I am not in a position to offer advice for others seeking promotion through teaching because our contexts and career trajectories are all so different. I chose the track less travelled, but I don’t know where I am yet. I do know which committees influence teaching and learning in the university, and I participated on them when I had the opportunity as Associate Dean, but research committees have more prestige and their membership is restricted. I have nurtured collaborative partnerships with local colleagues and international peers which are mutually beneficial. I support and promote the work of other self-study researchers; of other tertiary teaching excellence award winners; and of academic citizens who see that their responsibilities extend further than the next research grant or funding proposal. I am determined to exercise more agency and control over my position in the faculty and to espouse the value of studying one’s own practice to improve the quality of teaching. I am putting out markers for others to follow if they are so inclined, but teaching is always going to be a forsaken and pot-holed path to promotion.

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DVORA GESSER & ZIPI ZELKOVITZKibbutzim College of Education Technology and Art

The Inner World of Dean of Students

During the years 2008-2009 I, Dvora, managed the College Deans Forum and conducted two studies which engaged in the definition of the dean’s role as well as ethical dilemmas thereof (Gesser & Zelkovitz, 2009). One of the conclusions was that I should explore my self within the framework of that position for the purpose of improving my work. I have chosen a self-study dealing with issues of identities by means of which I would learn about my personal perceptions, beliefs and values and examine ways for implementing them in my work (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001).

The role of the Dean of Students at a Teacher Education College has a unique nature since I engage in a wide variety of areas and cater to students in personal and group contexts. I attend to their professional-academic studies as well as their personal and economic problems. I serve as an address to the students, handling requests associated with their studies and personal life. As a dean, I am at the juncture between students, lecturers, management, and the head of the college. Being a member of the administration and of quite a few academic and administrative committees, I frequently experience a conflict of interests between the different aspects of my role. Thus, the probability of encountering various dilemmas is increased.

Most of the studies in the professional literature focus on the role of the academic dean. Moreover, they mention that deans are often confronted with situations requiring them to play roles that contradict their value systems or that clash with each other (Wolverton, Wolverton, & Gmelch, 1999). Deans are often exposed to personal and sensitive information about students and lecturers. They have to decide to what extent, when and in which ways to use this information so that the privacy and interests of students and lecturers are maintained (Shefler, Achmon & Weil, 2003).

As a result of this complex role, I have to deal in my daily life with numerous ethical dilemmas, leading to troubling questions. For example: Is the response appropriate? Could the issue be solved differently? Is there an objective truth of the problem?

According to Katz & Raths (1992), a dilemma is a situation in which people have to choose between two courses of action, when the choice of one alternative sacrifices the advantages of the second. Cuban (1992) argues that reference to values is central and people must choose between values that they deem important; any action they take will contradict one of the values they perceive as important.

Ethics is a set of human behavioural rules, based on cultural values, traditions, and laws taken from universal and communal frameworks (Katko, 2006). In a theoretical-philosophical debate, one can discuss applied ethics in the sense of behavioural norms, in accordance with regulations, which mainly relate to practical rules (Aloni, 2005). Ethics in this sense is associated with the term ‘profession.’ or professional ethics. Moreover, Cuban (1992) states that

education practitioners in all educational frameworks, including higher education, experience ethical dilemmas in their daily professional life. Nevertheless, they find it difficult to examine events that are under the surface and in their professional roles, deal with these ethical dilemmas. Rather, they ignore them or sometimes define them as mere problems.

There is no universal solution for the problem. The decisions and coping methods of those facing the dilemma stem from these individuals’ uniqueness, professionalism, values and personality. Hence, no objective standards of action can be determined (Cuban, 2001). However, analysing dilemmas, comprehending what characterises them and what lies at their basis, might promote their solution or, at least, the decision-making associated with them.

In this study, in collaboration with Zipi, a critical friend, I sought to investigate how the experience of coping with a dilemma helped me gain deeper insight into my pedagogical approach and its connection with my professional identity as a dean of students.

Research Questions1. How are my perceptions, beliefs and values manifested in my encounter with ethical dilemmas?2. What do I learn about myself from my way of coping with ethical dilemmas?3. How do I enhance my “professional practice” as Dean of Students following the reflections and shared conversations with my critical friend?

MethodsIn the present study, I coped with ethical dilemmas

during one academic year. In order to better understand my responses in conflict situations, I invited Zipi to join me as a critical friend because for many years she has worked with me in the field of education, teaching, and research. We write papers together and the communication between us is good. A critical friend is tasked with two principle roles: one of critiquing and one of offering suggestions (Samaras, 2010).

The research participants in my study included students, lecturers and other functionaries who participated in 23 dilemma events referred to Dvora, the Dean of Students, and shared with Zipi, the critical friend.The sources for our data were observations by Zipi, reflections by Dvora and conversations between us, as tools for self-inquiry.

Throughout the year, in the first stage of the study, Zipi would come to my office one to two times a week for an hour of observation. While observing, she wrote down her remarks. Immediately at the end of each dilemma event I wrote my reflection. Zipi’s remarks and my reflections constituted a basis for our conversations. We sometimes conducted them

immediately following the event and sometimes several days later. The conversations were transcribed and analysed.

During the second phase of data analysis, we identified themes we thought were significant. This procedure enabled us to conduct further conversations, while writing comments and enhancing our insights. In this phase of analysis, then, we analysed the content of our initial content analysis.

FindingsMy desire as a Dean of Students is to be attentive to

the students’ various needs, both academic and emotional and to balance between the system requirements and students unique needs. Moreover, I am required to be considerate of my colleagues and superiors. The reflections following the dilemmas, the joint conversations with Zipi as a critical friend, and my hesitations and deliberations allowed me to encounter my self and enhance my ability to cope with different values in varied situations. By being receptive to the transpiring processes, I had opened another window on my conduct. These encounters gave rise to issues and touched on feelings that I have not always been aware of. Based on the analysis of my reflections and the shared conversations with Zipi, the following themes came up: power; authority; collegiality, empathy as well as responsibility and accountability, manifesting my judgments and inner world.

My reflections helped me realise to what extent I was moving as a pendulum around the concept of power. In my work, the meaning of power implies the ability to motivate others, make decisions, resolve and control. On the one hand, empowerment for me means “accessibility to knowledge” and “decision-making.” However, there were cases when I found myself feeling weak and using expressions such as “neutralised” and “my hands are tied.”

I know I have much “power” and accessibility to the data of every individual. Thus, on the one hand, I am empowered by the role and its centrality. On the other hand this is rather frightening as if it is omnipotent but embodies very heavy responsibility. In our shared conversation about power and my

ambivalent feelings, Zipi told me, I hear disappointment in your voice, contrary to the numerous times you stated that you feel good with the “power” that the role attributes to you. I believe that your helplessness is not part of your character and it puts you into a conflict.

At the end of our conversation, I, Dvora said: In my perception of power I should distinguish between my power and the power which others ‘put on me’… and at the same time acknowledge the boundaries of the power… what should I do with the information I have… am I allowed to collect this information and use it? Following the conversations, I tried to become more

aware of the power I possess, of the need to be careful yet benefit from it. When it is necessary, I should understand that power has boundaries, learn to accept these boundaries without feeling helplessness.

Another topic came up in our conversations following my reflections and Zipi’s remarks during her observations, namely the fact that I am frequently angry when people address me with issues for which I am actually not the person who should be addressed or the person with authority.

The college is a hierarchical institution and functionaries are aware of their areas of responsibility. There are situations whereby the functionary passes the responsibility on to me

and I tend to assume the responsibility, although I am aware it would have been better not to do it:

The first thing that comes to mind is, “Why do you turn to me if you have a solution and have a justification…obviously the authority is not mine.”…When I feel that someone else should make the decision and they are not ready to pay the price…I feel used and it is really disappointing. We thought that the tendency to assume responsibility

in every case stemmed from the importance I attribute to this value. Aloni et al. (2011) define responsibility as an attitude of caring towards people around us, being mobilised to a practice which improves things, as well as a willingness to be accountable, both personally and organisationally for actions and oversights which contributed to the existing situation.

During our conversations, the issue of empathy was also raised, both in the context of responding to those who address me, even when it is not under my responsibility, and in the context of my interaction with students. Empathy is the ability to understand and/or feel other people’s thoughts and/or feelings. We found that I am committed to the need to understand and feel the place of others. We thought that what characterises my empathic interactions with students is the motive of caring (Noddings, 1992, 2003).

Later, we identified those factors which affect my empathy and noted the boundaries of my empathy. The dialogue illustrates values that are significant to me: collegiality, integrity, loyalty to the organisation and personality-oriented factors. More than once I found myself in a conflict between empathy and regulations; between the needs of the individual and those of the organisation. “I feel empathy towards those addressing me…I feel a little helpless and powerless, the students are right…and in fact my hands are tied…I cannot intervene.”

Such events show the boundaries of empathy and indicate that sometimes I am empathic to those who contact me. However, my hands are tied and I cannot always enact this empathy. In addition to responses of concern and caring, my responses show that I sometimes tend towards empathy in a spontaneous way. “As a dean I should have checked the problem with the head of the path… I translated the empathy promptly into action.”

We thought about the possible relation between my empathy and previous roles I fulfilled at the college (i.e., pedagogical tutor, head of elementary school pathway, family therapist) and the way they have affected me in my present role with regard to communication with students and colleagues. At the end of the conversation Zipi said:

I am asking myself whether you are free of your previous role as head of pathway. When do you see the need to go with the students and when do you feel the need to solve the problem from the lecturers’ point of view? Is it feasible, there is a problem of wearing many hats: a therapist, friend, former head of pathway.

The question which arises is “Whose dean are you actually?” Following this question we engaged in the issue of

collegiality as illustratedby the reflections. It was obvious to us that this was important for understanding the essence of my role. Zipi continued,

I ask myself the question: “As Dean of Students, who exactly are you supposed to represent?” I think that even the very name shows that it is mainly designed to uphold the students’ rights and duties. However, the mapping performed in our previous study regarding those who address the dean indicated quite a high number of teachers. The fact that some of them maintain a good

relationship with you, expecting you to support their position is rather concerning. A collegial behaviour originates from a sense of

commitment towards colleagues. A collegial perception might affect decision-making differently than the situation requires. When functionaries at the college address me with problems which they are authorised to resolve but avoid solving them, “collegiality as a value is very important to me… Not to be collegial will create the impression of ‘not being a good friend’, making me feel a sense of losing power.” When I support a decision of a functionary (e.g., a student) contrary to my values, “the words loyalty and betrayal come to my mind… in this situation I did not want to be collegial.”

We thought that just raising the question, “Who exactly are you supposed to represent?” and our shared discussion focused the issue and assisted me in my capacity as dean, to help me to be more aware, and distinguish between collegiality and my commitments to my role. However, as a matter of fact, this related to the connection between the values and beliefs which make up the whole – me.

To sum up, Zipi said: In my opinion you sufficiently increased your confidence in your professional power and professional development. Hence, you are less apprehensive to cope with dissatisfaction or respond to demands and expectations of students and colleagues… It is important to talk about things in order to internalise them. You have learnt to use professionalism in an inform manner.

ConclusionsThe present study enhanced my understanding of who

am I as person and as a professional. I learned that one cannot separate what a person does from who the person is.

It was essential for me to question the underpinning values and beliefs that guided my responses. The process improved my awareness of my own professional growth and development. This was manifested by my renouncing the need to assume responsibility at every situation, accepting my empathetic displays without additional considerations, and acknowledging the struggle of preferring collegiality to other values. This development mainly originated from the collaboration of the critical friend who criticised, echoed my reflections, and made suggestions (Samaras,, 2010). Towards the end of that shared year we discussed the reciprocal contribution we had gained from working together. “In the last fortnight, we have began realising the place of the shared work in writing the reflections… the mutual discourse raises thoughts, voices and ideas which are more than the total of the deliberations… “

The numerous referrals by functionaries and analysis of the dilemmas indicate that my role comprises a source of power and access to information. This power can have ethical implications (Sergiovanni, 1992). It enables me to decide which information should be shared with others and which should be kept confidential. In light of the reflections and dialogues, I am more aware of my power and am more sensitive to the use thereof.

Analysis of the dilemmas, the way to resolve them, the considerations and hesitations in the decision-making process depicted in the present study can indicate, as far as I am concerned, an approach which is mainly grounded on an ethics of caring (Noddings, 1992, 2003). According to this approach, caring and attention to each case on its own merit should be the basis for making decisions, together with rational considerations. The way I conducted myself made

me realise that only rational considerations, without reference to emotional dimensions, are insufficient for making ethical resolutions. These insights are in line with Cuban (2001), who stipulates that arbitrary standards of action cannot be determined; there is no universal truth for the problem. The resolutions and ways of coping for those facing the dilemma ensue from their uniqueness, professionalism, values and personality.

I would like to have remained spontaneous with my empathetic responses but avoid countering immediately with words. Rather, I learned to check later on the situation in depth and react at a slower pace. I have realised that I sometimes find it difficult to be flexible and empathic when the college regulations are violated. Perhaps I even view it as an action that undermines authority. I have to explore what stands behind this behaviour, asking myself whether I want to be empathic towards these events. I feel that if I abandon values, I “betray “ the source which has inculcated them in me.

The dialogues with my critical friend enhanced my tendency to assume responsibility when I was not required to do so. I know it is important that in future I avoid assuming this kind of responsibility. My actions do, in the long run, serve the responsibility-assuming ability of a community within which I work. It entails burnout in my work and making others know that “they can count on me.” Not assuming responsibility in those cases where it is unnecessary implies renouncing the idea of being the ‘heroic lone warrior who saves the day’.

ReferencesAloni, N. (2005). םדא תויהל ךירצש לכ [All that it takes to

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Gesser, D., & Zelkovich, Z. (2009). ןיב םיטנדוטסה ןקיד דיקפת The dean of students’’ role: Between] הדימלל הארוהteaching and learning]. Education and Context, 31, 99–115.

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Katko, T. (2007). האושה ןורכיז בוציעב םייתוברתו םייתא םיטביה Ethical and cultural aspects in shaping the] .לארשיבholocaust memory in Israel] (Doctoral dissertation). Tel Aviv, Israel: Tel Aviv University.

Noddings, N. (1992). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education. New York, NY: Teacher College Press.

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Sergiovanni, T. (1992). Moral leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Shefler, G., Achmon, Y., & Weil, G. (Eds.). (2003). תויגוס Ethical issues in the] . ישפנה לופיטהו ץועייה תועוצקמב תויתאcounseling and mental therapy professions]. Jerusalem, Israel: Magness Publishing House.

Wolverton, M., Wolverton, L., & Gmelch, W. H. (1999). The impact of role conflict and ambiguity on academic deans. Journal of Higher Education, 70, 80–106.

BRIAN GIRARD LAURA HANIFORDThe College of New Jersey University of New Mexico

Practicing What We Preach: Exploring How Discursive Resources Shape the Teaching of Multicultural Education

Over the past several decades there has been increasing attention paid to the preparation of teachers able to teach the increasingly diverse student population in the United States. Often research has cited the demographic imperative as a rationale for the work of changing the beliefs and attitudes of the predominantly white, female, middle-class teaching force. However, we believe that despite the fact that current projections indicate that teacher demographics will remain relatively unchanged in the foreseeable future, approaches are needed that do not simply assume a white audience and that are able to build on all available discourses.

We are not the first to make this point. In her review of research on multicultural education within teacher education, Sleeter (2001) highlights the ways that focusing on white, female pre-service teachers can silence students of color. She argues that we need to provide all pre-service teachers with rigorous preparation. Additionally, Cochran-Smith (2004) has documented her own realizations that one cannot assume that because a course interrogates questions of equity and access in America’s schools that it meets the needs of all prospective teachers. Schulte (2009), in summarizing high-quality self-studies that investigated multicultural teacher preparation, reiterated the need for teacher educators to examine their own ideologies. While other self-studies of multicultural teacher education have been conducted by white teacher educators (e.g., Schulte, 2004, 2009; Skerret, 2006; White, 2009), they focus on the course as a whole. This study differs by analyzing one specific aspect of the class—namely the discursive resources made available in a particular class session’s readings and student responses to those readings in two courses held at different universities.

Background & AimWe met as graduate students at the same American

university, where we received similar training and were responsible for teaching the same multicultural education course in the teacher preparation program. When the second author completed her Ph.D. and took her first faculty position, she was assigned to teach a multicultural education course. The university where she was hired was quite different from our graduate school university. These differences led us to discuss the problem driving this study.

As teachers of multicultural education courses, we stress to our pre-service teachers the importance of understanding their teaching context and the resources their students bring to the classroom. We realized, however, that we were not practicing what we preached. What resources and knowledge about multicultural education did our students bring to the classroom? Did we have blind spots regarding the different populations we were teaching? What implications do these answers have for our teaching? We began to investigate how

our teaching of similar courses, grounded in similar pedagogy and materials, played out in different teaching contexts with different populations of pre-service teachers.

We take a sociolinguistic (e.g., Gee, 1999) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1989, 1995; Luke, 1995) approach to understanding ourselves, our teaching, and our students. We believe that discourse is reflexive—meaning that discourse “simultaneously reflects reality (‘the way things are’) and constructs (construes) it to be a certain way” (Gee, 1999, p. 82). As such, we look carefully at classroom discourse to see how our students use language to both reflect and construct their understanding.

This paper focuses on the “conversation” between one class session’s readings regarding race and the student reflective writing in response. We asked students to read and respond to articles common to the two classes. We analyzed the discourses students drew on in response to the readings, looking for similarities and differences to help us understand the discourses made available by each group of students. Through this analysis, we consider the implications for ourselves as teacher educators and as researchers.

Institutional ContextsAs mentioned above, this study was conducted at

two different teacher education institutions. One institution (Midwestern University) is a traditional, undergraduate teacher preparation program at a large research university. The teacher education students at this institution tend to conform to the national demographic of teachers in the United States— they are predominantly white, middle-class females. The multicultural education course is part of the certification program. Twenty-two of the 23 enrolled students agreed to participate in this study. The class was predominately white (91%), female (78%), and monolingual (70% fluent only in English).

The second institution (Western State College) is a state college providing fifth-year teaching credentials to students already possessing a bachelor’s degree. The multicultural education course at this institution is a prerequisite prior to admission to the credential program. Twenty-seven out of 31 students participated from this class. Students at this school are more racially and ethnically diverse than the national average for secondary school teachers. The class was majority white (64%), with a strong presence of Hispanic (21%) and Asian (14%) students.

Our Perspectives. Because we are interested in the ways that our students constructed responses to readings on race and the salience of race in education, it is important to consider how our own backgrounds and perspectives shaped the available discourses.

The first author is a white, middle-class male who grew up in the Midwest and attended college on the east coast. Several experiences were key in developing his interest in multicultural education, including his own multicultural education course in his certification program, working with a diverse group of students in both an urban community service project and a summer college preparation enrichment program, and finally his own classroom teaching. These experiences engendered his interest in improving instruction for all students, with a particular focus on classroom relational resources for teachers and students.

The second author is a white, middle-class female who grew up and attended college in the Midwest. During her teacher education program she completed her student teaching on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. It was here that she began to question the educational system in the United States and to see the ways that race, privilege, and power are enacted in and through that system. She also began to question the ways she was implicated in this system.

Classroom Context. Our approach to multicultural education seeks to help prospective teachers better understand both themselves and the larger educational system. We take this view because we share a belief that without understanding the larger system, beginning teachers can become discouraged. In our syllabi we explain the structure of the course in the following way:

This course begins with the not-so-simple premise that schools work differently for different students. In order to better understand the factors that impact a child’s opportunities to learn and your opportunities to teach, we focus on three levels of analysis. We begin the semester by studying the societal systemics of schooling—what and how do social, historical and political forces shape the structure of public schools in the United States? The second level of analysis looks at the interaction between student characteristics and schools—through what mechanisms do schools serve different populations of students differently? The third and final level of analysis focuses on our role as teacher. After questioning how schools work differently for different students, we begin to strategize ways we as teachers can help ameliorate these problems. The particular class session represented in this paper

occurred in the middle of the semester, and the focus on race places this course in the second level of analysis mentioned above.

The Readings. We selected four readings for this week’s session. Three of these were McIntosh’s (1987) piece on white privilege, Hanssen’s (1998) reflection on institutional racism, and Lee’s (1994) research on the model minority stereotype. While we co-planned the course, certain local conditions precipitated small differences. One such modification was a change in the planned reading for the students at Midwestern University, in which a planned article by Lewis (2003) was substituted for another piece (Lewis, 2001) that focused less on racial formation in schools and more on the operations of a color-blind ideology in a predominately white school. Given the demographics and backgrounds of the Midwestern University students, the first author deemed the change important because of the background and likely placement of his students in the field. All four of the articles contained key arguments, concepts, and discursive resources we think are important for teachers.

The Weekly Assignment. In each of our classes, students were required to write one-page responses to

the readings and submit them prior to class. The weekly assignments were described to students this way:

The weeklies are graded on completion, not on content…. The purpose of these weekly papers is to allow me to monitor more closely your engagement with the material and to address any questions and/or concerns as they arise.It is not our intention to suggest that the ways students

wrote in their weeklies were directly translated into classroom discourse. Rather, we are interested in examining these written assignments for the ways our students grappled with multiple discourses made available by the readings and how they positioned themselves in relation to these discourses (and by extension, us as their teachers). The writing in these assignments represents the discourses potentially available for classroom discourse.

Methods. The central source of data for this investigation is the students’ weekly responses. In addition, we analyzed our syllabi, the readings, and our weekly debriefings of the course after each session. We began by drawing on Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) model of grounded theory to help us see the discourses drawn on by the students. Next, we chose representative excerpts from students’ writing on which to conduct detailed textual analysis (Fairclough, 1989, 1995). We examined which readings the students chose to respond to, the focus of their writing, how they made personal connections to the text, and the stance taken toward the issue of race, particularly as it applies to schools. Each researcher completed the analysis for their class individually, and then we compared the patterns and the discourses illuminated in each individual class. Our discussions were essential for extending and challenging our individual interpretations of our analyses and our individual understandings of the implications of what we discovered.

FindingsWe begin by considering one similarity between

the two classes. Students in both classes used distancing moves to remain detached from personally engaging in the material. One prevalent distancing strategy was the use of academic, objective language to analyze the readings. This move constructed the topics as something to be studied in the abstract, removed from any connections to their own lives. In a similar fashion, students in both classes who distanced themselves from the issue of race and racism using this discursive strategy also tended to describe generalized teachers, as opposed to considering the implications for their own classroom practice:

• “I think that this is a worthy piece of advice for all teachers in order to prevent prejudice in their classrooms” (Western State College student).• “A teacher has to work to conceal any personal opinions/prejudices that could influence his/her students in a negative manner” (Midwestern University student).When the Midwestern University students did make

personal connections, the vignettes they reflected on were from either field experiences in schools or from life at the university and focused on other actors (teachers, friends) instead of the self.

In addition to this generalization pattern, the students at both schools constructed non-agentic positions for themselves where the prospects of individual and/or collective action to rectify institutional racism and problems of access and equity were minimized. While the responses shared this final position, the students at each university arrived there by

different discursive routes. Students at Midwestern University constructed racism as an insurmountable, emotional problem. They did not argue with the existence of institutional racism or white privilege. Instead, they fully admitted the social reality of these phenomena, but this left them feeling powerless in the face of such structural barriers.

I was actually a little overwhelmed when I finished this week’s reading. Especially while thinking about white privilege and the institutional racism that Hannsen discusses, I was struck by the enormity of the issue. […] I am not sure I have any idea about how to counter any of these things. As one person, how can I change how society views (or decides to ignore) race? […] it seems that parental and societal influences will be much stronger than what a teacher can do. (Midwestern University student)

Through the use of strong descriptors, like “overwhelmed” and “enormity,” the student-teacher constructed a rather bleak picture in which society, generally, and parents, particularly, are to blame for a teacher’s inability to counter institutional racism.

Students at Western State College tended to downplay the significance of race, by either constructing it as a problem of the past, or construing it as an issue of individual responsibility. For example, one student replied, “I had a hard time reading the article by Peggy McIntosh. Of course, had the paper been written in the 1960s I would have agreed.” Another responded to the readings this way:

I am not that different from any of my white neighbors for example, we live in the same neighborhood, therefore we have attended the same types of schools and have lived in the same type of multi-cultural environment. Yet some of us have gone to college and will be successful and some of us won’t. It seems that some people don’t want to take personal responsibility and that is what makes me so angry!

This student orients to an egalitarian discourse through her discussion of herself and her white neighbors. However, she constructs this discourse as a way to argue against differences in race—if there are differences in educational attainment and success among whites it must mean that institutional racism and white privilege are overstated and a form of overreacting. Students at both universities discursively constructed a position in which they could not, or need not, attend successfully to issues of race and racism, albeit for very different reasons.

Finally, it is worth highlighting that in their responses the student-teachers at Midwestern University viewed themselves as having a choice of whether or not they would teach students of color. The student-teachers at Western State, in contrast, assumed that they would have a diverse student population.

ImplicationsIn our collaborative conversations analyzing student

work, we could not avoid the striking fact that in both courses students deployed discursive strategies to minimize the need for action as teachers in response to the issue of race in their future classrooms. What is the appropriate response as instructors to such patterns? How do we help students to see the various possibilities for action on their part?

Upon reflection, we came to see that two of the readings we had assigned (pieces by Lee and Lewis) were distant and academic in their own way. We had provided students an academic model for distancing, and the students at

Midwestern, in particular, echoed that academic distance. The overall structure of the course may also have influenced this position, since we were working from larger societal issues to the classroom. Furthermore, at this point in the course, we had not turned to explicit positive models of teaching. These are two key areas of improvement that we have made since beginning this self-study. First, we have infused more specific examples of teachers taking action for social justice into the course to model efficacious action. Second, we have incorporated more elements at the start of the course for students to reflect on themselves, inverting the logic of our original structure.

Additionally, although each of us would have articulated a position that explicitly sought to problematize reified notions of race and difference, through our analysis we each discovered the challenges of enacting that position in our teaching and in our research. We each found (to our surprise) that we had made assumptions regarding the importance of different aspects of social diversity in constructing and enacting these perspectives within a multicultural teacher education course. We assumed that a classroom of students with diverse backgrounds and experiences would result in a wider variety of discourses with which to discuss race in schools. Through analysis it also became apparent to us that perhaps we initially approached this study assuming that students from diverse backgrounds would add to the available discourses in ways that were more complex and did not focus predominantly on deflecting attention from issues of race. The knowledge we gained through this analysis underscores for us the importance of qualitative research (particularly qualitative research that takes seriously the nature and functions of discourse) for troubling these assumptions and destabilizing monolithic views of race and culture.

Upon further reflection, the second author has realized that one of her assumptions was true: there were more discourses available at Western State College. However, because these discourses were quite often in opposition to the discourses available in the readings and through the instructor, she initially did not recognize them as diverse and multiple. She wonders if perhaps she did not recognize them because they were not discourses she wanted to hear. However, they were discourses she could and should have engaged.

Despite the fact that we view the world as constructed in and through discourse, we failed to make the most of these readings and others like them. It should be clear from the excerpts described above that there were multiple places where we could have provoked further learning through more intensive discussions around students’ weekly writings.

We view this paper as a call for others to take up similar approaches that trouble existing discourses within teacher education and multicultural education and that take seriously the ways that students construct positions for themselves as teachers and as racial beings that are shifting and tenuous, and for teacher educators to analyze more closely student responses to particular readings and classroom discussions.

ReferencesCochran-Smith, M. (2004). Walking the road: Race, diversity,

and social justice in teacher education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New York, NY: Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. New York, NY: Longman.

Gee, J. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hanssen, E. A. (1998). A White teacher reflects on institutional racism. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(9), 694–8.

Lee, S. (1994). Behind the model minority stereotype: Voices of high and low achieving Asian American students. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 25(4), 413–429.

Lewis, A. (2001). There is no “race” in the schoolyard: Color-blind ideology in an (almost) all-white school. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 781–811.

Lewis, A. (2003) Everyday race-making: Negotiating racial boundaries in school. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(3), 283–305.

Luke, A. (1995). Text and discourse in education: An introduction to critical discourse analysis. Review of Research in Education, 21, 3–48.

McIntosh, P. (1990). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Independent School, 49, 31–36.

Schulte, A. K. (2004). Examples of practice: Professional knowledge and self-study in multicultural teacher education. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 7–40). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Press.

Schulte, A. K. (2009). Seeking integrity in teacher education: Transforming student teachers, transforming my self. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Skerret, A. (2006). Looking inward: The impact of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class background on teaching sociocultural theory in education. Studying Teacher Education, 2(2), 183–200.

Sleeter, C. (2001). Preparing teachers for culturally diverse schools: Research and the overwhelming presence of whiteness. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(2), 94–106.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

White, K. R. (2009). Using preservice teacher emotion to encourage critical engagement with diversity. Studying Teacher Education, 5(1), 5–20.

JOANNE E. GOODELLCleveland State University

Improving Pre-Service Teachers’ Adaptive Metacognitive Practices Through Reflective Writing

Introduction Teaching has been described as “perhaps the most

complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced and frightening activity that our species ever invented” (Shulman, 2004), so it is no wonder that learning to teach is a similarly complex business, one that takes years of practice. Teachers must be able to respond appropriately to the extremely diverse range of social and instructional variables encountered. In this paper, I describe my self-study in which I sought to analyze and reflect on the reflective thinking and writing activities I engage my pre-service teachers (PSTs) to ensure that I am doing all that I can to develop their adaptive metacognitive practices.

Context of the StudyI have taught a combined mathematics methods course

and supervised a 15-week 180-hour practicum for secondary-mathematics pre-service teachers for over ten years at an urban university in a large city. The first class assignment is to prepare a personal philosophy of teaching, which is revisited in the final class assignment, a reflective paper that outlines what aspects of their personal philosophy have changed since the beginning of the semester and how the class activities have impacted or will impact their future teaching.

Another element of the class included discussion in class and writing reports about critical incidents encountered in their field experiences. The format of the report has remained the same this entire time, and contains

• What happened• What the outcome was• What the implications are for you as a future teacher• What you would do differently next time. At the beginning of most class meetings, we discuss in

small groups any incidents encountered over the preceding week. I constantly circulate among the small groups, monitoring progress and offering insights where appropriate. Each small group picks one incident to report to the whole class, and I act as a facilitator and guide for the large-group discussion, trying to ensure that everyone understands the implications of each incident. I learned that this was necessary after my first self-study revealed that many students learned very little from the reports unless they were “forced” to state the implications. During these discussions, I often share a teaching story of my own, a practice my students seem to enjoy, and one that is recommended by Pereira (2005). Written critical incident reports are then submitted later, and I grade each one using a rubric based on the four parts of the report.

This activity helps my pre-service teachers integrate the two main bodies of research that inform my mathematics education course. The first concerns teaching for understanding (Carpenter & Lehrer, 1999), and the second,

reflective thinking in teacher education (Loughran, 2002). Elsewhere (Goodell, 2006) I describe what issues my students wrote about in their critical indent reports, what they learned about teaching for understanding through their reflections, and what I learned as a teacher educator from that study. In that paper, I found that my PSTs learned about conditions necessary to teach for understanding, as well as the facilitators and barriers encountered when attempting to teach for understanding.

In my most recent self-study paper (Goodell, 2011), I investigated what influenced my pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics over the course of the semester as evidenced in the final reflective paper each student wrote at the end of the semester. I found that even though the majority of the PSTs cited the critical incident reports as an important activity, the vast majority focused merely on the value of hearing about all the different issues that were going on in other PSTs classrooms, and only two from the sample of 37 evidenced any metacognitive thinking about the value of reflection as a practice to be continued past the requirements of the course. I was puzzled by this finding, since my initial theory, based on written feedback from course evaluations and my interactions with the students in my methods class and in their field placements, seemed to suggest that the critical incident reports were highly regarded as a meaningful learning experience by the PSTs. It has always been my hope that reflective writing would improve students’ meta-cognitive skills, or adaptive metacognition, and that reflective thinking and adaptive teaching would then become an integral part of their teaching practice. However, I now posed the question to myself, have I done such a poor job of ensuring my PSTs come to know the value of reflection? Or perhaps I have not analyzed the evidence, or even obtained any evidence about how my PSTs value reflective thinking. I decided to examine the potential sources of evidence I might have available to me in the form of critical incident reports and final papers collected over the past 12 years for concrete evidence of adaptive metacognition. Thus, my research questions for this study are (1) what evidence is there in the reflective writing my pre-service teachers complete that they are engaging in thoughtfully adaptive behaviors? and (2) how can I improve the reflective components of the class and the program so as to foster the development of thoughtfully adaptive behaviors?

Literature ReviewAdaptive metacognition, according to Lin, Schwartz,

and Hatano (2005), “involves both the adaptation of one’s self and one’s environment in response to a wide range of classroom variability” (p. 245). It is a concept that has been identified as potentially extremely valuable in helping teachers in the 21st century.

Recent work by Fairbanks et al. (2010) concluded that teachers need to have a well-developed sense of self and a sense of agency so as to be able to be thoughtful and responsive to the diversity of situations in their classrooms. They outline four perspectives that they found to be important. First was the influence of teacher beliefs on their personal practical theories (PPTs). Cornett, Yeotis, and Terwilliger (1990) defined PPTs as a systematic set of beliefs that guide teachers’ actions. Levin and He (2008) investigated the source of pre-service teachers’ PPTs and found that 66% of sources were attributable to either coursework or teaching and observation experience. Fairbanks et al. (2010) conclude that gaining an understanding of teachers’ PPTs may help teacher educators gain a clearer understanding of why some teachers are more responsive or adaptive to certain situations.

The second perspective Fairbanks et al. (2010) discuss is that of the teacher’s vision, which they describe as “the teacher’s personal self-understanding about a commitment to extended outcomes” (p. 164), which in turn allows a teacher to make conscious his or her ultimate goals and ideals for teaching. They conclude that teachers with a clear vision become more thoughtfully adaptive so that they can enact their vision and go beyond what is minimally required of every teacher.

The third perspective of Fairbanks et al. (2010) is the sense of belonging a teacher needs in order to feel supported in enacting their vision. They conclude that teacher education programs must prepare candidates to negotiate the contexts in which they find themselves and be prepared to deal with the complexities of situations in which finding a sense of belonging may not be easy.

The fourth perspective outlined by Fairbanks et al. (2010) is that of teacher identity. Drawing on the work of two parallel categories of research about teacher identity, one concerning power and race and the other developing identity in a community of practice, they point out that identities are performed daily as the teacher plays all the various roles throughout any given day. They argue that to perform as thoughtful teachers requires a strong sense of identity and belief in one’s ability to negotiate situations to effect change when conditions are not conducive to enacting their vision of teaching. Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop (2004) stated that “identity formation is a process of practical knowledge-building characterized by an ongoing integration of what is individually and collectively seen as relevant to teaching,” a finding that highlights the importance of the context in which teachers work and the shared norms that develop as a result of working conditions and the availability of opportunities for collaboration amongst teachers.

Fairbanks et al. (2010) decided that the terms self-knowledge and agency provide an overarching description of the factors that appear to be critical for thoughtful teaching. Having carefully considered this literature and its implications for my teaching, in this study I examine the ways in which the reflective activities I engage my pre-service teachers in foster the development of characteristics consistent with the four perspectives outlined above.

MethodFor this basic interpretive qualitative study, I used a

convenience sample of 332 incident reports from 58 students, and I revisited the final paper analysis (of 37 students) conducted in another recent paper (Goodell, 2011). Both of these data sets were entered into the qualitative data analysis software NVivo. I thought for a long time about how to code

the data, and I decided that using a broad initial set of codes derived from the Fairbanks et al. (2010) article would be best. Those categories were

• teachers’ personal practical theories (PPTs);• a vision of teaching that they would like to see enacted

in their classroom;• a sense of belonging to their teaching community; and• their personal identity as a teacher.

After coding a few critical incidents, it became obvious the personal practical theories were usually discussed in the section on implications for the future. Thus, I searched the text for the word “implications” and coded a broad section of text (an entire paragraph in which the work “implications” was found) in a new node named “personal practical theories.” Some refinements of this broad search were necessary to account for the word “implications” being used as a section header.

The vision of teaching is often described in the critical incident report section on “what I would do differently next time.” Thus, in the critical incident reports, I searched the text for the words “differently” and “change” then coded a broad section of text (as before) at a new node named “vision of teaching,” again making some refinements to the search.

Some evidence of developing a sense of belonging to their teaching community was found in the final papers where the PSTs described their relationships with colleagues, mentors, or other school personnel. For this, I searched the final papers for the word “mentor,” using the NVivo capability to include a broad set of synonyms in the search. I coded this text a new node called “belonging.”

I could find virtually no evidence of the development of my PSTs’ personal identity as teachers. I will address this issue later in this paper.

Results Personal practical theories were categorized into themes

around teaching, classroom management issues, and student factors. General strategies, such as time management and assessment strategies, and mathematics-specific strategies, such as the importance of using real-world problems and discovery learning, were prevalent. The PSTs also expressed their theories about how to deal with issues around student understanding, motivation, behavior, participation, resistance, confidence and pre-requisite knowledge. For example, Alison clearly stated her new personal practical theories, in the form of what she learned had from her experiences:

1. A teacher must know what are the disciplinary actions that can be taken and use them effectively in helping to control the class.2. A teacher should have the courage and compassion to forgive and grant students another chance.3. Design a lesson plan that uses artifacts tailored around student’s interest.4. Teacher must step down to a personal level to deal with student’s action. (Alison, October 2003)The PSTs’ vision of teaching centered around the same

categories as their PPTs: teaching, classroom management issues, and student factors. For example, Bruce discussed having a sound assessment policy that will provide incentives and encouragements for his students to complete homework and classwork.

I would change a couple things to hopefully better this situation. First, I would give fewer homework problems each night and only grade one homework assignment per week. … Finally, I would adjust the grade weight of

homework. Instead of 50% homework and 50% tests, I would consider 25% homework, 10% class participation, and 65% tests. (Bruce, November 2009)Developing a sense of belonging to their teaching

community is difficult for a pre-service teacher who is not part of the faculty. They often feel marginalized since there is little time to interact with other faculty, but a supportive department environment can alleviate their isolation. In his final paper, Adam wrote,

I was also greatly influenced by the faculty at Jones High School. I found them to be very easy to talk to, mainly about classroom management. It was great to be treated as a professional colleague, which I almost am, but still technically am not. They afforded me more respect than I deserved, which I greatly appreciate. In particular, I learned a lot about the classroom and general administration issues from Mrs. Michaels and Mrs. Keene. These two teachers demonstrated high expectations regarding student behavior, and complete professionalism. (Adam, December 2003)There was very little written evidence in either the

critical incident reports or final papers that the PSTs could articulate their personal identity as a teacher. However, in one instance, Anthony realized that he was actually the teacher and did have the power to control the situation.

I need to understand that I am still the teacher and if I think things are getting out of hand, then I have the power to end the game. It’s great to do fun activities, but only if the class can handle them. (Anthony, October 2007)Anthony’s comments clearly show that he is still quite

unsure of his role in the classroom, a position that all PSTs are in when completing student teaching experiences as a visitor in someone else’s classroom.

What I Have Learned as a Teacher Educator

This self-study has highlighted the importance of the development of teacher identity during the student teaching experience and beyond, something I was previously only moderately interested in. I thought my job was finished when the PSTs graduated, but if I truly want to prepare thoughtfully adaptive teachers, I cannot stop at student teaching support, but must continue into induction support as well, for it is then that a sense of identity and belonging truly begin to develop.

However, I have also learned that I need to modify the reflective writing components of my courses to ensure a much stronger focus on identity formation, since clearly what I have been doing is not sufficient. I can do this in the student teaching seminar that accompanies the student teaching field experience undertaken in the final semester of the program. Until now, one assignment has been to record the proceedings of every day in a journal noting what went well, what did not go well, and what could be improved in future. These journals often degenerate into a dreary blow-by-blow description of each day. Based on the findings of this self-study, I will restructure the journals to focus on the development of their professional identities as mathematics teachers. At the beginning of the experience, they will write three or four goals pertaining to their professional mathematics teaching identity, and then each week, the journal will record their progress toward these goals. At the end of the experience, the final entry will focus on determining the factors that aided them in and prevented them from achieving their goals, as well as setting some goals for their first year in their own classroom.

The importance of developing a sense of belonging has been well researched with high-school students, but very little research has been done with teachers’ sense of belonging (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011). It will be important for me to work to enhance existing mentoring and induction programs and establish new ones where none exist to ensure that our graduates are aware of the importance of and conditions necessary for adaptive metacognition to develop. Fortunately the grants I have to implement the new program allow for a full time staff member to support the professional development and induction of new teachers.

In a previous paper (Goodell, 2011) I describe how self-study led me to totally transform the entire secondary mathematics and science teacher preparation program to better prepare my students for a more integrated, project-based instruction classroom. One of the biggest benefits of this is that I now have a group of colleagues not only at my own university, but also at 29 other US institutions, who are teaching the same courses in the same type of program. I am eager to share the results of this self-study not only to improve the outcomes of this innovative program, a practice highly recommended by self-study researchers (Taylor et al., 2006), but also to impact the further growth and retention of my graduates once they enter the profession.

ConclusionThis self-study has informed my role as a program

director as much or more than my methods teaching role. While I am pleased to find that the reflective writing assignments I had my students complete were successful in developing their personal practical theories and their vision of teaching, I now know that prior to undertaking this self-study, I had not given the other two perspectives, the development of a sense of belonging or personal teaching identity, enough thought. It is clear to me that these two aspects will develop more rapidly once the PST has a teaching position, which leads me to reflect on how best to ensure that reflective writing is part of what beginning teachers do as a matter of course. Teacher preparation programs are being held increasingly more accountable for the impact of their graduates on student achievement outcomes once they begin to teach, therefore we, as teacher educators, will have an increasing role to play in supporting our graduates as they enter the profession.

ReferencesBeijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004).

Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128.

Carpenter, T. P., & Lehrer, R. (1999). Teaching and learning mathematics with understanding. In E. Fennema & T. Romberg (Eds.), Mathematics classrooms that promote understanding (pp. 19–32). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Cornett, J. W., Yeotis, C., & Terwilliger, L. (1990). Teacher personal practical theories and their influence upon teacher curricular and instructional actions: A case study of a secondary science teacher. Science Education, 74(5), 517–529.

Fairbanks, C. M., Duffy, G. G., Faircloth, Y. H., Levin, B., Rohr, J., & Stein, C. (2010). Beyond knowledge: Exploring why some teachers are more thoughtfully adaptive than others. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 161–171.

Goodell, J. (2006). Using critical incident reflections: A self-study as a mathematics teacher educator. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9,221-248.

Goodell, J. (2011). Reforming mathematics teacher education. In S. Schuck & P. Pereira (Eds.), What counts in teaching mathematics: Adding value to self and content. London, United Kingdom: Springer.

Levin, B., & He, Y. (2008). Investigating the content and sources of teacher candidates’ personal practical theories (PPTS). Journal of Teacher Education, 59(1), 55–68.

Lin, X., Schwartz, D. L., & Hatano, G. (2005). Towards teachers’ adaptive metacognition. Educational Psychologist, 40(4), 245–255.

Loughran, J. J. (2002). Effective reflective practice: In search of meaning in learning about teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 33–43.

Pereira, P. (2005). Becoming a teacher of mathematics. Studying Teacher Education, 1(1), 69–83.

Shulman, L. (2004). Professional development: Leaning from experience. In S. M. Wilson (Ed.), The wisdom of practice: Essays on teaching, learning, and learning to teach (pp. 503–522). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2011). Teacher job satisfaction and motivation to leave the teaching profession: Relations with school context, feeling of belonging, and emotional exhaustion. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 27(6), 1029–1038.

Taylor, M., Coia, L., Hopper, T., Sanford, K., Smolin, L., & Crafton, L. (2006). Making collaboration explicit in self-study research in teacher education. In L. M. Fitzgerald, M. L. Heston, & D. L. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 247–251). Cedar Falls, IO: University of Northern Iowa.

WILLIAM L. GREENE YOUNGHEE M. KIM FRED A. J. KORTHAGENSouthern Oregon University Southern Oregon University VU University, Amsterdam

GEOFF MILLS ROBYN BRANDENBURG ANN GERVASONISouthern Oregon University University of Ballarat Australian Catholic University

Three Ethical Dilemmas in Self-Study Research: Ambiguities of Confidentiality

Context of the StudyFor teacher educators, multiple ethical dilemmas and

tensions often arise in common daily practice (Berry, 2007). Self-study researchers usually have an integral and heightened awareness of ethical obligations (Berry, 2007; Bullough & Pinnegar, 2004; East, Fitzgerald, & Heston, 2009; LaBoskey, 2004; Loughran, 2006; Mitchell, 2004; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009; Samaras, 2010). Yet, traditional research frameworks of ethical conduct are not always adequate for guiding self-study researchers through dilemmas they face and sometimes fall short even when they conform to institutional expectations regarding ethical practice (Brandenburg & Gervasoni, 2011; Ernst, 2009; Mitchell, 2004). What makes the subject of ethics particularly challenging for self-study researchers is the intimate and open-ended nature of the research.

Aims and ObjectivesIn this paper, we present three ethical dilemmas that

arose during our own self-study research. We then employ two different frameworks in our analysis of the dilemmas, each highlighting a contrast in the “solution” depending on the dilemma and relevant framework. One framework, elaborated by Ernst (2009), was used exclusively in Dilemma 2 and was referenced in Dilemmas 1 and 3. The second framework, from Korthagen and Vasalos (2005), proved appropriate and relevant to the analysis of Dilemma 1 and was referenced in Dilemma 3. The two frameworks revealed different aspects of each dilemma and suggested their own paths of resolution based on the particular perspective provided by each. We close by discussing the usefulness of traditional ethical guidelines for self-study research and propose that applying different

frameworks to ethical tensions may benefit the researcher, enhance pedagogy, and provide greater clarity as to the source of the tension than might be provided by a single framework. In fact, there seem to be multiple approaches and frameworks for understanding ethical dilemmas in self-study. Further, we suggest that future data collection related to ethical dilemmas and tensions become part of an ongoing and integral conversation within the self-study community.

MethodWe have chosen three ethical dilemmas from our

collective practices to highlight in this paper. Each presents a different case in which the researchers seem caught in their ability to reach a resolution, and each centers on a decision involving confidentiality. Considering the unique self-study role of one who is both the researcher and the researched, we wondered how these dilemmas could deepen our interpretation of ethical behavior when different perspectives provided by two distinct frameworks are applied. The dilemmas provided the data for this study, and the frameworks provided the analytical tools used by the authors in collaboration with one another.

Among the six co-authors on this study, four of us are directly linked to the three ethical dilemmas described here. In Dilemma 1, “Christina” is a teacher educator at a state university in the northwest US. In Dilemma 2, both subjects are teacher educators and colleagues at a university in Victoria, Australia. In Dilemma 3, the subject is Dean of the School of Education at Christina’s university in the US.

Two analytical frameworks. One framework that we used in our analysis was based on Ernst’s (2009) guidelines,

Figure 1. The onion model (Korthagen, 2004)

which include (1) informed consent of participants, no harm, and respect for the confidentiality and non-identifiability of participants and institutions; (2) publications and public conversation related to the findings of the research; (3) the principle of reciprocity; and (4) ethics as “first philosophy,” which means that the traditional philosophical pursuit of knowledge is but a secondary feature of a more basic ethical duty to the other (Levinas, 1969). Ernst’s framework is familiar to researchers and represents a more traditional application of guidelines to ethical issues.

A second framework that we feel is helpful in resolving dilemmas is the theory on core reflection (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005; Korthagen, Kim, & Greene, in press). Because it is the lesser known of the two frameworks, we will outline it here. This framework was selected for its usefulness in deepening reflection, based on the so-called onion model (See Figure 1).

The onion model shows six levels or “layers” of reflection:1. The environment: this layer refers to everything that people encounters outside of themselves. 2. Behavior: this refers to what people do, how they cope with the challenges in the environment. 3. Competencies: this layer describes what people are competent at doing. 4. Beliefs: this layer refers to what people believe about a situation. With the term “beliefs” we refer to assumptions about the outer world, which are often unconscious. 5. Identity: this layer refers to people’s assumptions about themselves, their self-concept. 6. Mission: this layer is concerned with what inspires people and what gives meaning and significance to their work or their lives. Whereas the layer of identity has to do with how people see themselves, the layer of mission is about their ideals. Hence, for many people this is also the layer of meaning-making in a religious sense.In the “core of the onion” we may locate a person’s

personal strengths, their core qualities, such as care, passion, courage, or steadfastness. An important rule is that when these core qualities influence the various onion layers, the person experiences strength and a positive “flow.” In a practical sense, the onion model can help us understand at what “level” or layer in the onion model a dilemma seems to surface. Is it a dilemma between two possible types of behavior, a tension between underlying belief systems? Or are identity conceptions at stake? Again, it was Einstein who said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” If we experience a dilemma that cannot be easily solved at one onion level, we have to go deeper into the onion. The impetus to go deeper is the feeling of being stuck in the dilemma. Finally, at the level of mission, we may ask ourselves how seemingly opposing values or missions can be combined or integrated if we step out of the illusion of a separated self.

The dilemmas.Dilemma 1: Teaching. The first case presents a teacher

educator, Christina, who in the course of conducting a self-study encountered a critical incident with a student that had a significant impact on her self-efficacy and identity as a caring teacher. Wanting to learn more from this troubling incident, but not having obtained prior permission from the student to include data from e-mails and course assignments, could she include information about this student in her self-study, even if it was presented confidentially? Using the ethical maxim of do no harm, it remains unclear to the researcher: Can she use

data that was collected from a student in the midst of her study without his consent, and if so, how much can she reveal from this incident in her findings? Is it ethical for her to talk about this student openly outside of the context?

Dilemma 2: Research. The second case features a self-study involving two teacher educators who obtained university ethics approval for their project and six primary teachers from two local schools. A key issue for them was the adherence to participant and school anonymity, and they allocated pseudonyms to all teacher participants. However, when presenting the final report to school staff at an open forum, teachers from the schools publicly self-identified when excerpts from their interviews and transcripts were shared. The data represented in the report was no longer anonymous, and all of the teachers and schools could be identified.

Dilemma 3: Leadership. The third case characterizes the dilemma of a dean who finds himself in a power relationship with his administrative superiors. The pervasive issue was the inability to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of some of his key informants. While he used pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality of the president and the provost at his university, it was clear that when reflecting on his practices as a dean, the identity of the university and its administrators was easily known. This led to some challenges when analyzing and interpreting data and developing a narrative that adheres to the principle of avoidance of harm.

AnalysisDilemma 1. One student, with his defiant words in

a string of angry e-mails, was having a negative impact on Christina’s self-efficacy and professorial identity. Christina used her growing frustration to frame a self-study in order to understand the effect of the student’s e-mail on her ability to function effectively. Christina found that many questions began to surface: Why did this incident bring up such debilitating tension? Why was the situation so challenging for her? She wanted to use the e-mail data in her study, but according to the framework of Ernst’s (2009) guidelines, Christina did not have (1) the student’s informed consent; (2) a permission to publish the e-mail as findings of the research; or (3) an intention to inform her student regarding her self-growth as a result of this incident (the principle of reciprocity).

Christina wanted to describe and explain the situation in writing with a deep sense of honesty and trustworthiness, but she felt limited if Ernst’s (2009) guidelines prevented her from using the actual data. If she decided to use an analogy or a case study, instead of the actual words in order to describe the situation, is it still ethical—does it not violate reciprocity, does it show respect for confidentiality and non-identifiability of participant, and does it do no harm to the participant? Christina also grappled with a belief that she was being attacked and reacted unconsciously to protect her sense of identity. Does she still hold a basic ethical duty to represent the student’s point of view or intention? Using core reflection theory (Korthagen, 2004), if Christina interprets the situation from her own perspective of the “beliefs” layer in the onion model as “assumptions about the outer world, which are often unconscious,” is it fair for the student to be negatively portrayed in her writing? She struggled with that. If the dilemma is truly “a delusion of consciousness,” not a reality, how do we operate ethically with our own potentially delusional assumptions? The more she considered core reflection, the clearer it became to Christina that her research was really not about the student—his reality, beliefs, or intentions—but about her own beliefs and assumptions.

Christina began to understand this dilemma was not a dilemma after all, but an encounter with a deeper awareness of the reality she created for herself. This insight was an unexpected outcome of using core reflection, and it absolved her of her earlier sense of obligation to represent the student’s point of view. She now felt she could use his e-mail as data, even without his informed consent or permission, because the research was not about him.

From a seeming irreconcilable conflict between herself and the student, she experienced the integration of those values into a “deeper” perspective on reality, and in this case, her own core quality of compassion. Concurrent with Korthagen and Verkuyl (2007), Christina realized that part of the dilemma she encountered in the outer world was nothing more than an encounter with an inner tension in herself caused by the lack of contact with her core qualities. Integrating her core qualities into her sense of self restored the alignment of her personal and professional identities and validated her use of this incident in her self-study.

Dilemma 2. After using Kosnik’s (2001) critical incident analysis to delineate excerpts from their collaborative journal, two teacher educators felt bound to explore the ethical dimension more fully using Ernst’s (2009) framework as their primary framework for analysis. He noted that ethics in educational research extends much further than commonly accepted criteria and the conventional adherence to ethical standards and enters into education research in four ways. We now discuss our critical incident analysis in light of these dimensions.

Informed consent of participants. While teacher participants initially agreed to anonymity, they did not adhere to this during our presentations. As researchers, we needed to have discussed with them, prior to our presentation, strategies for maintaining anonymity of all participants. But it also raised for us the possibility that anonymity may not have served the best interests of this research.

Publications and public conversation related to the findings of the research. Teachers may want to be publically acknowledged and able to contribute to public conversation about the outcomes of the research. This is less possible when anonymity is required by ethics guidelines.

The principle of reciprocity. This research enabled all participants to benefit through the creation of new knowledge and practices. However, for the teachers involved, the anonymity required may limit their benefit. For example, they may want to acknowledge and discuss their contribution to the research in job applications, and anonymity may prevent this.

Ethics as “first philosophy.” If the pursuit of knowledge is secondary to the ethical duty of the other, then as researchers, we need to ensure that the ethical conduct of the research that requires anonymity does not in fact limit the benefits to the participants.

Overall, while there had been initial agreement and consent regarding anonymity in this research, it became evident in the light of the findings that the participants wanted to be publically acknowledged. Further, Brandenburg and Gervasoni (2012) noted that a school principal also wanted teachers and school to be publically acknowledged, and that the school was missing an opportunity for promoting the school and teachers. The research outcomes were largely favorable and the results suggested that there had been successful outcomes for students, teachers, and researchers. However, how might we all have reacted if the results/outcomes had been less than favorable?

Dilemma 3. In conducting his self-studies, particularly over the past five years, Joe relied on a primary data collection

strategy of active participant observer from an emic (insider’s) perspective, similar to the work of a cultural anthropologist. Inherent in conducting this genre of qualitative, open-ended research is intimate knowledge about, and experiences with, participants in the environment being studied—in his case, the university’s administrative organization (e.g., the university President and Vice Presidents). Joe’s supervisor (Provost) during a three-year span provided him with many data collection opportunities. One of the key events that occurred during this time was an ugly series of events related to the fact that the Provost was having an extramarital affair with a faculty member. The Provost was the “keeper” of the policy related to consensual relationships in the workplace but refused to follow the policy that required him to report (in writing) the details of his relationship to his supervisor, the university President.

In his role as Dean, Joe informed the Provost that he was bound by the terms of the policy and required to report to the President. This event was the precursor to a year of retribution by the Provost who, during his final year as Provost, attempted to fire Joe. Joe captured many observations and conversations during this period, and they provided him with the data for his self-study. However, he was confronted with the ethical dilemma of how to write a narrative about his experiences and struggle to retain a sense of connectedness with his core qualities (Korthagen & Verkuyl, 2007) while being abused by his supervisor.

Eventually, Joe wrote about the roles of power and authority in higher education administration, but he found himself challenged by the fundamental ethical issues of avoidance of harm and protection of the confidentiality and anonymity of research “informants” (Ernst, 2009). This is particularly problematic in a university setting where the power of n=1 is obvious: there is only one President, one Provost, and one Dean of Education. Avoidance of harm in a system that is predicated on power relationships is virtually impossible. For the past decade or more, Joe’s “supervisor” approved his Castle Conference participation but never read anything that he wrote. However, this “ostrich” approach to ethical dilemmas (i.e., keep your head buried in the sand and hope that nothing happens) is far from satisfactory. It appeared to Joe that the only way to conduct self-study in this context was to focus on his daily routines, heavily focused on meetings or preparation for meetings. Joe concluded that there is no way to conduct this kind of self-study without facing the harsh realities of the ethical dilemmas facing qualitatively oriented self-study researchers and the urgent need for ethical guidelines clearer than the ones adopted by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in February 2011.

DiscussionIn all three dilemmas presented here, there seem to be

value conflicts between the researchers’ values (or perhaps even “mission”) of publishing and thus contributing to the body of knowledge of the community of practice versus the value (mission) of doing no harm to others (in particular, those whose confidentiality may be breached).

A basic principle of core reflection is that the layer of mission is a transpersonal level, which means that it refers to “the experience of being part of meaningful wholes and in harmony with superindividual units such as family, social group, culture and cosmos” (Boucouvalas, 1988). Here the individual personality is transcended. For the cases described above, this means that it is our limited mind, not reality, that confronts us with a dilemma, and that this may be a delusion

of consciousness. When confronted with a dilemma, our mind seems to tell us that there are only two options, whereas many more may be possible. In other words, we are faced with the challenge to develop a more encompassing view.

Hence, the question is, are these really dilemmas? Is it possible to follow the first value(s) or mission(s), while at the same time protecting the second? Perhaps it is possible with the realization that what we encounter in the outside world (e.g., a problem with a student) is often an encounter with an inner tension in ourselves, perhaps a lack of contact with deep and universal values or core qualities such as love, interconnectedness, freedom, and creativity. This is why the theory on core reflection emphasizes the importance of becoming aware of one’s own values and core qualities (called character strengths in psychology). For teacher educators, this reveals how important it is to help student teachers discover theirs and learn how to connect them in oneself.

Perhaps if the teacher educator or dean reframed the experienced tension in the outer world as a tension in herself or himself and realized that a variety of inner values or qualities could possibly be combined into one overall quality, the whole dilemma would vanish to a large degree. In other words, the educator may realize, as may those who reflect on this case, that the fundamental question is “Do I meet this student or myself?” (compare Korthagen & Verkuyl, 2007). Then we may realize that it is possible to learn professionally, also in interaction with others, and even publish about such cases, by keeping the focus more on oneself than on the other (e.g., student, primary teacher, or provost) and thus more on the “inside world” than on the “outside world.” This requires much courage, and probably much love, for both the other and oneself. His seems consistent with Merriam’s (1998) point that one’s conscience is ultimately the surest guideline to decisions in the murky realm of research ethics, but as our application of core reflection has revealed here, we may be more connected to our conscience when we can “meet ourselves” through the lens of our inner core.

In this paper, we expanded on our notion of “ethical praxis” (e.g., Brandenburg & Gervasoni, 2011) as a way of understanding and enacting our responsibilities as ethical researchers. We plan to engage Castle IX participants in the analysis of these three dilemmas using the two frameworks applied here. We will share our own interpretations of these same dilemmas and then invite participants to share a dilemma of their own in small groups. In doing so, we hope to deepen our collective understanding of ethical challenges confronting the self-study researcher. The data sets used in self-study must be carefully chosen in order to maintain the highest ethical standards and to ensure that it is the issue, not the players (with the exception of the author), that is the main focus of attention. While existing principles help, when encountering spontaneous dilemmas in self-studies, it must be possible to operationalize ethical integrity in practical settings and daily actions. We hope this paper and ensuing discussion will lead to further defining those principles of ethics germane to self-study research.

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ARLENE GRIERSON NICOLE TAYLORNipissing University McGill University

The Green Ukulele: The Complexities of Ethical Decision-Making During an International Practicum

Teaching is a moral activity (McDonough, 2010). Accordingly, teacher education should foster candidates’ abilities to make moral judgments and resolve ethical dilemmas (Johnson, 2008; McDonough, 2010). Yet the moral dispositions of candidates are often underexplored during teacher education (McDonough, 2010; Stooksberry, Schussler, & Bercaw, 2009).

This paper explores the moral/ethical decision-making of a teacher candidate during an international practicum. We illustrate the complexities of this process and how community allegiance affected perceptions of moral actions (Kang & Glassman, 2010). This self-study aims to reveal the importance of in-depth understandings of the rationale for teacher education policies, particularly those that involve our field-based partners (Falkenberg & Smits, 2010). These understandings may enhance candidates’ abilities to consider multiple perspectives as they respond to professional commitments.

We first provide an overview of the theoretical framework with attention to the complexities of moral/ethical decision-making (Johnson, 2008; Stooksberry et al., 2009). Following the methodology, we illustrate our findings through narrative excerpts detailing a critical incident that occurred during the practicum. Through relating our experiences to the literature, we document the value of reflective writing in fostering awareness of our moral dispositions (Schussler, Stooksberry, & Bercaw, 2010) and demonstrate how restructuring the incident through collaborative self-study enhanced our understandings of how moral actions are affected by perceptions of their impact on community (Kang & Glassman, 2010).

Theoretical Framework This study was conducted within the theoretical

framework of social constructivism, which is characterized by the existence of multiple truths rather than a single universal truth (Schwandt, 2000). Negotiating multiple truths is challenging for teacher educators, who must value candidates’ perspectives while also encouraging them to reconstruct their beliefs (Berry, 2007). Further complicating this process is the uncertain terrain of teaching, which requires candidates to learn to make ethical decisions while dealing with pedagogical complexity and being responsive to unpredictable situations (Loughran, 2006). In order to develop this responsiveness, teacher education should foster candidates’ dispositions in the intellectual, cultural, and moral domains (Stooksberry et al., 2010). “Succinctly defined, these domains encompass content and pedagogy, the cultural identities of teachers and students, and the values driving one’s moral reasoning” (Stooksberry et al., 2010, pp. 351–352). Teacher candidates’ moral dispositions are underexamined,

and they are often assumed to have advanced moral reasoning capabilities (McDonough, 2010; Stooksberry et al., 2009).

Kohlberg’s (1984) theory presents the development of moral reasoning as a progression through stages, with advanced moral reasoning occurring through a combination of personal experience and cognitive development. Kohlberg’s stages move from pre-conventional moral reasoning where behavior is controlled by external rewards or punishments to conventional reasoning, an intermediate stage where behavior standards are imposed by others (e.g., parents), and finally to conventional advanced reasoning, where morality is completely internalized rather than based on external standards. Once attained, according to Kohlberg’s theory, advanced moral reasoning takes on a stable quality that acts as a compass to guide human behavior.

In contrast to Kohlberg’s (1984) theory that moral behavior is guided by moral reasoning, Kang and Glassman (2010) hold that moral thought and moral action are related but different phenomena with, at times, competing goals. Drawing on Dewey’s (1938) concept of learning through experience, they illustrate how moral thought and moral action are distinctly different constructs that lead to situations where “what you do takes precedence over what you know about what should be done. Each problem must be understood in the context of its ethical implications and each ethical problem must be solved in its own right” (p. 22).

Central to moral action is community, which is presented as an effort to protect, add to, and move the community forward (Kang & Glassman, 2010). Moreover, Kang and Glassman (2010) asserted that individuals evaluate their moral actions on the basis of perceived impact on or consequence for the community, rather than on pre-activity moral thought. Teachers’ values therefore affect their moral actions. Yet these values are often tacit and unexamined during teacher education (Johnson, 2008; McDonough, 2010; Schussler et al., 2010).

Through analyzing open-ended reflective journals of 35 teacher candidates, Schussler et al. (2010) demonstrated that many candidates had limited awareness of their moral dispositions. Moreover, their study revealed that candidates with this awareness demonstrated a propensity to question their thoughts and actions, appeared to adopt multiple perspectives of ill-structured situations, and endeavored to balance the, at times, competing needs of stakeholders (e.g., teachers, students). In keeping with Loughran’s (2006) recommendation that teacher educators unpack their assumptions about teacher education through self-study, Schussler et al. (2010) recommended that teacher candidates be engaged in reflective experiences that uncover their tacit assumptions and foster awareness of their intellectual, cultural, and moral dispositions.

Methodology This collaborative self-study explores the experiences of

Nicole, a 24-year-old recent graduate of a teacher education program at a large Quebec university, and Arlene, a teacher educator at a small Ontario university. Nicole is Arlene’s daughter, and she took part in the Kenyan international practicum as a guest participant. Arlene was the co-facilitator of the three-week practicum. Their strong mother-daughter relationship provided the foundation of trust required for reflective examination of a critical incident that took place at the end of the practicum.

Coordinated through the Canadian NGO Free the Children (FTC), the practicum took place in the Maasai Mara region of rural Kenya, at a school with very few resources (e.g., no electricity or running water), built by and operated in association with this NGO. As outlined in the memorandum of understanding to guide this practicum, the university was responsible for adherence to all NGO policies.

Schools operated by FTC serve students from several different Kenyan tribes. In order to ensure resource equity, NGO policy is that absolutely no school supplies be given to teachers or students, unless the same materials are provided to all teachers or students in all ten of their schools. This policy was reiteratively explained to candidates during the practicum.

Through narrative inquiry we have explored our perspectives of ethical decision-making with respect to the critical incident. We have told, retold, examined, and re-examined our personal professional stories (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). First, we each used data we collected through personal journals to write a 1000-word narrative describing the incident. Next, we engaged in dialogue about one another’s narratives, posing questions for reflection and responding to one another. Through this collaborative self-study we reframed and restructured the incident (Loughran, 2007) and determined how others might be averted.

Findings Our findings illustrate how this collaborate self-study

enabled us to value and also reconstruct one another’s perspectives (Berry, 2007). Narrative excerpts are used to illustrate the critical incident, which was Nicole’s decision to give her ukulele to the Kenyan music teacher at the end of the practicum.

Excerpts from Nicole’s Narrative—August 2011I learned so much working at the Kenyan Primary School. I learned about the injustices in the world and the importance of education. I learned how much difference an organization such as Free the Children can make. I learned about gratitude, perseverance, and strength. I learned the meaning of true community living.Music has always been a big part of my life. As the trip to Kenya was approaching, I thought it would be neat to bring an instrument from here to show to the locals. The real magic of the ukulele was on the playground. Students of all ages would rush towards me as they saw me leaving the classroom with the green instrument hiding under my arm. I had to carry the ukulele high above my head with my arm outstretched, to avoid it being groped and possibly broken from all the curious hands…once sitting, more students drew near. I began to sing and play in the crowd of beautiful children, who sat or stood around me, in awe, eyes wide; students pushed and shoved to get as close as they could to the music.

One of my favourite memories of Kenya is sitting in the schoolyard singing “Old MacDonald” and “This Little Light of Mine” with the students, hearing their beautiful voices with their adorable accents trying to keep up with the words. What is ironic about me leaving my ukulele at the school is that throughout the trip I was very careful to not give so much as a crayon, sticker, bead, or pipe cleaner to the students and really frowned upon those student teachers who did “accidentally leave behind” materials…[After the farewell celebration], I knew it was against the rules, but my heart was racing; somehow I just knew that I had found a home for the green ukulele. I asked Peter if he would really use the ukulele. He said yes. I explained to him that it was against Free the Children policies to give it to him, but that I really wanted to leave it for him and the students to enjoy. Finally, I thrust the ukulele into his arms and said, “Please use this and enjoy it. But if anyone asks, I didn’t give it to you”…. my heart was racing with the adrenaline of knowing that I had done something I shouldn’t have. But a wide smile spread across my face and I knew that I had done what I needed to do. I still really don’t know what made me do it… Perhaps I wanted a part of me to live on in Kenya, something tangible that I could see if ever I returned. Perhaps I wanted the students and teachers to remember the girl who played the green ukulele in the schoolyard. Whatever my motives were, I felt good about my decision to leave it behind and sincerely hope that it is being used to inspire children through song and remind them of “the white people” who have visited their school. Excerpts from Arlene’s Narrative—August 2011Before Nicole’s arrival, the Kenyan students and many of their teachers had never seen a ukulele and they were enthralled with its joyous sounds. Each day Nicole played songs for the students during their recess breaks. She encouraged them to learn the words and sing along to traditional English language tunes like “If You’re Happy and You Know it” and “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” I was filled with pride as Nicole’s music captivated so many students each day. Nicole was like the pied piper as the students followed her and her green ukulele around the schoolyard. When we were almost back to the NGO camp, I noticed that Nicole did not have her ukulele. I was worried that she had forgotten it and asked about it. I was completely shocked at her response. It had not been forgotten. Rather, Nicole had given it to Peter, the school music teacher just before we left. My heart sank. How could this have happened and what should I do? Peter the music teacher would have left the school by now and we would not be back to deal with this issue. How would Peter react if the NGO facilitators went to the school later in the week and asked him for it? Indeed, should I tell the facilitators about this or could this damage our future relationships with the NGO? All teacher candidates had been repeatedly reminded during the practicum, of the importance of resource equity amongst all students, teachers, and schools operated by the NGO… There would be no doubt where the green ukulele came from and with the emphasis placed on music during school celebrations, it was sure to be used openly in the future. I understood why Nicole felt empathy for Peter but was simply dumbfounded that she did not ask about

leaving the ukulele. Nicole quietly defended her decision and asked that we not discuss this in front of the NGO facilitators. While she was concerned with the immediate situation, I was concerned with the larger political context and fragile relationship of working with the NGO. The teacher candidates from our university were in Kenya by invitation. If the NGO felt that we would not adhere to their policies of equitable treatment, which included leaving no gifts, our ability to return next year with teacher candidates may be questionable. Was leaving the ukulele worth this risk?Consistent with Kang and Glassman’s (2010) assertion,

community was central to Nicole’s moral action and Arlene’s perception that this was inappropriate. Nicole’s allegiance was to the Kenyan school, which she perceived as a model community that worked together to meet the needs of the group, rather than focusing on the needs of individuals. Conversely, Arlene’s allegiance was to the university community, the NGO, and their ability to collaboratively provide the practicum, which could be jeopardized by lack of adherence to NGO policies.

Excerpts from our Dialogue—September 2011 Arlene: What do you think is the true meaning of community living? Nicole: True community living is a classroom of 30 students sharing 4 red pens between them. Throwing them around the room, while they’re writing a test, so that everyone’s test can have neat red lines around their answers. True community living is sharing shoes for the track and field day. Students who I had never seen wear shoes before showed up that day with all sorts of running shoes, dress shoes, work shoes, etc. that had been borrowed from siblings and neighbours. I even saw one girl take off her shoes after her race to lend them to another girl who would be racing next. True community living is putting the needs of the collective group above the needs of the individual. Arlene: How does this relate to your decision to leave the ukulele in Kenya? What “collective group needs above the needs of the individual” was this decision intended to meet? Nicole: It was not intended to put group needs above the individual’s, but rather to put the Kenyan students’ needs above our (university and FTC) needs and responsibilities not to leave things behind.

Through reframing and restructuring the critical incident we realized that candidates were told about NGO policies, yet Arlene had not explored with them the perspective of the university community, particularly, the potential implications of not adhering to NGO policies. Arguably, this may have fostered a perception that the needs of the university community were of secondary importance to those of the Kenyan school community.

Nicole: It was not until reading your recount of the Green Ukulele that I considered the effects it could have on you, the university, Free the Children and all of those relationships that you have spent years trying to build…If I had truly understood your concerns about leaving it behind, I never would have left it. I may have still had the desire to, but I would have thought better of it. I think it needs to be better communicated …you should have the students brainstorm repercussions of them leaving items behind for the students, including ones as small as pipe-cleaners and stickers... I think that if the university is truly worried about their relationship with FTC and feel that leaving things behind could jeopardize

this relationship, the policy should be stressed at every [pre-departure] meeting and throughout the trip.

Conclusions and Implications This collaborative self-study illustrates the complexities

of simultaneously meeting the competing needs of two different communities (Kang & Glassman, 2010). Arguably, Nicole’s allegiance to the university community may have been stronger if she had been a student at the university rather than a guest participant. Nonetheless, Nicole’s awareness of the needs of the university community may have been enhanced if they had been explicitly addressed and actively explored with participating candidates prior to and throughout this practicum.

Undoubtedly, our tensions were heightened because of our mother-daughter relationship and the institutional demands within this international context. Nonetheless, our experiences highlight the importance of engaging teacher candidates in critically analyzing our policies, with particular attention to the needs of our educational partners, as doing so may enhance their abilities to respond to their field-based professional commitments (Falkenberg & Smits, 2010).

Consistent with researchers’ assertions (Loughran, 2006; Schussler et al., 2010), reflective writing enabled us to unpack our tacit assumptions, examine our values, and restructure and reframe the critical incident. Importantly, our experiences illustrate how teacher educators engaging in collaborative self-study with teacher candidates can support the professional growth of both participants.

Significantly, this self-study has altered our perceptions and our actions. Whereas Arlene has devoted attention to exploring the rationale for and potential implications of policies, Nicole has tried to assess the potentially conflicting needs of the communities within which she works. For instance, after restructuring the critical incident, she encountered an ethical dilemma while volunteering with an NGO in Peru. Instead of independently deciding to meet the needs of local community members for medical assistance, she considered the situational context (Schussler et al., 2010). More specifically, she acknowledged multiple perspectives, assessed the implications for all, and sought the advice of the NGO prior to taking action.

Immediately, I knew I would do everything I could to get her to a doctor, but unlike in Kenya, I took the time to reflect and think about any consequences my actions could cause. Instead of hastily telling the family I would take her to a doctor, I said that I would speak to PSF [the NGO] and see what could be done to help them. (Nicole, journal, October 15, 2011)In closing, we concur with Schussler et al.’s (2010)

assertion that “teacher educators interested in cultivating candidate dispositions should focus on candidates’ awareness of the self and their discernment of the situational context” (p. 351). Moreover, we hold that it would be fruitful to explore perceptions of and allegiance to community in future research investigating candidates’ moral dimensions, as our self-study supports Kang and Glassman’s (2010) assertion that the desire to protect and/or move community forward significantly affects candidates’ moral actions. We also hold that future collaborative self-study research examining the potentially diverse perspectives teacher educators and candidates have of a situational context would be beneficial.

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THOMAS A. GRIGGS DEBORAH L. TIDWELLUniversity of Northern Colorado University of Northern Iowa

Teaching Online to Affect Learner Change: On the Challenges of Teaching to Foster Multicultural Awareness

This self-study grew out of my work focusing on my experiences addressing multicultural teaching within a predominantly White, middle-class teacher education program. The conceptual distinction between working in and working for diversity reflects my understandings as I examined my language and practice within an online course designed to address teaching in a pluralistic society.

Context for the StudyI frequently teach sections of a graduate course in

multicultural education in a School of Teacher Education in a western American university. The students within my courses are predominantly female, White, and middle class with generally minimal diverse life experiences in their own education. Most of the students come from communities that have been fairly isolated and relatively devoid of experiences with diverse cultures, people of color, diverse ways of knowing, or diverse representations of language.

As a White, male educator working with this population of students, given these teaching responsibilities and the identities of both my students and myself, I see self-study as a means to better understand the dynamics within my teaching. Specifically, I am concerned with how to discuss diversity in a way that will be meaningful to my students and will impact their understanding of the significance of diversity in their professional lives.

There are many dilemmas (Berry, 2007) and tensions (Berry, 2007; Newman, 1998) teacher educators face associated with teaching about teaching, as well as in preparing their students to teach in diverse settings (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Howard, 2006). In addition are the tensions inherent in the examination of my own practice within teacher education to inform and enlighten my own understanding of my practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004). These tensions are heightened by certain factors related to the social and sociopolitical context (Nieto, 2000) within which such teacher preparation occurs.

My teaching and self-study research in this context have been greatly influenced by three distinct sources: (1) my readings and practice in mindfulness (Hanh, 1991; Ellsberg, 2001); (2) Howard’s (1999, 2006) stages of White identity development combined with my participation in a seminar at his REACH Center in 2000, in Seattle, Washington; and (3) my research into my own teaching and my ongoing self-reflection and experimentation over the last fifteen years as a teacher of multicultural education courses in teacher education programs.

As for the notion of mindfulness, I am largely referring to two conceptions of it. The first definition is ubiquitous throughout Thich Nhat Hanh’s vast body of work (as exemplified and reflected in Ellsberg, 2001), and

can be broadly defined as being present in the here and now or as being conscious of oneself and one’s surroundings, including social environments and interactions. It also implies consistently acting with compassion in these environments and interactions. This notion of mindfulness (as discussed, for example, in Hanh, 1991 and Ellsberg, 2001) has become instrumental in shaping my teaching, both in how it influences instructional choices I make in my diversity courses and how I use language. Mindfulness slows me down, causes me to pause, encourages me to reflect on the words I choose when I respond to my students, and forces me to think carefully about the language I use.

Another closely related conception of mindfulness has to do with being a mindful teacher (MacDonald & Shirley, 2009). The latter authors’ definition of mindfulness, while rooted in Hanh’s (1991) particular form and practice of engaged Buddhism, appears in the teacher education literature. These authors define mindful teaching as that “which is integrative, reflective, and deep,” as contrasted to “alienated teaching—which is coercive, privatized, and resented” (p. 29). According to MacDonald and Shirley (2009), mindful teaching is teaching “in which teachers struggle to attain congruence, integrity, and efficacy in their practice” (p. 4).

I also keep in mind Howard’s (2006) White identity orientations described as fundamentalist, integrationist, and transformationist. Fundamentalist orientation focuses on the literal aspects of race and Whiteness, with an assumption of supremacy in the idea of Whiteness. Thinking is “single-dimensional understanding of truth” which “in its less intentional and more unconscious form . . . may be characterized by denial and/or ignorance of Whiteness and White supremacy” (p. 103). This denial or ignorance is seen by Howard (1999, 2006) as a clear indicator of this orientation. Feelings are reflected through a strong commitment to defending the rightness of what they believe, often emerging as “colorblindness” (p. 105) and a denial of differences across groups of people. Fundamentalist orientation can be seen as either “overtly or covertly racist” (p. 105) in the way individuals interact in cross-cultural contexts.

By contrast to the fundamentalist White identity orientation, according to Howard (2006), integrationists are “willing to acknowledge the existence and legitimacy of diverse approaches to truth . . . . They acknowledge the historical reality of White dominance, but they usually fail to grasp the significance of its continuing effects in contemporary social institutions. Because their assessment of racial issues is only skin deep, they often underestimate the change that will be necessary to achieve real equity and social justice . . . they continue to distance themselves from racism at the personal and emotional levels” (p. 107).

Finally, Howard (2006) describes transformationists as “actively seeking to understand diverse points of view.

They know that the construction of truth is a dynamic process that is continually shifting in the context of diverse cultural perspectives. They are aware that the personal appropriation of truth is merely one of many possibilities, not the only one . . . Transformationist Whites challenge the legitimacy of White dominance” (p. 110).

It is not that all White people or White educators will necessarily progress through each of these orientations in a stepwise fashion, but each orientation describes a way that individuals may think, feel, act, and relate to change with respect to diversity. Howard suggests that, in order to be an effective multicultural educator, the goal is to become a transformationist.

As a result of my own research, I had become aware of how my Whiteness was both figuratively and literally in my face, in that came face to face with the idea that my Whiteness was an issue in my teaching. Howard’s (1999) description of how he came to know about diversity from a White life experience, and how he theorized it, became an additional lens in which to examine my teacher education practice.

My study of my high school teaching experience (Griggs, 1996) and Howard’s (1999) discussion of this coming to know—which he refers to as stages of “White identity development” (p. 87)—better enabled me to broach diversity issues with my own teacher education students. Howard’s research in multicultural education has helped me more clearly define my thinking about teaching and multicultural knowledge. His research and writings about diversity and education reflect and capture well my own experiences during my first year of teaching high school, where my students were approximately 95% “of Mexican origin” (Griggs, 1996).

It was the combination of my own mindfulness of the context in which I was teaching teachers (as described above) and Howard’s (2006) taxonomy of “White identity orientations” (p. 104) as described in a later edition of the same work, in which he named defensiveness, denial, and hostility as being among White people’s initial responses to learning to accept diversity and teach in multicultural environments, that has motivated me to engage in this self-study of my teaching in the context described.

This combination of influences and sources stated above has also provided the frame for my thinking about my students’ reactions to my teaching in this course and for approaching critical conversations on diversity and Whiteness with my students.

Data Sources The data for this self-study included three key sources:

(a) anonymously posted student responses to questions that appeared in an online discussion board; (b) my own instructor responses to student postings; and (c) my own reflections about the content and meaning found in both my students’ and my own responses. Discussion data were transcriptions as documented online, and were coded as “student” or “Dr. G” to distinguish the source of responses. The reflective journal entries were labeled by date of entry and presented in paragraph format.

Method of AnalysisThe initial data analysis was conducted with a focus on

the global overall meaning within the texts (from responses, reflections, and course activities and assignments), with particular attention to language connecting practice to issues of multiculturalism and teaching in multicultural contexts. To understand the context for this analysis, it is important

to understand the process by which I responded to students. Student responses (to prompts provided by me in relation to the chapters being studied) were read, and as I formulated my response to them—through a mindful awareness of White identity development—my intentional goal was to create text that would encourage them to think about their own thinking and move them toward a transformationist identity. This involved a process of thinking about what I would say through what I termed as mindful reflection. I would provide additional prompts to encourage their thinking, with the intention of inviting them to consider my transformationist perspective rather than insisting on it. Inherent in this process was my intent to create a safe environment in which my students could respond. My reflections took place during and after my weekly online engagement with my students. To analyze the texts, I read through my students responses from postings early, mid-, and late course. I also read through my instructor responses dated during the times of the students’ postings. I focused on the language being used by my students and my choice of language in response. I noted key words and phrases and my selection of which passages from the students to take up and respond to and which I did not choose to respond to. These key words and phrases emerged as I taught and examined text. The key words and phrases were then used for further response to address instructional objectives in pursuing transformationist identity orientation among my students. As the course progressed, my criteria for doing this were the identity orientations discussed by Howard, comparisons and parallels between these and my own framing of the process of becoming a multicultural educator, and orientations of my students.

In this study, I address trustworthiness (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2000) by working with a fellow self-study researcher (a teacher educator from another institution within another state) to analyze the data for global themes. For this initial analysis process, we are borrowing from narrative inquiry analysis of stories (Chiu-Ching & Chan, 2009; LaBoskey & Cline, 2000) in conjunction with a constant comparative approach (Dye, Schatz, Rosenberg, & Coleman, 2000). The narratives of the students were seen as inservice teachers’ stories and their experiences within diverse settings. From their narratives provided online, I examine the larger themes within their language to provide mindful responses intended to support their understanding. It is through these exchanges of these narratives that I encourage the reframing of their stories in light of course concepts. While these stories are useful and helpful in providing the context for my students’ understandings, the limitations of teacher narrative as described by LaBoskey and Cline (2000) are overcome by the exchange between myself and my students in grappling together with course concepts that are potentially the most charged for them. Constant comparative analysis was used to examine the language within our exchanges to determine larger themes.

ResultsTwo large themes emerge from this initial analysis of the

data: 1) the way I use e-mail communication to affect student understanding of course content and concepts and 2) the way I use written language (especially question, word, phrasing, and even sentence/passage structural choices) to create the affective environment I view as essential to the multicultural education classes I teach. While there is not room in this paper to expand on both themes, I will provide an overview of both themes and go into more detail on the second theme on written

language creating a safe environment in which my students can respond.

The first theme highlights my use of e-mail to affect student learning of major concepts being addressed in the course. As a teacher I felt constrained by e-mail as the usual face-to-face feedback of body language and immediate response was missing. However, I figured out ways to circumvent the limitations of electronic communication by looking very closely at how I used language as the source for making meaning. My goal was to help these students understand the issues and dynamics of White identity orientation which led to an intentional effort on my part to focus on specific content being addressed in their language and subsequently mine and to carefully craft my response so that my language did not evoke defensiveness or resistance on their part. This focus on the crafting of my e-mail responses led to the second theme, using written language to create a safe environment to learn. Using the notion of mindfulness (Hanh, 2001) and Howard’s (1999, 2006) White identify orientations, my language was thoughtfully crafted to respond to student discussion board postings. What emerged within this theme were specific ways that I couched my phrases, provided vocabulary, and suggested alternative framings for dilemmas which students were or might be facing in diverse teaching contexts. During the early part of the semester, the first prompt to students was as follows: “What resistances/defensiveness does this reading assignment raise in you? What ‘huge nods’ of agreement? Why? How do you think you might most productively handle these reactions?” (Week 4, fall Semester, 2011).

Student: I am very hesitant to use the term racism or discrimination in relation to situations I have seen at other schools. As I have previously stated I believe there is a difference between racism/discrimination and a lack of understanding of multicultural education. I previously taught at a school with a very high Native American population. I thought the education we provided to those students was doing them a large disservice because we were not open-minded enough in curriculum planning when considering their culture and race. The district was behind on AYP and I believe that multicultural education was primarily ignored as a result of a panic to meet AYP goals in order to save already diminishing district funding. The district could have probably performed much better had we paid better attention to multicultural education which I guess is easier said than done sometimes.Dr. G: If I’m understanding you correctly here, I agree it’s hard to label some of the things you see happening in schools and in the larger society in which we live as “racism” and “discrimination.” I think this is largely because one result of the Civil Rights Movement—although arguably unintended—is that talking about racism and discrimination has become largely taboo, because there is some tacit agreement among most people that these are bad things, And, of course, very few folks want to be seen as bad or as doing the wrong thing, even if these people are ethnocentric in the extreme, do believe in racial superiority of one group over another, and/or judge people and treat them differently because of the color of their skin (or their gender, or their socioeconomic status). This is almost as true for perpetrators as it is for victims of discrimination and racism.The way I have dealt with this is to label things/

behaviors that are racist or discriminatory in their effects as such, rather than focus on the perpetrators of the behaviors, or the sources of the things. (Week 4, fall Semester, 2011)In this response, I used language that problematized the

behavior rather than the individuals responsible for it and used language that directed students’ attention to my thinking rather than what they should be thinking. I used phrases that couched my response as alternative ways to view situations that opened more constructive responses for them. Stating “I think,” “If I’m understanding you correctly,” and “The way I have dealt with this” avoided a directive approach to learning about the content and provided students the space to think about the content.

Student responses to my prompts and probes suggested that this approach reduced the likelihood of students’ defensiveness and resistance. Midway through the course, students’ responses reflected a more open tone and some adoption of language that suggested reframing of their thinking. The prompt for the eighth week of class was “1) Do you think Nieto & Bode’s description of the current status of linguistic diversity in U. S. classrooms is fairly accurate, in general, or not? What is your response based on, especially within the context of the schools you know and/or work in?”

Student: Language diversity started to seep into the territory of the United States in 1770. Nieto & Bode said that language diversity in the United States is a phenomenon of the past. By the period of European colonization, the territory of the United States had never been a landscape of mono-lingualism. Records suggest that an estimated 250 to 1,000 indigenous languages were spoken in the 15th century…. With this combination of those population groups, the United States was considered the “cornucopia of diverse languages and cultures.” It should be common understanding that with a history like this, and it only being a few hundred years in the making, we still have very diverse language groups walking into our classrooms. If this is, or at least should be fairly common sense, the question is still; why has our education system not yet adapted to this? …Dr. G: I believe that we might find the overall consensus to this topic to be that we are not reaching every student equally because of an obvious language barrier. After reading the text there seems to be a lot of pro’s and con’s to all of the different styles of multilingual education. Most of us became teachers because we wanted to do something great and in order to achieve greatness in our students we have to figure out how to teach them all. That might mean learning Spanish for some of us, or maybe translating vocabulary words to Korean, or urging the district to implement a different style of multilingual education, or any number of other things. It is clear though, that education is not equal and it is up to us to make the changes!! (Week 8, fall semester, 2011)

ConclusionsAs I have found repeatedly in my experiences as a

multicultural educator of teachers, and as Howard (2006) suggests, there is a decidedly visceral dimension to teaching and learning to teach for diversity. Howard asserts that “the luxury of ignorance reinforces and perpetuates White isolation [and therefore privilege] . . . Whether we deepen in our awareness and continue to grow through such experiences, or merely shrink back into the safety of isolation, is determined

by our reaction to the inevitable fear of stepping outside the boundary of ignorance” (p. 15).

Howard (2006) holds as the multicultural educator ideal the “transformationist teacher,” who knows “that educational equity and school reform, in large part, depend on White educators’ willingness to engage in the process of our own personal and professional growth” (p. 123). As Nieto and Bode (2012) state, prejudices—which they define as “attitudes and beliefs about entire groups of people”… “alone are not as harmful as the behaviors, policies and practices that result from [them]” (p. 63).

I see and believe in the truth of Howard’s (2006) assertion, and make the connection, as all these authors do, between attitudes, personal and professional development, and the harmful behaviors Nieto and Bode (2012) allude to. I started my efforts by asking my students to explore, take stock of, and reflect upon their personal and professional attitudes towards students who come from diverse backgrounds and ethnic, linguistic, or racial groups.

We have barely begun to scratch the surface with regard to the analysis of data. However, this initial analysis of data reveals the power of theoretically grounding online practice in mindfulness (Hanh, 2000) and intentional consideration of language as a tool to facilitate creating that affective space for learning that is often void in an online setting. In addition, grounding practice in specific conceptual frames, such as Howard’s (1999, 2006) White identify orientation, provided both a means of addressing students’ ways of knowing and a frame for me to pursue course objectives in learning to teach in diverse contexts.

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Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2004). Practitioner inquiry, knowledge, and university culture. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. Laboskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 601–649). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Dye, J. F., Schatz, I. M., Rosenberg, B. A., & Coleman, S. T. (2000). Constant comparative methods: A kaleidoscope of data. The Qualitative Report, 4(1/2). Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR4-1/dye.html

Ellsberg, R. (Ed.). (2001). Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Griggs, T. A. (1996). Acknowledging identity in teaching and learning: Reflections on my journey, through acting to teaching and beyond (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (2000). On the threshold of a new century: Trustworthiness, integrity, and self-study in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 234–240.

Hanh, T. N. (1991). Peace is every step: The path of mindfulness in everyday life. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.

Howard, G. (1999). We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers, multiracial classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Howard, G. (2006). We can’t teach what we don’t know: White teachers, multiracial schools (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

LaBoskey, V. K., & Cline, S. (2000). Behind the mirror: Inquiry-based storying in teacher education. Reflective Practice, 1(3), 359–375.

MacDonald, E., & Shirley, D. (2009). The mindful teacher. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Newman, J. (1998). Tensions of teaching: Beyond tips to critical reflection. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Nieto, S. (1992). Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. New York, NY: Longman.

HAFDÍS GUÐJÓNSDÓTTIR & SVANBORG RANNVEIG JÓNSDÓTTIRUniversity of Iceland

Preparing Teachers to Teach a Diverse Group of Learners in a Changing World

Studying in a Changing WorldIn recent decades, the impact of technical, social, and

cultural change has raised new challenges to education in Iceland and throughout the world. In particular, international migration and increased emphasis on inclusive education have raised awareness of diversity in student groups and the expectations and hopes of families and communities (Guðjónsdóttir & Karlsdóttir, 2009). International research reports new questions about language, culture, religion, and pedagogy and changes in both teachers’ work and teaching environments. Despite local variations, common factors can be seen across many countries: teachers are commonly expected to show sensitivity to culture and gender, promote tolerance and social cohesion, respond effectively to students with learning or behavioral difficulties, use new technologies, and keep pace with rapidly developing fields of knowledge and approaches to student assessment (Day & Gu, 2010; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2005). Inclusive education and innovative approaches are pathways recommended to open opportunities for students and their teachers to be creative and empowered as active participants in their lives and communities (Guðjónsdóttir, 2000; Jónsdóttir, 2011).

Teachers are potentially at the forefront of the innovative education practices and school changes required for inclusive schooling. They are expected to take a key role in preparing pupils to take their place in society and the world of work. To effectively respond to these challenges, teachers need to both develop the knowledge and skills essential to responsive pedagogies and demonstrate confidence in their professional role and ability (Carroll, Forlin, & Jobling, 2003). The focus on teaching strategies and educative assessment is known to work well for diverse groups of students and for adapting teaching and learning to students with special needs. In addition, teacher educators (self-study researchers) and teacher learners will support their practice and inquiry with “Professional Working Theory,” a well-researched scaffold that enables teachers and teacher educators to situate their personal/professional practice, theory and ethics in local, district, and national/international dimensions (Dalmau & Guðjónsdóttir, 2002; Sowa & Schmidt, 2008).

As teacher educators, our response to these changes and opportunities is threefold: 1) we developed a graduate course in “Inclusive Education” that focused on changes in education, schools, and teachers’ work and support for teachers to prepare their work with diverse groups of students through innovative and inclusive practices; 2) we introduced a collaborative self-study research project that enabled us to continuously study, review, analyze, interpret, and adapt our study research practice; and 3) we will report in this paper the knowledge and understanding that emerged through this study and the self-study methodology and methods that guided our work.

Diversity, participation and creative capacities. The conceptualization and practice of inclusion has moved far beyond a process of overcoming deficit and articulation of concerns related to gender, ethnicity, class, social conditions, health, and human rights regarding universal involvement, access, participation, and achievement (Ouane, 2008). Iceland supports a move towards inclusive practices built on the key principles first articulated in the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994). The Iceland Educational Act (2008) and the National Curriculum (2011) confirm that Icelandic policies build on theories of inclusive practices as defined by UNESCO (2008): “Inclusive education is an ongoing process aimed at offering quality education for all while respecting diversity and the different needs and abilities, characteristics and learning expectations of the students and communities, eliminating all forms of discrimination” (p. 3). Regular schools (play-school, comprehensive school, and secondary- school) with inclusive orientation are thought to be most effective for creating welcoming communities and achieving education for all. Inclusive schools develop responsive practices that differentiate instruction for all learners. The attitudes towards diversity are supportive and welcoming.

Introducing innovation education. In 1999 a new curricular area, “Innovation Education,” was introduced in the official curriculum for Icelandic compulsory schools (Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture, 1999). Innovation Education is about applying creativity and knowledge to meet needs or solve problems that learners identify and are important to them. In Innovation Education, learners invent objects and processes to improve social life. The aims of Innovation Education are to help persons develop a capacity of action and to develop critical and creative thinking through dealing with real life issues (Jónsdóttir & Macdonald, 2011).

We introduced Innovation Education into the course as a creative approach that encouraged an inventive way to deal with difficulties and issues in living in the modern world and in particular in being a teacher student and becoming a responsive teacher.

The role of the teacher in Innovation Education differs from the traditional instructive role based on the transmission of knowledge to relatively passive receivers (Jónsdóttir & Macdonald, 2011. The learners are considered the experts in their own ideas and the teacher is to guide and support. Innovation Education requires “weak framing” by teachers (Bernstein, 2000). The classification of roles of learners and teachers are often weak and the boundaries between students and teachers blurred (Jónsdóttir, 2011).

Collaborative Self-Study Methodology The purpose of this inquiry was to study how we as

teacher educators develop, sustain, and continuously adjust a

course that focuses on the changes in education, schools, and teachers’ work. We explore how we carried out our work and how we developed a course that responded to the participants. Furthermore, we wanted to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to respond to diverse learners and uncover how and if our approaches were appropriate for meeting different needs and situations of the learners.

These characteristics of research design guided our study:

1. The trustworthiness derives from ontology rather than epistemology. 2. The study is empirically grounded in a dialogue and studies of our personal practice, especially the space between our self and others in the practice.3. Our personal and professional practice is in focus.

We sought answers to what kind of influence the framing and the approach of the course had on students’ participation, attitudes, and work. Self-study methodology that builds on the notion of action-reflection-learning-action guided our inquiry (Bodone, Guðjónsdóttir, & Dalmau, 2004). However, we did not only reflect on our practice but in doing so we generated questions about our teaching, our collaboration, and our relationship with students (Korthagen & Kessels, 1999). By focusing on our teaching, our students’ learning, and conceptualizing our teaching, our understanding of the affordances of the course began to emerge. Just because self-study was appealing to us, we are not suggesting that the nature of self-study work was simply accepted without questions and critique. Our intention was to examine what we were doing, how, and why, in order to further understand our practice and to foster our development in becoming critical and responsive at the same time. We wanted to assure that the students got quality education that was useful in practice and empowered them as professionals.

Participants are two experienced teacher educators and a group of 21 students, both experienced and newly graduated pre-school and elementary teachers, working towards their master’s degree in education. The graduate course is alternative and takes 13 weeks with five intensive days on campus and communication on the web.

Sources of data included minutes of meetings and professional dialogues, data from classes and documentation by students and faculty on Blackboard, course and session outlines, notes, handouts, assessment criteria, and a recording from a focus group meeting. From the beginning of the term we discussed and reflected on the teaching and learning, forming a continuous data analysis and leading to critical reflection on course development and the response of students to the learning opportunities we designed. As these discussions proceeded they became professional critical reflections with the emergence of interplay between practice and theory. We gradually realized that the juxtaposition of innovation and inclusive education formed a feasible approach to understand and respond to students’ needs: the school for all.

As analysis developed, we applied Bernstein’s concepts of framing, classification, recognition, and realization rules to understand and interpret the data. Innovation and creativity assumed high importance as we explored and uncovered how to meet students’ learning needs and intentions. In doing so we looked to Bernstein’s theories.

Framing refers in pedagogy to the degree of control of selection, pacing, and sequencing of knowledge in lessons. Strong framing refers to strong teacher control, and weak framing implies more freedom for learners (Sadovnik, 2001).

Classification is used to define the construction of a social space, for example, school subjects, or by roles, such as

teachers vs. students, or home and school (Bernstein, 2000). Categories can have either strong classifications (specialized discourses) or weak classifications (less specialized discourses), but classifications, strong or weak, always carry power relations.

To function effectively within a particular cultural group, an individual needs to possess both the recognition and realization rules of that community (Chien & Wallace, 2004). The recognition rules are what the acquirer (usually the learner) understands to be important or correct in a given context. The recognition rules include the necessary understanding of “the rules of the game”: to understand what is expected and what form of displaying knowledge is accepted.

Building a Community of Inclusive and Innovative Learners

I (Hafdís) have taught at the university now for more than a decade and used self-study methodology as a scaffolding to become a teacher of teachers. The first course I created 12 years ago, Working and Developing Inclusive Practices, as a part of special education was last year moved to the department of general education as Working in Inclusive Practices. I felt this was a turning point. I knew my former course had been successful, but at the same time I saw the need for change. In addition, after working mostly by myself, I wanted to collaborate with colleagues. I looked for someone to discuss, share, reflect, and to develop the course so it would better meet the needs of the student teachers and teacher learners. One day as I fetched my coffee I discussed this with a colleague, Svanborg, who sounded open to the challenge and willing to collaborate with me and team-teach the course.

I (Svanborg) was starting out as a university teacher and welcomed the opportunity to work with Hafdís. In the first weeks I was concerned about the stability and structure of the course. I wrote in my journal,

I’m a bit worried about this course. I am not sure we can meet to the different needs of this versatile group. I also think Hafdís is perhaps too willing to find ways to allow the students to deliver the tasks later than demanded and to finish the assignments in different order. The concepts of Bernstein are coming to me when I think about this, I think this course has weak framing especially with weakening the framing of pacing.

As the course progressed I became more relaxed.I am very happy with how this course is progressing. I can totally see how secure Hafdís is and so whole in her belief in the pedagogy “school for all” and I can see that she gets this strength from her experience of practice in compulsory school teaching and university teaching and she also has a very solid academic anchor/foundation. I don’t think I have to worry, I can depend on her and I think she is a kind of the courses safety net that can catch any “falls” whether I fall or the learners.

It was the second intensive day, and Svanborg was in charge of the teaching and I (Hafdís) was more the team-teacher and an observer. Svanborg gave the students their tasks, and this was the first one:

I want you to try and identify needs: Look around, look outside, think about yesterday, your child’s school, playschool, your street, your environment, your house. Find something you want to be different, better, easier or more fun. Write it [down] on your paper, one or more need that you have identified.

The students began jotting down what came to their minds, and then they shared it and discussed what they had come up with. Svanborg continued and asked them to do another short exercise:

Work together two or three. Talk about anything you think should be different or better, in communication, in your environment either inside or outside, difficult tasks, at work, at home, on your way to work … and so on. Write down your considerations/needs on post-it notes and put them on the flip chart.

I (Hafdís) reflected on this incident: Wow! Oh, we should have started the course on this assignment. This task is symbolic for how a responsive teacher of a diverse group of students would approach her teaching! I wish I had realized this before but I guess we began teaching the course without me really getting to know what Innovation Education stands for or how the teachers approach their work with their students. However, by beginning with brainstorming around a topic that needs [a] solution we would begin as a teacher that needs to respond to her students.As we developed the course, our intensions became

more and more focused on diversity in all respects, constantly reminding ourselves that “Diversity means different races, different interest groups, different power bases and basically different lots in life” (Fullan, 1999, p. 2). We therefore offered different options of tasks, readings, and presentations and also different inputs from experienced teachers who had tried out specific methods of teaching with good results. We wanted to offer them a versatile “buffet of courses” to taste from at the same time as they were developing and strengthening their professional working theory. With this we wanted to offer them increasing responsibility to forge their own path in their studies and becoming responsive and creative both as teachers and as students.

Learners’ journey. Students had to respond to the content and make their choices of additional readings. In addition, they were required to integrate the course content to their experience and introduce their conclusions as discussions or assignments.

When I started the graduate studies I had been teaching for several years and was quite burned out... The form of the course suited me very well and the freedom we had.

Many of the assignments required the students to design solutions to the various problems that they as teachers face in their everyday practice. Thus instead of giving them the “correct” answers, we designed opportunities and sources that they could explore to construct their knowledge. In this way we weakened the traditional classification of teachers and students so that students could form their own learning trajectories.

I also liked doing the tasks, they were different from the ones we are used to... I have been in an intense search since autumn to find something that would fulfill my study needs. …in this course I developed learner autonomy and accepted being responsible for my learning process.

Different forms of acquiring knowledge about teaching and learning were offered: reading, watching YouTube clips of lessons, film about teaching in a multicultural classroom, reading research articles, and a choice of a wide range of books.

I also experienced considerable insecurity at first. I was a bit lost to begin with, I was just so insecure in what to do. When I began to realize what I could do I was very happy with the independence we were offered and loved

to be able to choose the issues I had a burning interest in—that was the advantage of this course.

This citation reflects a notion that we became aware of with many of the students. Their existing recognition rules did not recognize this kind of approach, and they seemed insecure when they did not get direct feedback and control.

The teachers (we) suggested the forms of delivering projects and assignments, but the choice of content and details were left for students to decide (weak framing of selection). This can be seen as mixed framing, where some of the choices were made by the teachers and other choices were left to the students. The demand to be active in lessons was received with more enthusiasm by the experienced teachers than the younger learners:

I liked the second session very much as we the students were very active, working with what was introduced. It offered me an inspiration about methods of learning how to read and write. But I heard from the younger students that it didn’t give them the same gratification.

These experienced teachers/students had both recognition rules to understand what was expected of them and realization rules that helped them to actualize what was expected and accepted.

Initial findings show that students felt insecure as the weak classification and framing in the course outline allowed considerable flexibility and required learner autonomy. The weak framing with flexible pacing of delivering projects and micro choice of content also allowed us to meet different learning needs. As the students gradually gained recognition rules for the main underpinnings and thinking of the course, they also acquired the necessary realization rules and showed independence in creating, reflecting on, and responding to the demands of diverse classrooms.

Classification of knowledge was mainly weak in the course as we created an outline for the course that included main concepts and areas of knowledge about learning and teaching in inclusive classrooms. A certain part of the content was obligatory, chosen by the teachers (strong framing), but required the students to be actively engaged on their own premise (weak framing).

ConclusionSo, what have we learnt that is significant and valuable

not just for us and those engaged in our practice but that can deepen and extend the research conversation in teacher education?

Inclusive Schools develop responsive practices that differentiate instruction for all learners, whereas Innovation Education is about applying creativity and knowledge to meet needs or solve problems that learners identify. As we explored we realized that the affordances of both theories integrated naturally because both build on participation and achievement. These approaches work well together because they build on developing a capacity of action and critical and creative thinking through dealing with real life issues. As we analysed our data further we saw how they strengthen each other and give endless opportunities for teaching and learning.

Different forms of the assignments, the demands to design solutions to the various problems, and being independent in their learning were a challenge to some of our students. The experienced teachers had the recognition and the realization rules and were therefore more open to explore, take charge, and use the opportunity to study according to their interest. The less-experienced teachers or new graduates were insecure and asked for more structure and guidance. To take action on these findings, we have to explore ways of

scaffolding our students while also keeping the open structure and responding to the diversity of the teacher learners.

Our intention was to “practice what we preach” and to respond to the diverse needs and experience of our students by offering different tasks, various readings, and multiform projects. Thus, we made sure that both the course content and our teaching reflected inclusive and innovative practices. We didn’t only want to tell the teacher learners to be open to diversity, but to offer them an experience of a course that is an example in many different ways of how to do this.

References Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity

(2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Bodone, F., Guðjónsdóttir, H., & Dalmau, M. C. (2004).

Revisioning and recreating practice: Collaboration in self-study. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 743–784). Dordrect, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Carroll, A., Forlin, C., and Jobling, A. (2003). The impact of teacher training in special education on the attitudes of Australian pre-service general educators towards people with disabilities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 30(3), 65–79.

Chien, R., & Wallace, J. (2004). The use of Bernstein’s framework in mapping school culture and the resultant development of the curriculum. Paper presented at the 2004 AARE Conference, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.aare.edu.au/04pap/chi04732.pdf

Dalmau, M. C., & Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2002). Framing professional discourse with teachers: Professional working theory. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study (pp. 102–129). London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeFalmer.

Day, C., & Gu, Q. (2010). The new lives of teachers. London: Routledge.

Fullan, M. (1999). Change forces: The sequel. Philadelphia, PA: Falmer Press.

Guðjónsdóttir, H. (2000). Responsive professional practice: Teachers analyze the theoretical and ethical dimensions of their work in diverse classrooms (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

Guðjónsdóttir, H., & Karlsdóttir, J. (2009) Látum þúsund blóm blómstra. Stefnumörkun um skóla án aðgreiningar [“Let a thousand flowers bloom” Policy of inclusive education]. Uppeldi og menntun, 18(1), 61–77.

Jónsdóttir, S. R. (2011). The location of innovation education in Icelandic compulsory schools (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Jónsdóttir, S. R., & Macdonald, A. (2011). Recontextualisation of innovation into education Þjóðarspegill, 12, 559–568. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1946/10261

Korthagen, F.A. J., & Kessels, J. P. A. M. (1999). Linking theory and practice: Changing the pedagogy of teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(4), 4–17.

Lög um grunnskóla nr. 91/2008. [The Iceland Educational Act].

Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. (2011). Aðalnámskrá. [National Curriculum].

Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. (1999). Aðalnámskrá grunnskóla-Upplýsinga- og tæknimennt [National curriculum guidelines for the compulsory school—Information and technology education]. Reykjavík, Iceland: Author.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2005). Teachers matter: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/document/52/0,3746,en_2649_39263231_34991988_1_1_1_1,00.html

Ouane, A. (2008, November). Creating education systems which offer opportunities for lifelong learning. Paper presented at the UNESCO International Conference on Education, Geneva, Switzerland.

Sadovnik, A. R. (2001). Basil Bernstein (1924–2000). Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 31(4), 687–703.

Sowa, P., & Schmidt, C. (2008). The professional working theory: A self-study of scaffolding reflective practice. Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning, 3(1), 57–71.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2008). Inclusive education. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/inclusive-education/

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (1994). The Salamanca statement and framework for action on special needs education. Salamanca, Spain: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

TODD S. HAWLEY ANDREW L. HOSTETLER ALICIA R. CROWEKent State University Vanderbilt University Kent State University

YVONNE SMITH KELLY LADDKent State University Louisville High School

Promoting Purposeful Practice Through Collaborative Self-Study of Practice

In this paper we discuss insights and findings from a collaborative self-study of practice group. Composed of teacher educators, a nursing professor, a doctoral student, and a public school teacher, we focused on exploring together how our developing rationales and principles of practice influenced our work as teachers and teacher educators. We met regularly for one semester and continued to work together over a five-month period. Ultimately, we focused our discussion here on ways our self-study of practice collective enabled us to become more intentional and focused about our developing rationales and principles of practice and also provided space for reflection and discovery and for the new members to explore self-study of practice research.

Framing Our Work As organizers of our self-study of practice collaborative,

Todd, Andrew, and Alicia, who are experienced self-study researchers, recognized collaboration as a central feature of self-study research (Bodone, Guðjónsdóttir, & Dalmau, 2007; Kitchen & Parker, 2009; Lighthall, 2007). Previously, Todd, Andrew, and Alicia worked together in a self-study of practice collective focused on enhancing learning within graduate school for experienced social studies teachers (Hawley et al., 2010). This experience was beneficial in that “the collective acted as a place to support and push members in the planning and implementation of their studies from inception to public presentation of findings” (p. 177). Drawing on this experience we hoped to create a similar situation within our new project.

The questions that guided this effort were discussed at the beginning of the collaboration and developed throughout the experience were 1) how are we, as practitioners, understanding our own (previously written and considered to be in development) rationales for teaching? and 2) in what ways are our previously written rationales for teaching related to our current practice?

In terms of our goal of exploring the enactment of our developing rationales and principles of practice, we situated our work in two related fields of research on teaching. The first focused on the influence of teachers’ previously held beliefs about their classroom practices (see Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996). This work is helpful because of its emphasis on the need for teachers and teacher educators to explore the influence of their unarticulated beliefs about teaching and learning. Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning are thought to have an influence on practice, but little is known about the specific ways in which teachers’ beliefs, articulated or not (Clark, 1988), are directly related to teaching or learning in the classroom (Pajares, 1992). Although our beliefs about teaching, as practitioners, were undoubtedly related in some ways to our teaching practice, we sought a way to make the connection more explicit.

All members of the collective had, in some way, articulated their beliefs into rationales or principles of practice and hoped to develop those rationales and principles through a process of refinement that purposefully and explicitly explored their connection to teaching in the classroom. Therefore, we also situated our work within the literature on rationale development and enactment (see Dinkelman, 2009; Hawley et al., 2010; Shaver, 1977) and the enactment of principles of practice (Crowe & Berry, 2007; Berry & Crowe, 2009). As a group, we found the research on enacting rationales and principles of practice to position practitioners’ notions of teaching to be more rationalized and refined than did the work on beliefs. Beliefs, if unarticulated, need not be the result of a rationalization or refinement of ideas and thoughts. However, articulating those beliefs potentially subjects them to scrutiny from others and ourselves in ways that may help to develop a deeper understanding of practice and more explicit connection between teachers’ and teacher educators’ notions of teaching and the choices, actions, and behaviors occurring in planning and teaching.

Finally, we valued self-study of practice research as an opportunity to examine connections between our developing rationales and principles of practice as part of improving as teachers and teacher educators (Berry & Crowe, 2009; Dinkelman, 2003). As Berry and Loughran (2005) highlighted, “it is through ‘unpacking’ pedagogical experiences that understanding the complexity of teaching can come to the fore” (p. 173). Understanding the complexity of working toward a practice that was more closely connected to our developing rationales and principles of practice was what we hoped to accomplish in our collaborative self-study of practice group.

Our PurposeAs a self-study of practice collective composed of

teacher educators, a nursing professor, a doctoral student, and a classroom teacher (see Table 1), our work together was focused on how our developing rationales and principles of practice influenced our work as teachers and teacher educators. While we did focus on individual self-studies of practice, the collective focus helped to pull our collective conversations and analysis together throughout.

Creating a Space of DialogueDrawing on the work of Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009)

and the Arizona Group (2004), we envisioned data collection and analysis as simultaneous processes, with each informing the other. We used our collective to create a space of dialogue. As we each collected data, we also discussed the ways we were making sense of this data. This, inevitably, let back to different types of data we could collect, or at least new ways to

look at the data we had collected. As a group we constructed our group spaces as places where dialogue helped us make sense of our own experiences and as a place for others to push us to ask new questions or to see connections between our principles of practice and our practice in new ways.

As part of creating our collective as a space of dialogue, we began by reading our personal teaching philosophies and rationales. As we read, we selected themes or ideas that were particularly important to us in that we placed a high value on them as a part of our teaching practice. Aspects of our teaching philosophies and rationales were examined individually for their connections to, and influence on, our teaching practices. We then shared our thoughts as narratives on our common blog space. After receiving feedback from the group, we brought out new ideas, connections, and questions to our monthly meetings. Discussing these themes, ideas, and connections to practice became the focus of the group throughout the semester. These discussions allowed each of us to share how we were making sense of the data and what we were learning in terms of outcomes of researching our practice. This sharing included and was followed by questions and comments from the group as we helped each other to reframe experiences and work toward themes and findings expressed as learning outcomes.

OutcomesTodd’s narrative. I focused on how I might draw

on my rationale as a teacher educator and my previous experiences organizing collaborative self-study groups to create a space where participants felt comfortable exploring individual problems of practice. Having created and led several collaborative self-study groups, I wanted to explore my ability to provide structure and to listen to and challenge participants’ thinking while offering support. The group

provided me with another opportunity to improve my practice as a teacher educator. I believe I took a big step forward in my ability to listen to teachers discuss their problems of practice, ask follow-up questions, and offer feedback. The group discussions and the blog provided space for me to closely examine my decision-making as a group facilitator. I was also able to make connections between my work facilitating the group and my work as a teacher educator. Specifically, I hope to bring my improved listening and questioning skills into my undergraduate social studies methods courses.

Andrew’s narrative. I sought to address the question “How will my own rationale for teaching social studies change as I transition from K-12 teacher to teacher educator?” My rationale focused on teaching democratic citizenship through transformative perspectives and practices. It emphasized a move away from learning facts, dates, and names and pushed to develop justice-oriented and participatory citizenship among students. Through my self-study I found a concern with two themes: 1) teaching social studies for democratic/citizenship purposes and encouraging democratic purposes in teacher candidates; and 2) the extent to which my rationale is enacted in my teaching practice and how to recognize if it is. My hope is that I would and will continue to accomplish democratic purposes more intentionally through continued self-study of teacher education practice.

Despite a consistency in focusing on democratic citizenship between my K-12 social studies rationale and my purposes as a teacher educator, there was a change in my interpretation of teaching for democratic citizenship. This change was primarily characterized by a shift from justice oriented and participatory to a communal orientation. This shift, in my mind, was recognized in aspects of practice where I did more to encourage social responsibility in the classroom and facilitate the development of stronger peer relationships amongst students. While justice-participation did

Participant Professional Role Context Experience with Self-Study Alicia

Social Studies Teacher Educator

Teaching her first online course Yvonne’s critical friend

Experienced self-study researcher

Andrew

Doctoral Student in Curriculum and Instruction

Teaching his first Social Studies Teacher Education Course

High School Teacher Teaching High School Speech and Debate Courses

Novice self-study researcher

Social Studies Teacher Educator

Focused on Process of Organizing the Group Teaching Social Studies Methods Course

Yvonne

Nursing Educator Doctoral Student in Curriculum and Instruction

Teaching online courses Alicia’s critical friend

Novice self-study researcher

Table 1

Description of Participants

not intentionally become secondary to community building, examples of these aspects of democratic purposes were not as prevalent as were communal aspects of democracy. This shift in democratic purpose was likely influenced by a number of experiences, including discussions with colleagues, coursework, papers written, reading, and in particular this self-study collaborative professional-development experience. It was self-study that helped me to articulate and clarify this communal purpose as a focus of my teacher education practice. Coming together monthly and building a community with colleagues who had similar concerns regarding their practice helped me to both articulate changes in my rationale for teaching and recognize where my purposes for teaching were manifesting in practice.

Alicia’s narrative. I explored my principles of practice in action while I taught my first online class. The study and discussions allowed me to refine my principles and understand how they were working in this new setting. I found that building responsive relationships was key to my work in many ways. It could be seen in how I structured the syllabus, my offer of individual meetings and my posts on the discussion board, and two critical incidents (a plagiarism incident and a conversation between two students that had increased tension). From the examinations of all of this, I refined my principles to apply to all of my teaching and found that it is valuable to revisit and reexamine my principles to understand new contexts.

Conversations with my critical friend (Yvonne) during the self-study and the whole group conversations helped me to see that in all avenues of my teaching I focused on building responsive relationships with my students. As I began to plan for the next semester’s courses, two of which were hybrid (half online sessions and half face-to-face), I found that I began to incorporate much of what I learned from the self-study into my new practice. For example, I added more collaboration among students in the form of peer reviews of work and discussion as I began to see that as key to growing as a scholar. For online sessions I created smaller groups to facilitate conversations so they could build closer relationships with some within the group to share more ideas. To welcome the graduate students into the online forum (and many of these students had no experience or negative experiences with online class structures), I deconstructed the online experience in class after the first online class to improve the next session. I initiated structured debriefing of my online pedagogy again after the next online session to ensure that the conversations online reflected the classroom environment that I wanted to create and to help establish a community in class to carry over into the online venue.

Yvonne’s narrative. After attending the first meeting and reading group members’ blog posts, I wondered what I could possibly contribute to this collaborative when my practice is so different from that of the other members. Thus, I set my goals for this experience as 1) Enhancing my understanding of the self-study process, 2) Learning from the experiences of the other members in the group, and 3) Gaining additional insights about my co-investigator that would be helpful in our other project.

As a result of my involvement with this group I am beginning to identify my own principles of practice. I have found the process of looking for cues to my teaching principles enlightening. Teaching in an online environment provides a record of my interactions with students that is lacking in a face-to-face environment. This collaborative has prompted me to explore those communications more intently, looking beyond the student course evaluations and into the nuances of

my communication with students. In addition to the emails, discussion forums, announcements, responses to question in public forums and grading feedback, this investigation led to a review of the language used in all written materials, including the syllabus, course and assignment guidelines, and the wording used in the grading rubrics.

I have found that I am developing an enhanced understanding of what I do and why I do it. Looking closely at my practice and working to define the guiding principles has resulted in a delayering of years of teaching. Values clarification and the search for evidence of the application of these values have revealed both consistencies and inconsistencies. This process has resulted in a softened approach to some issues. I find I put myself in the students’ position more often, evaluating assignments and deadlines regularly. I now take part in a deeper exploration of student engagement.

One additional significant revelation that occurred this semester is that my own restlessness and dissatisfaction in my current teaching load may be rooted in the somewhat superficial relationship that develops in an online course. Teaching in seven-week online asynchronous courses provides no opportunity for live interaction with students. This format is not conducive to the same type of relationship that exists in hybrid web and in face-to-face learning environments. Conversations with my critical friend (Alicia) and the self-study group helped me identify opportunities to enhance student engagement, increase my “presence” in the online classroom, and foster relationships with students.

Does collaboration lead to changes in practice? For me, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes!” Stirred by communications with group members, I began a systematic process of exploring my own practice. The group identified that we all have periods of time during which we question our judgment in handling some situations, conduct an analysis, and develop a strategy for addressing similar situations in the future. It became very clear, through this collaboration, that how we address issues is influenced by our personal philosophies, our values and beliefs, and our principles of practice.

Kelly’s narrative. The self-study group allowed me to discuss the issues I felt were dominant in my classes. I spent the few weeks after our first meeting focusing on the events or lessons that continually seemed to go horribly wrong. I spent the greatest amount of time collecting this data simply because I was so narrowly focused on what was going wrong. Throughout the process I was constantly convinced that my teaching was terrible and lacked any guiding rationale or principles of practice. However, after each meeting I began to feel better about my practice. Working with the group, and the process of talking through my concerns and fears, helped me to see that I was in fact doing a good job. Before working with the group I had not had a chance to revisit my goals from my teacher education program. Just seeing what I had said I wanted to accomplish as a student teacher helped me to see that I was still committed to many of those ideas and was still using them to guide my practice.

Through this process I learned three important lessons. First, meaningful conversations helped encourage and lift me up and it can help shape perspective. When problems and thoughtful solutions are available from others, it can help teachers negotiate difficult circumstances and possibly change practice. Second, my teaching wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was simply under pressure and in need of a break. Third, I need to make time for myself. This is something that I never do. I am constantly on the go and feeling like I can rest during

the summer. The group helped me to see that taking time for myself was a good way to actually give back to my students and myself.

DiscussionAn interesting theme running throughout our collective

dialogue focused on the influence uncertainty had on our practice. Fortunately, the individual self-studies of practice enabled each of us to confront our uncertainties as part of studying the ways our developing rationales and principles of practice influenced our practice. The process of working as a collective helped to make visible for each of us how much we had grown. Attention to personal rationales and principles of practice proved to be an engaging way to clarify our individual purposes and to recognize and make sense of changes to our rationales and principles of practice. This recognition was accompanied by a sense of being more focused and intentional in our own individual contexts.

A second theme found across collective dialogue was a focus on the way the collective provided space for reflection and discovery. It became clear to all of us just how isolating our work can be. The collective and our various spaces of dialogue enabled us to see our practice in new ways while discovering how we were building on our rationales and principles of practice in ways we might not have recognized otherwise. Finally, our collective enabled members new to self-study of practice research to explore the potential for self-study of practice research in a safe and supportive environment.

References Arizona Group: Guilfoyle, K., Hamilton, M. L., Pinnegar, S.,

& Placier, P. (2004). The epistemological dimensions and dynamics of professional dialogue in self-study. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. L. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (vol. 2) (pp. 1109-1167). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Berry, A., & Crowe, A. (2009). Many miles and many emails: Using email as a methodological tool in self-study to refine and reframe practice. In M. L. Heston & D. L. Tidwell (Eds.), Research methods for the self-study of practice (pp. 83–98). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Berry, A., & Loughran, J. J. (2005). Teaching about teaching: The role of self-study. In C. Mitchell, S. Weber, & K. O’Reilly-Scanlon (Eds.), Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching (pp. 168–180). New York, NY: Routledge Falmer.

Bodone, F., Guðjónsdóttir, H., & Dalmau, M. C. (2007). Revisioning and recreating practice: Collaboration in self-study. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 743–784). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Clark, C. M. (1988). Asking the right questions about teacher preparation: Contributions of research on teaching thinking. Educational Researcher, 17(2), 5–12.

Crowe, A. R., & Berry, A. (2007). Teaching prospective teachers about learning to think like a teacher: Articulating our principles of practice. In T. Russell & J. J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships and practices (pp. 31–44). London, England: Routledge.

Dinkelman, T. (2009). Reflection and resistance: Challenges of rationale-based teacher education. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, 2(1), 91-108.

Hawley, T. S., Crowe, A. R., Knapp, K. A., Hostetler, A. L., Ashkettle, B., & Levicky, M. (2010). I love it when a plan comes together: Collaborative self-study in graduate school as a space to reframe thinking about social studies teaching and teacher education (pp. 177-196). In A. R. Crowe (Eds.), Advancing social studies education through self-study. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Kagan, D. M. (1992). Professional growth among preservice and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 62(2), 129–169.

Kitchen, J., & Parker, C. (2009). Self-study communities of practice. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 107–128). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Lighthall, F. F. (2007). Fundamental features and approaches of the s-step enterprise. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 743–784). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Pajares, M. (1992). Teacher’s beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332.

Pinnegar, S. & Hamilton, M. L. (2009). Self-study as a genre of qualitative research: Theory, methodology, and practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. In J. Sikula (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 102–119). New York, NY: Macmillan.

Shaver, J. P. (1977). The task of rationale-building for citizenship education. In J. P. Shaver (Ed.), Building rationales for citizenship education (pp. 96–116). Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies.

MICHAEL HAYES & VALERIE ALLISON-ROANSusquehanna University

Continuity: Does One’s Use of a Personal Narrative Live on Profitably in the Future?

It began with… a proposition:Hi Michael,Did I get your attention with the subject line?I’m engaged in a small research project that I could use a second opinion/author on. It’s a self-study involving a memory narrative and the impact of incorporating it in my Literacy II class. I need an “outsider’s” help in analyzing the data, interrogating my reflections and then helping to complete the manuscript for potential presentation/submission for publication.Interested? I have chocolate on my desk if you’d like more information . . .Valerie ☺ (e-mail communication, October 29, 2010)Resonance as a psychologist and intrigue as a new

teacher educator propelled me to join Valerie as her critical friend (Allison-Roan & Hayes, 2012; Berry & Crowe, 2006). This baptism proved an invaluable formative experience, cutting my teeth with the tutelage of a self-study and teacher educator colleague. In turn, Valerie gained the lenses of a seasoned psychologist and novice teacher educator in making her turn to self. I have grown to respect Valerie—sage colleague, mentor, and friend. She models critically reflective practice (Brookfield, 1995) and seeks to more fully understand the influence of self (Kim & Greene, 2011; Young & Erickson, 2011) in her practice. Likewise, Valerie’s critical friendship (Kosnik, Samaras, & Freese, 2006) led me to follow suit, challenging me to turn to self, examining its influence upon my emerging practice as a teacher educator.

Valerie and I are teacher educators and junior faculty members at a small, private liberal arts university situated in rural, central Pennsylvania, and we share a commitment to studying and improving our teaching practices. Valerie’s teaching focuses on literacy, instructional methods, and field supervision for student teachers, while I instruct courses in educational psychology and special education. Prior to becoming faculty, each of us grew up professionally in the public schools—Valerie in Utah as a middle school teacher and elementary school principal and me in central Pennsylvania as a school psychologist, school counselor, special education program coordinator, and school-based behavioral health clinical consultant. Our unique histories clearly mediate what Young and Erickson (2011) reference as “imagining ourselves as teachers, becoming teachers, and being teachers” (p. 121), even though we stand at different places in our development.

Critical friendship, the catalyst for my initiation to self-study, provides the foundation for the present paper. In particular, while I interrogated Valerie’s use of narrative and the enduring consequences of her pedagogical choice, both in terms of self and her enactment of practice, as well as for her students and theirs, I paused to reflect upon the role of self in my development. How do who I am (identity) and my path to becoming a teacher educator (history) shape

my approach to teaching? The tenets of Dewey’s theory of experience (1938/1997), continuity and interaction, provide an ontological foundation for this self-study. Continuity speaks to the crucial role of experience, which sensitizes the learner and influences all future experiences. Meanwhile, interaction speaks to the past experiences each learner brings to the present learning situation, underscoring the role of individual histories in shaping interactions in the present. “Collaboration does not mean harmony. Interactions may cause the individual to question his/her position or those of others as they develop new understandings” (Kosnik et al., 2006, p. 152). Critical friendship (Berry & Crowe, 2006; Brookfield, 1995; Russell & Schuck, 2004) provided us with reciprocal looking glasses for examining self—hers, mine, and ours.

In some respects the journey was like taking the yellow brick road to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Valerie and I, at different points, identify with Dorothy, wanting desperately to find our way home while helping others (our students). At other points, we identify with the Wizard of Oz, trembling behind our respective curtains. Like the Wizard, there are tender spots in our hearts, yet we fear being exposed as frauds (i.e., the imposter phenomenon; Brookfield, 1995; Langford & Clance, 1993), particularly in the eyes of our students. Valerie invited me behind her curtain, allowing me a vista into self that few in her life have been afforded. And, in due time, I extended a similar invitation to Valerie. Initially I failed to appreciate the courage Valerie marshaled to expose self to her students and me. Through shared interrogation, more veils were lifted, revealing—at her core—a child wanting nurture from a mother who was either absent or unavailable. The challenges of childhood, however, fueled a flame of determination and resiliency, one that propelled Valerie beyond the station she was born into. Only as I began to mirror Valerie’s use of self and speak more directly to my history (i.e., by sharing a personal narrative with my students) could I grasp the power and the pain of her pedagogical path.

MethodsThe present self-study afforded the opportunity to

deepen my understanding of self and enactment of practice through multiple lenses: via Valerie’s appraisal of self, those of her students, and mine as her critical friend. Simultaneously I began to interrogate my understanding of self and its role in the development of my practice (Brookfield, 1995; Kim & Greene, 2011; Young & Erickson, 2011). Valerie’s self-study, focusing on her use of her personal narrative, was a prelude. Once that self-study reached completion, Valerie and I began an extension to explore what enduring effects Valerie and her students derived from the use of her narrative. Four of Valerie’s original nine students provided data for the follow-up study, three males and one female. They responded to a

written questionnaire and completed face-to-face, videotaped interviews with Michael using a series of prompts. Valerie reviewed each interview separately after its completion. The data sources interrogated for this study included the videotaped interviews, Valerie’s former students’ short written responses to the questionnaire, Valerie’s reflections written after viewing each interview, our e-mail and face-to-face dialogue, Michael’s written reflections of his use of a narrative in his teaching, and finally his students’ anonymous feedback to an aspect of his narrative. Separately, then collaboratively, we analyzed this data with an eye toward themes related to self and our enactments of practice, discussing and challenging our interpretation in an iterative fashion. And, in turn, self-study colleagues attending the Castle Conference IX will be invited into our circle of critical friendship, as a broader reflecting team, to take up and challenge both our method and interpretations, thereby enhancing this self-study’s trustworthiness.

ResultsConsequences for Valerie. With regard to Valerie’s

self and her enactment of practice, it became evident that she does not experience self as others do. The Talmud asserts we see the world, not as it is, but as we are (Solomon, 2009). The interviews illuminated this point, particularly in terms of the appreciation Valerie’s students voiced for her capacity to be authentic and transparent with them.

Curt: Powerful learning… she said, “By the way guys, this is my childhood, this is my story”… Holy crap! You would have never put it together… I didn’t expect the struggle it was to get there. (December 22, 2011)David: Obviously a turn for the better in terms of going to college to obviously going to what she’s doing right now, which is a huge success. (January 6, 2012)Valerie: It was interesting to hear them describe me as successful. Honestly, that feels very foreign. I feel like so far I’ve managed to barely stay a pace head of the wolves at my heels! (January 7, 2012)---Susan: It was very beneficial for us to essentially see someone first hand who struggled and turned out so great. It definitely opened my eyes to realize, hey, I might think I know my students but there’s some things I probably couldn’t begin to think about. (December 30, 2011)Valerie: Watching Susan’s interview was an incredible gift! …She had such clarity and detail in her memories! And she spoke with passion about what the experience was like for her (i.e., felt sad and upset for the little girl, one of the most valuable readings of the semester). If ever I needed justification for putting the narrative “out there,” I just need to think about what she shared more than a year after the experience of reading it. (January 7, 2012)---Bob: I can remember us reading the narrative and how horrible that little girl must have felt throughout her experience… how is she ever going to be successful with experiences like that? Pretty crazy feeling to know that someone who had struggled that much, had those experiences could come this far… was self-motivated to go back to the field of education and really make a difference. (January 6, 2012)Valerie: Again, it’s fascinating to hear variations in what students remember. In Bob’s case, I liked how he

framed my motivation—to spark their fire, to make a difference, and to expose them to a way of growing (and experiencing school) that they wouldn’t have necessarily been familiar with from their backgrounds. Absolutely! (January 11, 2012)What accounts for the notable discrepancy between

Valerie’s appraisal of self and those of her students? To be candid I was uncertain, yet suspected the mismatch was rooted in Valerie’s defenses to protect self from others’ negative judgments. Her inner critic preemptively cuts others off at the path, lessening the sting of criticism. It also appears to stoke Valerie’s flame of determination and resiliency. While striving to become, Valerie tends to experience accomplishments as hollow, consistent with an inner belief of not being “good enough.” Despite these challenges, Valerie presses on in her pursuit of greater clarity and understanding of self. Insights such as these, generated through critical friendship and coupled with Valerie’s growing self-awareness, have borne refinements in her practice, homologous with her ontological view of the world grounded in constructivism (Samaras, 2002) and critical social theory (Blake & Masschelein, 2003; Brown, 2004).

Consequences for myself. Little did I know at the outset I would embark on a similar journey, “peeking behind the curtain,” to explore self and its influence upon my emerging practice as a teacher educator (Russell, 2010). Self is familiar territory. While becoming a licensed psychologist, exploring self was an important focus of my clinical training and supervision. “Taking the trip home” provided vital understanding of how family-of-origin experiences have shaped me. With this self-knowledge I felt fairly confident in my ability to use self effectively in my interactions with students. Despite being a novice teacher educator, I knew intuitively that “who I am” (i.e., identity) would be a vital component of the learning experience for students enrolled in the courses I teach. Yet I also felt an inner tension as I weighed what and how much of self to reveal to students (i.e., how and where to draw personal/professional boundaries).

The psychology treatment outcome literature (Reisner, 2005; Sprenkle & Blow, 2004) identifies “common factors” associated with therapeutic outcomes, such as the therapist’s personality and ability to create a positive therapeutic alliance. Listening to Valerie’s students underscored the importance of creating a supportive learning environment to openly examine differences. Similarly, I strive to create a climate within the classroom conducive to hearing disparate voices and perspectives while developing students’ critical reasoning and problem-solving skills. Two distinct, but interrelated threads evidence this effort—one was my decision to use a personal narrative of my first day of kindergarten with my students, which mirrors Valerie’s use of self as a tool for students’ learning, and the other is a listening self-study Valerie and I are conducting with another member of our department (Allison-Roan, McLaughlin, & Hayes, 2012).

In the midst of the breaking child abuse scandal at Penn State, my students were exploring silence and acts of silence through Schultz’s (2003) framework for listening—the conceptual foundation for our listening self-study (Allison-Roan et al., 2012). After viewing a segment from the national evening news coverage, discussion turned to students’ analysis of institutional power structures like those in universities and churches that perpetrate silence, rendering the vulnerable invisible. The discussion was superficial and brief. And then there was silence. While present to the silence with my students, I was convicted to step outside of the shroud of silence and voice solidarity with the children. I began by

referencing my narrative introduced earlier in the semester (Derry, 2005; Milner, 2007; Rice, 2010). This narrative describes my first day of kindergarten, locking myself in the class bathroom. Crying, I refused Mrs. Jones’ encouragement to come out. Resolute, I wanted to go home. At that moment, as my students remained silent, I acknowledged my narrative concealed a more deeply held fear. While the details of what occurred so many years ago were not appropriate to share, in that moment I referred to a critical childhood experience, one that sensitized me to children’s vulnerability. And in those moments my narrative suddenly took on the semblance of a mask, fearful that others would know my truth and shame me.

Valerie: When Michael described sharing with his class a vague description of what occurred in his youth, my initial silent reaction was similar to Curt’s “holy crap!” It sounded incredibly risky, and I wondered about the consequences of that experience for the learning community in his classroom. Did it take the notion of transparency too far, putting students in the position of feeling too uncomfortable or uncertain (Berry, 2008)? When sharing my narrative, I omitted details of childhood that I felt were too painful for students to know. In part, I did not want those memories to become the filters through which students viewed me, and secondly, I did not believe knowing those details would further my objectives for the course. Michael must ultimately be the judge of how much of the veil he should lift and how it supports his course and work with students.

Valerie, reciprocating the cherished gift of critical friendship (Berry & Crowe, 2006), spoke to the tension I experienced then and continue to wrestle with. “A critical friend acts as a sounding board, offers opportunities for reflection, is a co-learner, and asks challenging questions” (Russell & Shuck, 2004, p. 213). Shame coupled with guilt secured my silence until that moment. Identification with those children compelled me to voice what was unspeakable. At the beginning of the present semester, students read my narrative. Silence (Schultz, 2003) enveloped the room when I referenced events at Penn State and my childhood experience. After normalizing this silence, I encouraged students to reflect vis-à-vis their future roles as teachers, advisors, and coaches. At the beginning of the next class, we revisited the issue of silence. Students identified what they were thinking in those moments anonymously on an index card. They were gathered and shuffled, then shared with the class. Some examples follow.

• “Sometimes there just really isn’t anything you can say. Nothing that came to my mind was appropriate or descriptive enough to what I was feeling and thinking. I’m sorry? That must have been difficult to share.”

• “I immediately thought of my little brother’s reason for getting transferred to a private school. While I felt sorry for what happened to you, I was also still upset that a boy up the road, a few years older than my 12-year old brother, had tried on multiple occasions to pressure my brother to do sexual things. I was the only person he’d talk to about it. I was devastated along with the rest of my family.”

• “I wondered how your mother reacted when you told her, what made you tell her and when. In my silence I wondered how it affected your growing as an individual.”

• “I was silent because I too was in a situation similar to that when I was very young. I was surprised and curious as to why you chose to share this with a group of students who you do not know so well. Were you expecting the reaction of silence?”

• “I wasn’t sure at first why you decided to share your

story. But then I realized that since our immediate response was silence it was a way to help us connect with what a student might feel.”Valerie: Clearly this was an experience students will

remember for some time to come, and as the last student articulated, it powerfully illuminated the concept of silencing/acts of silence. What other course experiences will they need to have so that concept is more fully developed?

ConclusionsThe threads of interaction and continuity are woven

together here between me and my students along with evidence of personal and profession growth and co-learning as Valerie and I nurture our critical friendship. “I learned from my relationship with Clare and Anastasia that trust and intellectual safety were critical elements in establishing the conditions for constructing new knowledge” (Kosnik et al., 2006, p. 154). Synchronous with this wisdom expressed by these self-study researchers and teacher educators, I experience an abiding sense of faith and trust in Valerie and her ability to challenge me to seek greater clarity regarding self and my developing practice. Our histories clearly inform what occurs within our classrooms in ways that are both seen and unseen, through deeply felt nonetheless. Honoring one’s self—the good, bad, and ugly—while also appreciating the accumulated wisdom gathered along life’s journey is central to who I am becoming as a teacher educator. It is wonderful to have a trusted companion in Valerie as I find my way. My bags are packed, and I’m ready to go!

Curtain CallAnd where are we going? We are off to the

Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, United Kingdom to attend the Castle IX Conference in August 2012. As noted, there participants will join us as a reflecting team (Friedman, 1995; Willott, Hatton, & Oyebode, 2012) as critical fiends (Kosnik et al., 2006). Participants will take up the trustworthiness of the inferences drawn from data gathered from our collaboration in critical friendship as well as our respective analyses of self. Meaningful interrogation of our methods will follow while challenging the ways in which the study serves to transform us and, in turn, our enactment of practice as teacher educators.

ReferencesAllison-Roan, V. A., & Hayes, M. P. (2012). Consequences

of utilizing the instructor’s narrative in a preservice literacy course. In review.

Allison-Roan, V. A., McLaughlin, D. A., & Hayes, M. P. (2012, April). Divergence and commonality: Listening for the golden thread. Paper presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada.

Berry, A. (2008). Tensions in teaching about teaching: Understanding practice as a teacher educator. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Berry, A., & Crowe, A. (2006). Extending our boundaries through self-study: Framing a research agenda through beginning a critical friendship. In L. Fitzgerald, M. Heston, & D. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 31–35). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Blake, N., & Masschelein, J. (2003). Critical theory and critical pedagogy. In N. Blake, P. Smeyer, R. Smith, & P. Standish (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of education (pp. 38–56). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Brown, K. M. (2004). Leadership for social justice and equity: Weaving a transformative framework and pedagogy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40(1), 79–110.

Derry, C. (2005). Drawing as a research tool for self-study: An embodied method of exploring memories of childhood bullying. In C. Mitchell, S. Weber, K. O’Reilly-Scanlon (Eds.), Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching. London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeFalmer.

Dewey, J. (1938/1997). Experience and education. New York, NY: Free Press.

Friedman, S. (1995). The reflecting team in action: Collaborative practice in family therapy. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Kim, Y. M., & Greene, W. L. (2011). Aligning professional and personal identities: Applying core reflection in teacher education practice. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 109–119.

Kosnik, C., Samaras, A. P., & Freese, A. R. (2006). Beginning with trusted friends: Venturing out to work collaboratively in our institutions. In L. Fitzgerald, M. Heston, & D. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 152–156). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Langford, J., & Clance, P. R. (1993). The imposter phenomenon: Recent research findings regarding dynamics, personality and family patterns and their implications for treatment. Psychotherapy, 30(3), 495–501.

Milner, H. R. (2007). Race, narrative inquiry, and self-study in curriculum and teacher education. Education and Urban Society, 39(4), 584–609.

Reisner, A. D. (2005). The common factors, empirically validated treatments, and recovery models of therapeutic change. The Psychological Record, 55, 377–399.

Rice, M. (2010). Navigating multiple personal narratives of entering teaching. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 224–227). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Russell, T. (2010). Self-study by teacher educators. In P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 689–694). Maryland Heights, MO: Elsevier.

Russell, T., & Shuck, S. (2004). How critical are critical friends and how critical should they be? In D. Tidwell, L. Fitzgerald, & M. Heston (Eds.), Risking the Journey of Self-Study in a Diverse World. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 213–216). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Samaras, A. P. (2002). Self-study for teacher educators: Crafting a pedagogy for educational change. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Schultz, K. (2003). Listening: A framework for teaching across differences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Solomon, N. (2009). The Talmud: A selection. New York, NY: Penguin Classics.

Sprenkle, D. H., & Blow, A. J. (2004). Common factors and our sacred models. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(2), 113–119.

Willott, S., Hatton, T., & Oyebode, J. (2012). Reflecting team process in family therapy: A search for research. Journal of Family Therapy, 34(2), 180–203.

Young, J. R., & Erickson, L. B. (2011). Imagining, becoming, and being a teacher: How professional history mediates teacher educator identity. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 121–129.

As teacher educators, we hope to encourage a strong “inquiry stance” within student teachers at our large midwestern university in the United States. In spring semester 2011, a group of social studies teacher candidates learned about taking an “inquiry stance” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). The teacher candidates, whose work is shared here, engaged in a collaborative self-study of practice with topics including addressing student needs, creating a safe environment, addressing matters of race, building relationships with students, and promoting awareness of the “outside world.” The outcomes were a deeper understanding of their own teaching and evidence of a capacity for reflective thinking.

Theoretical FrameworkAs teacher educators, we value notions of teachers as

reflective practitioners (Zeichner & Liston, 1996; Schön, 1983). The course project was designed understanding knowledge about practice as local, contextually sensitive, and created by teachers (Apple, 2000; Giroux, 1988; LaBoskey, 2004). Therefore, the project was designed with Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (2009) conception of “inquiry as stance” in mind. These authors argue that this approach to teaching blurs the lines between “theory and practice, knowing and doing, conceptualizing and studying, analyzing and acting, researchers and practitioners, and public and local knowledge” (p. 3). Additionally, we drew on their vision of inquiry work to employ these methods toward democratic and social-justice ends, a process they refer to as “working the dialectic”: “The dialectic refers to the tensions and presumed contradictions between a number of key ideas and issues that have to do with research, practice, and knowledge” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009, p. 93–94). We also structured our work to build on Marano’s (1998) teaching and learning dialectic and Eisner’s (1976) vision of the dialectic between educational connoisseurship and educational criticism. Together these constructs positioned our students to develop an appreciation for their work and be critics of their work as student teachers.

ContextLisa, Amanda, Erin, Lauryn, Adam, and Trevor were

student teachers enrolled in a class taught by Andrew. The program for these students consisted of two social studies methods courses, a fall practicum and spring student teaching experience coinciding with a seminar taught by Andrew. While designing the course, Andrew worked with Todd and Alicia to incorporate a practical inquiry project with options for action research or self-study. Fifteen teacher candidates chose self-study for their inquiry project; six were selected to be co-authors because they expressed interest in writing about

and presenting their projects. Their school settings varied from a large urban school to a small rural school. They all taught for twelve weeks, and their self-study work was ongoing through 16-week semester.

Setting Up the Individual Self-StudiesDuring the first week of the course, the inquiry project

was introduced and students were invited to do self-study or action research. The difference was explained in terms of the question(s) asked, with self-study work focusing on the “self” with concern for the other. During this week we met four times for twelve hours total and devoted time each day to discussing their inquiry. This included developing questions, searching literature, selecting methods of data collection and analysis, and organizing collaborative groups (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998).

The collaborative aspect of the inquiry helped to reframe candidates’ experiences (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998) and understand specific problems of practice (Dinkelman, 2003). Candidates were encouraged to use multiple data sources and worked with the instructor and their groups throughout the semester to develop themes and learning outcomes. The class met every other week and the teacher candidates spent 30–45 minutes in collaborative groups discussing their progress, developing questions and methods, and assisting with reframing experiences. A week before the final report was due, teacher candidates participated in class roundtables for presentation of their work to peers, then revised and submitted their paper.

Andrew, Todd, and Alicia met throughout the semester to discuss the process of implementing self-study within the inquiry project. Russell (2004) suggests that making self-study public adds to the researcher’s understanding, so, in May 2011, Andrew invited six teacher candidates to make public their initial foray into self-study, and they all agreed. The group met, and after discussing the individual projects, the group discussed the influence the projects had on the student teaching experience.

Within a teacher education program built around reflective thinking and with inquiry into practice viewed as a way to new understandings of practice through critique, the guiding questions for these studies were “How do undergraduate teacher candidates use collaborative self-study in their work as a teacher?” and “What do they learn about teaching from this experience?”

Lisa’s Self-Study. I taught at an upper-middle class suburban high school with 2500+ students. The array of student ability and interests led me to focus on meeting the needs of multiple learning styles. The data I collected came primarily from student surveys each unit. These focused

ANDREW L. HOSTETLER AMANDA JANOSKOVanderbilt University Cleveland State University

TODD S. HAWLEY, ALICIA R. CROWE, LISA AHLERS, LAURYN KOPPES, ADAM LOUDIN, ERIN SMITH, & TREVOR SPRAGUEKent State University

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

on what students enjoyed, learned, and wanted changed. I also met bi-weekly with my mentor teacher to analyze how my lesson plans and assessments were addressing multiple learning styles. Analysis included discussion with my classmates on feedback, concerns, and comments of units pertaining to addressing learning styles in multiple ways; revision of lesson plans and assessments with my mentor teacher to expand learning styles addressed; and continual discussion and feedback from other teacher candidates through an online blog and journal entries.

My experience with my self-study group was profound. During our meetings, I received ideas and comments about addressing different learning styles within any given lesson. My peers looked at my lesson plans, assessments, and student surveys and offered insight as to what could be changed to address more students’ learning styles. I gained a lot of insight from the self-study project; primarily, I continually look at my lessons and assessments to make sure they address visual, tactile, and kinesthetic learners as well as give opportunities for individual, small-, and large-group experiences. I try and ensure everything I do in the classroom meets the needs of all my students and allows each to utilize their interests, abilities, and talents to contribute to the classroom.

Amanda’s Self-Study. My self-study experience occurred in a suburban school district with approximately 450 students. I focused my study on how to increase student participation after observing the same students regularly participating in my cooperating teacher’s classroom. My goal was to collect data in order to change my teaching practice to increase student participation. The data I collected included weekly journal entries that I wrote during or immediately after the school day, my cooperating teacher’s observations of random lessons, academic literature, and anonymous student surveys. I reflected on the data I collected and discussed trends with my cooperating teacher. My student teaching peers also gave me feedback and ideas of how they were able to increase student participation in their own classrooms.

Although the self-study process was overwhelming at first, the experience forced me to isolate and analyze one area of study in depth. Important lessons to increasing student participation that I learned included giving out reading assignments at least one week prior to the discussion about that document, positively reinforcing those who participated on a consistent basis, increasing the students’ awareness of their own participation, and setting high expectations of participation. Although I learned much about increasing students’ participation, I would like to continue to work on how to objectively include a participation grade in a student’s overall grade.

Erin’s Self-Study. My student teaching took place in a rural high school with less than 400 students. Given the small-town, inclusive atmosphere, I found that many students were unaware of any world, culture, or ways of life or thought besides those they practiced themselves. I wanted to explore ways I could enhance students’ interest in the rest of the world. As I taught, I incorporated current events and cultures from around the world. I collected surveys throughout the semester regarding students’ awareness of and interest in various world events and cultures and how this awareness changed. I studied these, as well as the notes I took during classroom global events discussions. I also met weekly with my cooperating teacher to discuss how I addressed global concepts in my day-to-day teaching. My analyses included reading student surveys, their current event reports, and notes from discussions with the students and my cooperating teacher.

Overall, I discovered that many students were interested in global events and cultures but may not have been introduced to the concepts before. Incorporating current events, discussions, and simulations into the lessons seemed to pique the interest of most, though not all, students. I would like to further study what I can do to encourage the interest of more reluctant students and how to best introduce the concept of global citizenship. This self-study emphasized the importance of intentionally introducing students to new concepts and the ways in which I can best encourage students to explore these ideas on their own.

Adam’s Self-Study. Coming from an all-white, rural high school and being deeply rooted into the ideas of racism and ignorance from my surroundings, I was ill prepared, or at least I thought so, for my student teaching experience. My student teaching placement was in an urban setting with about 1700 and 65% of students characterized as African American. The focus of my self-study was to determine how a white, privileged, male teacher addresses the idea of race and how to potentially create a classroom of understanding. I was concerned that perhaps the ignorance that I had been exposed to as a student and citizen of an “uncultured” world would affect my ability to reach students who differed from myself.

I felt that the best way that I could monitor this was through test scores, journal entries about issues involving race, and student surveys of my teaching at the end of my experience. I attempted to address an idea involved with a journal question about race in every lesson, especially lessons dealing with imperialism, nationalism, and the rise of totalitarian leaders.

Another important aspect of my self-study was my collaboration with my classmates. I met with my group bi-weekly during our class sessions to discuss our self-studies. During these sessions we addressed concerns in our classroom. I also utilized this time to speak with my colleagues about how to address certain responses that I had read in the journal. These situations included times when students refused to respond to a question or their response made me reconsider what or how I asked the question.

My self-study allowed me to explore a part of myself that I had yet to uncover, while at the same time developing a relationship with students that allowed us to learn from one another and become more capable, understanding citizens.

Lauryn’s Self-Study. My self-study focused on the question, “How can I foster a safe and structured learning environment for my students?” Throughout the teacher education program, the importance of a school, and classroom, learning environment was continually impressed upon me. I believe that all aspects of my teaching practice are inherently connected with the learning environment I help to create. I also believe that student success is largely affected by the context in which they are learning. For these reasons I felt that I could not choose a more important aspect of my teaching to deeply investigate than the learning environment I was facilitating. I chose the words “safe” and “structured” because my various field work experiences had led me to conclude that students are most likely to succeed when they feel emotionally and physically safe and when their learning experience is appropriately structured according to their needs.

I kept a journal of my observations regarding the classroom environment in which I was teaching. I noted how my teaching practices were affecting the classroom environment, either positively or negatively. To analyze this data, I re-read my journal entries over the course of my student teaching and noted trends in my entries. I was then able to further understand these trends through conversations with

my cooperating teacher and other student teachers during our class meetings. I also had intentional conversations with my cooperating teacher about the classroom environment I was creating and kept notes. When my cooperating teacher formally observed me, I requested that he focus on whether or not I was creating a safe, structured learning environment.

From this self-study of my student teaching practice, I concluded that I was able to better facilitate a safe, structured learning environment when I was consistent in implementing the following four areas into my teaching practice: 1) building relationships with students, 2) rewarding positive behavior, 3) modeling positive behavior, and 4) being consistent with classroom procedures and rules. Through analysis of the data, I found that success in implementing a safe, structured learning environment was largely contingent on whether or not these four aspects of my teaching practice were present in the classroom.

Trevor’s Self-Study. After starting with a list of five concerns, I decided to examine my relationship with students based on my concern for being able to connect with students in meaningful ways without trying to be their “best friend.” Working with 120 suburban high school sophomores and seniors in lower-income community, I collected data by having students complete worksheets telling me about their lives outside of class, using those worksheets to choose a student each day to focus on, surveying students on two occasions, and journaling any experiences I had relevant to building better relationships with students.

Additional resources for my self-study included regular group meetings where we pushed each other to think critically about and evaluate our progress as well as to hold each other accountable for our work. We also utilized a blog site to pose questions and read responses from each other. This process, as well as journaling and student surveys, led me to ask additional questions examining how student relationships are connected to other aspects of teaching; student behavior, student performance, classroom environment, and teaching lessons that are powerful and meaningful.

My analysis of the data collected was clearest in my journals. I was able to use student surveys to inform my understanding of student attitudes towards our relationship. However, in my journal entries, I was able to pull out aspects of teaching that were not relationship specific but covered additional aspects of teaching.

Analyzing all of the information and evaluating the self-study as a whole blew my mind. I was able to see connections between student-teacher relationships and every other aspect of my teaching. Initially I had no idea how integrated those relationships were in all aspects of teaching.

Learning OutcomesIn addition to a context that encouraged students to

approach teaching as a complex intellectual endeavor that requires reflective thinking, we hoped to introduce practitioner research in the spirit of Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (2009) Inquiry as Stance. A formal inquiry into practice helped these beginning teachers develop a way of thinking indicative of reflective practice (Zeichner & Liston, 1996; Schön, 1983) and a deeper understanding of problems of practice (Dinkelman, 2003). Candidates worked in collaboratives to consider their analysis and discuss findings and learning outcomes for their practice. During these pre-conference meetings we discussed findings, learning outcomes, writing, and presentation format and plans. As a result of their self-study work and these pre-conference meetings, two common themes emerged across

all of their experiences. First, all of these teacher candidates found it beneficial to collaborate during this process. Second, the teacher candidates’ work focused on the self, with close attention to the needs of their students and the implications of their work for student learning.

These six candidates have continued to exhibit a commitment to these ways of thinking about teaching. As teacher educators we wrestled with the problematic nature of asking students to undertake self-study as part of an assignment. This challenge was mediated through conversations amongst students and teachers about the process and an effort to place decision-making and voice with the teacher candidates. Teacher candidates were offered opportunities to revise and resubmit work without academic penalty in an effort to mitigate this effect. Challenges did arise as candidates resisted ambiguity and experienced dissonance when making decisions regarding research processes and the final product. Individual and small-group meetings were held to meet these students’ needs and provide support. Self-study has the potential to provide a systematic way to encourage an inquiry approach to understanding one’s teaching, but teacher educators should carefully consider the implications and problematic nature of a required assignment that includes self-study. As teacher educators we have come to understand the tensions associated with teaching teachers (see Berry, 2008). Many of these challenges resulted from positioning learning to teach as a necessarily reflective process of exploring beliefs and challenging assumptions about teaching, learning, and schools.

Conclusion: So What?The teacher candidates expressed a variety of learning

outcomes related to their individual papers, but they commonly emphasized the relationships they built with students and the importance of reflection for learning from experience. As teacher educators, we found value in the way this project focused teacher learning and encouraged the teacher candidates to connect what they had learned in the program with what they were doing in practice. We were especially happy with the influence systematic reflection had on the candidates’ capacity to consider ways to improve. We remain committed to our attempts to integrate self-study, and other inquiry work, into the student teaching seminar.

Introducing self-study to teacher candidates can be a way to encourage deeper understandings of practice (Dinkelman, 2003). We attribute these deeper understandings of practice to the nature of self-study and the resulting critique-oriented (Eisner, 1976) reflective experience and the data collection, analysis, and collaboration processes. The experience promoted collegial talk amongst groups and prompted questions about practice that reframed experiences (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998). The teacher candidates and teacher educators also experienced collaborative self-study in ways that perpetuated their view of teaching as an intellectual and reflective act (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). We argue that self-study of practice can develop and reinforce the dispositions and skills necessary to view oneself as a knowledge creator about practice (Apple, 2000; Giroux, 1988).

ReferencesApple, M. W. (2000). Official knowledge: Democratic

education in a conservative age (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Berry, A. (2008). Tensions in teaching about teaching: Understanding practice as a teacher educator. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research for the next generation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Eisner, E. W. (1976). Educational connois’seurship and criticism: Their form and functions in educational evaluation. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 10(3/4), 135–150.

Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (1998). Conclusion: The value and the promise of self-study. In M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education (pp. 235–246). London, United Kingdom: Falmer.

Marano, N. L. (1998). The teaching learning dialectic: Two cases of teachers in graduate school. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(4), 429–443.

Russell, T. (2004). Tracing the development of self-study in teacher education research and practice. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 1191–1210). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (1996). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

SIGNE KASTBERGPurdue University

Building an Understanding of Learning From Teaching

In mathematics education it is common to suppose that elementary teachers cannot or, at least, should not need to learn mathematics from children. I recall vividly the first time I experienced this perspective. In a mathematics education conference discussion group I shared my view that teachers’ mathematics learning continued after graduation. I asserted that teachers learned with and from their students. A colleague responded, “Teachers can’t learn math from children.” Several others agreed. I was flustered, uncomfortable, and angry. I left the discussion group wondering if I was too much of a novice to really understand teacher education.

ContextFor ten years I taught mathematics to future teachers

in a college of education. I developed the course to focus on the evolution and understanding of self as a mathematician and children’s mathematics teacher (Steffe, 1990). In my research I worked to make sense of and communicate how future teachers developed these understandings (Kastberg, 2004; Kastberg & Walker, 2008; Kastberg & D’Ambrosio, 2011). Course activities included discussing and representing mathematics problems, reflecting on the development of solutions, listening to recordings of children’s reasoning, and building models of children’s mathematics from what was heard. While my primary aim was to support future teachers to see themselves as mathematicians, I also wanted them to learn to honor and explore children’s mathematics. Still I distanced myself from the complexity of teacher education and focused strictly on my students as learners of mathematics. In 2010, I took a new position that included teaching teacher learners to teach mathematics. While I had taught methods before, it was never a permanent assignment. Teaching methods always provoked questions for me about how to support teacher learners to learn mathematics from children. Yet these questions went unanswered as I juggled teaching mathematics and methods. My new appointment made my curiosity about learning with children central to my practice. I was did not know how to teach teacher learners to learn mathematics through teaching (LTT) (Leikin & Zazkis, 2010).

Recent research has focused on LTT (Leikin & Zazkis, 2010) and the processes involved (Tzur, 2010). The research explores the LTT of teacher learners rather than that of mathematics teacher educators. Mathematics teacher educators exploring their practices have highlighted their challenges, including working within university structures and expectations (Sanchez & Garcia, 2008) and transforming “learning about teaching” to “learning about teacher education” (Perks & Prestage, 2008, p. 270). These descriptions share evolutions of understandings and questions about practice. Nolan (2010) shares her feelings after trying to learn from teacher learners:

Teacher educators are expected to “have it all figured out,” thus creating the façade that teaching and learning are actually not messy or ambiguous processes. Such a façade does not create spaces for embracing the learning of teacher educators as a necessary ingredient for the growth and reconceptualization of teacher education programs. (p. 165)

For me the grand challenge of teaching teacher learners was to understand how my knowledge of mathematics might be useful. As I encouraged teacher learners to learn from children’s mathematics, I realized I was unsure about how I was learning from teacher learners’ mathematics. I recognized this as a living contradiction (Whitehead, 1989) in my practice.

AimThe initial aim of my study was to investigate how I

learned mathematics from teacher learners. My objective was to gain insight into my claims that teachers learned mathematics through teaching by turning the lens on myself. I approached the question using what I understood about learning mechanisms (Piaget & Garcia, 1989). Later in my journey, my goal shifted to understanding the experience of LTT.

MethodsIn this section I share data sources and my method of

analysis, specifically how the data moved from collection through reduction.

Data. I began in fall 2010 by looking for “present moments” (Stern, 2004) that arose during my methods class. Stern describes present moments as moments of “the subjective now” (p. 4), which are impacted by the past and that impact the possible future, during which time seems to be suspended. Two such moments emerged as teacher learners shared their work on mathematics problems. The moments differed in that the first involved a novel strategy (see Student Work – Ellen’s Array) and the second involved a solution I had seen before. (I share data excerpts from the first moment in this paper.) Data included notes I took during class and announcements posted for the teacher learners from those notes. I also constructed narratives of the moments using additional artifacts, such as lesson plans, class activities, and photos of student work; these served as a second data source. I share data excerpts here and in the next section describe and illustrate my analysis of data from the first moment.

Class activity: Movie tickets.•Movie tickets cost $5.00 each. If 100 tickets were sold, how much money was collected?•Movie tickets cost $5.25 each. If 100 tickets were sold, how much money was collected?

•Draw an array model that you could use to solve this problem. (October 27, 2010)Teacher learner’s response to class activity: Ellen’s array.Ellen shared her beautiful solution to the problem in which she initially used the distributive property to find two products and illustrated each with an array. Her second array meant to illustrate the product of 0.25 and 100 was generated using the associative property in which she multiplied the first factor by four and divided the second factor by four. This generated a new product of 1 by 25 and she represented this product using a 1 by 25 array. … We went on to explore a set of student responses to the item from grade 6. We noticed that children had very different understandings of the place value units ie 0.25 and of multiplication. Now our challenge is to figure out how to work with the knowledge of the children to build their reasoning and to provide feedback that is supportive of their personal growth. (excerpt from course announcement, October 27, 2010)

She generated two arrays. The first had dimensions five by 100 and the second had dimensions of 1 by 25. Students began to whisper. I began to wonder where the 1 by 25 came from. I could see that Ellen had decomposed 5.25 into 5 and 0.25 and then applied the 100 to the 5, but I couldn’t figure out how the 100 was applied to the 0.25. I restricted my comments to asking the class for questions for Ellen. The students asked where the 1 by 25 came from. Ellen then explained that she wanted to eliminate the decimal, so she multiplied 0.25 by 4 to get 1 and because she had applied a 4 to 0.25, she then needed to divide 100 by 4 to get 25. She then mentioned Fosnot and Dolk’s (2001) idea of doubling and halving as a strategy, only here she had multiplied one dimension by 4 and divided the other by four. Immediately, I thought how ingenious this was and how I had never thought about this. I quickly began to build a model of her work in my notebook and sketched out a new solution using the idea of quadrupling and taking ¼. In the image I drew the shaded column is 0.25 by 100 and the shaded row is 1 by 25. So the proportional relationships were represented. I had never thought of this connection before. (excerpt from narrative)Analysis. To analyze the data, I applied Tzur’s (2010)

elaboration of von Glasersfeld’s (1995) notion of scheme. Specifically I identified and used word processing tools to highlight evidence of the development “between a mental activity and the effect(s) of that activity” (Tzur, 2010, p. 53). Tzur asserted that “a teaching activity, whether planned, adjusted, or in response to unforeseen classroom events is an expression of the teacher’s anticipation of desired student learning effects” (p. 54). A teacher’s reflection on differences between the anticipated effect of a teaching activity and the actual effect provokes scheme development/learning. I used this idea to identify evidence of activity, effect, and reflection in the data sources.

I initiated each class activity anticipating an effect. In the Movie Tickets problem, the activity of building an array was linked to the anticipated effect that teacher learners would construct a 100 by 5.25 array and be able to describe the meaning of cells in the array. Ellen’s array was part of the actual effect of the activity. The difference between what I anticipated and what Ellen shared provoked reflection as

suggested by statements in my narrative, such as “I couldn’t figure out how the 100 was applied to the 0.25.” I confirmed that the strategy was mathematically defensible as suggested by an excerpt of the narrative: “I quickly began to build a model of her work in my notebook and sketched out a new solution using the idea of quadrupling and taking ¼.” My reflection on Ellen’s response and reasoning resulted in a change in the anticipated effect associated with the learning activity. I conducted a similar analysis on data from the second moment.

Outcomes: Learning Mathematics from Teacher Learners

The analysis of the data resulted in a central finding. During both moments, I experienced a provocation. In the movie ticket activity, the provocation occurred as a difference between the anticipated and actual effect of the activity. In both moments, reflection resolved the conflict between the anticipated and actual effect of the activity. I could see how I learned mathematics from teacher learners and what mathematics I learned.

Throughout the process of trying to make sense of my own learning, I regularly discussed and shared my ideas with Beatriz D’Ambrosio. Beatriz served as a “present” colleague (LaBoskey, 2007, p. 819) and worked to challenge and help me explore questions I had. As we discussed the findings, I began to wonder why these moments had moved from “nonconscious” (Stern, 2004), part of consciousness lurking in the background of my experience, to the foreground.

Understanding the Experience of Learning Mathematics from Teacher Learners

LTT is more than just knowing how and what is learned. After finding that I had learned and understanding how, I was left wondering about the significance of my discovery to the teacher learners and to my pedagogy in methods. I wanted to know more about my experiences of learning. I wondered why these moments had emerged and what they might be trying to tell me. To investigate these questions I turned to the context of my teaching. Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009) describe contexts as relevant to the exploration of practice. “The concept of personal practical knowledge guides S-STEP researchers to interrogate the immediate contexts of classroom and institution and the more distant ones of cultural milieu and their contributions to the practice of the researcher” (p. 21). I compiled artifacts from the context of my practice, including annual review and promotion documents, syllabi, concept maps illustrating my beliefs, grant proposals and presentation materials focused on multiplicative reasoning, new faculty orientation materials, and course materials from prior instructors.

To understand the role of context in my experience of learning, I constructed two reflective narratives of my view of self. The first was a view of self in mathematics education. The second was a view of self as a new faculty member. I describe how I used each narrative to understand the experience of learning with teacher learners.

Narrative of self in mathematics education. In 2008 and 2009 I worked intensively on two projects. The first focused on arrays and multiplication … and the second focused on proportions and proportional reasoning …. The understandings I developed during each of the projects served as the basis for a curiosity about the concepts and a heightened

attention to reasoning multiplicatively and proportionally, particularly using models. In both present moments the students were reasoning with models in multiplicative and proportional ways. The students’ actions provoked questions I had about their responses in light of what I had learned in my academic activity.

The narrative of self in mathematics education revealed a history of exploration of learners’ mathematics that served as a backdrop for the moments I experienced. For example, my collaborative work with research teams exploring multiplicative reasoning, particularly reasoning with arrays, heightened my awareness of multiplicative reasoning. These experiences also encouraged me to use problems from my research. I had watched children solve and discuss the movie tickets problem, and I felt my teacher learners could benefit from the problem. Perks and Prestage (2008) describe this as my use of “teacher knowledge” as “learner knowledge for teacher educators” (p. 273). I anticipated that the problem would be a good mathematical opportunity for teacher learners, but I did not yet know how to use the problem as a teacher educator. I needed to be able to anticipate the effect of the activity with teacher learners. My experience with the problem and mathematics learners was insufficient for this purpose.

I discussed my reflections on my view of self in mathematics education as context for my moments of learning with Beatriz. She pressed me to explore data from the moments again, looking for factors that impacted the emergence of moments. She reminded me of practices I had developed as a constructivist teacher (Steffe & D’Ambrosio, 1995), including setting expectations that students would share ideas and reasoning and my disposition to listen (D’Ambrosio, 2004; Davis, 1997; Weissglass, 1990) and suspend doubt (Elbow, 1986; Harkness, 2009) as my students shared their ideas. I turned back to my narratives to explore a bit more.

I could see that Ellen had decomposed 5.25 into 5 and 0.25 and then applied the 100 to the 5, but I couldn’t figure out how the 100 was applied to the 0.25. I restricted my comments to asking the class for questions for Ellen. The students asked where the 1 by 25 came from. Ellen then explained…(excerpt from narrative)

The expectation that Ellen would share her idea, respond to questions, and explain her thinking was part of my practice. In the moment, I did not voice doubt as I wondered about Ellen’s thinking, nor did I interfere with or try to “correct” reasoning I did not understand. My practices, developed with mathematics learners, promoted opportunities for my learning from the teacher learners.

Still, I worried about my action as I read, “I restricted my comments.” “Restricted” conjured up the associated fear that lurked below the surface of my consciousness in the moment of learning. Discussing this fear with Beatriz, I shared my efforts to understand the teacher learners and to become a mathematics teacher educator. To understand my view of learners and their expectations, I turned to my narrative of self as a new faculty member.

Narrative of self as a new faculty member. Presenters described students at the university with phrases including: highly motivated, protected, limited exposure to failure. We were cautioned that this would mean students might try to negotiate grades, get parents involved, be absent, and communicate ineffectively. …In addition, there were significant differences between my syllabi and course activities of mathematics methods and those left by my predecessor. While he shared a calendar of daily assignments and

readings, I was only able to share major assignments and field experience dates. My fear in the moments of learning became salient as I read the narrative and recognized the distance between my practices developed teaching mathematics learners and the expectations for my practice that I inferred would be held by teacher learners and my teacher education colleagues.

Despite seeing my learning as an accomplishment, I felt the anguish of not knowing how to use the knowledge I was creating as a mathematics teacher educator. Revisiting the course announcement from the movie ticket activity, I could see my “not knowing” in my plan for what “we” needed to learn to do: “Now our challenge is to figure out how to work with the knowledge of the children to build their reasoning and to provide feedback that is supportive of their personal growth” (excerpt from course announcement). Recast as a directive for my own effort to become a mathematics teacher educator, the statement reveals the uncertainty I felt: “Now my challenge is to figure out how to work with your knowledge to build your reasoning and to provide feedback that is supportive of your personal growth as a teacher learner.” In my moments of learning I had no idea how to act with teacher learners’ knowledge in mind, nor did I adequately understand how they were growing as teachers. Instead I saw them as mathematics learners in teacher learner bodies.

Understanding Myself and Teacher Learners in the Moment

I still get a sick feeling when I read the evaluations from that semester. The teacher learner’s sentiment shared in the following comment is representative.

I thought this was a METHODS course. I do not feel confident in knowing HOW TO TEACH math to students. This semester we were taught to investigate every student’s thinking individually which is unrealistic when I have a classroom of 25 students. I thought this class was designed to teach me how to teach... not how to divide fractions, learn the Hindu Arabic Numeration System, and other math problems. We’ve had 3 courses learning math at Purdue... now we need to learn HOW to teach it.Understanding how I learn mathematics through

teaching is rewarding to me, but the experience was not rewarding to the teacher learners. Of central importance to us both is my development of practices that use my knowledge to support the teacher learners and their goals. But to use my knowledge I cannot fear the learners. My actions must communicate that I care about their goals and that I see their understandings of teaching mathematics as important and worthy of investigation. I must work to create moments with them in which the experiences of our pasts and the possibilities of the future provide opportunities for our learning.

ReferencesD’Ambrosio, B. (2004). Preparing teachers to teach

mathematics within a constructivist framework: The importance of listening to children. In T. Watanabe & D. Thompson (Eds.), The work of mathematics teacher educators: Exchanging ideas for effective practice (Vol. 1, pp. 135–150). San Diego, CA: Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.

Davis, B. (1997). Listening for differences: An evolving conception of mathematics teaching. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 355–376.

Elbow, P. (1986). Embracing contraries: Explorations in learning and teaching. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Harkness, S. (2009). Social constructivism and the believing game: A mathematics teacher’s practice and its implications. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 70, 243–258.

Kastberg, S. (2004). Preservice teachers’ use and understanding of place value. In D. McDougal & J. Ross (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-sixth annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 3, pp. 1217–1222). Toronto, Canada: OISE/UT.

Kastberg, S., & D’Ambrosio, B. (2011). Developing a framework and the construction of an understanding of place value. International Journal for Studies in Mathematics Education, 4, 1–30.

Kastberg, S., & Walker, V. (2008). Insights into our understandings of large numbers. Teaching Children Mathematics,14, 530–536.

Leikin, R., & Zazkis, R. (Eds.). (2010). Learning through teaching mathematics. New York, NY: Springer.

Nolan, K. (2010). Playing the field(s) of mathematics education: A teacher educator’s journey into pedagogical and paradoxical possibilities. In M. Walshaw (Ed.), Unpacking pedagogy: New perspectives for mathematics classrooms (pp. 153-173). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Perks, P., & Prestage, S. (2008). Tools for learning about teaching and learning. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds), International handbook of mathematics teacher education, Vol. 4: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (pp. 265–280). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Piaget, J., & Garcia, R. (1989). Psychogenesis and the history of science (H. Feider, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Sanchez, V., & Garcia, M. (2008). What to teach and how to teach it: Dilemmas in primary mathematics teacher education. In B. Jaworski & T. Wood (Eds.), International handbook of mathematics teacher education, Vol. 4: The mathematics teacher educator as a developing professional (pp. 281–298). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

Steffe, L. (1990). On the knowledge of mathematics teachers. In R. B. Davis, C. Maher, & N. Noddings (Eds.), Journal for mathematics education monograph 4: Constructivist views on the teaching and learning of mathematics (pp. 167–184). Reston, VA: NCTM.

Steffe, L., & D’Ambrosio, B. (1995). Toward a working model of constructivist teaching: A reaction to Simon. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 26, 146–159.

Stern, D. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Tzur, R. (2010). How and what might teachers learn through teaching mathematics: Contributions to closing an unspoken gap. In R. Leikin & R. Zazkis (Eds.), Learning through teaching mathematics: Development of teachers’ knowledge and expertise in practice (pp. 49–67). New York, NY: Springer.

von Glasersfeld, E. (1995). Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and seeing. Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

Weissglass, J. (1990). Constructivist listening for empowerment and change. The Educational Forum, 54, 351–370.

CRISTY KESSLERUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

Building Rapport and Pedagogy During Transplant-Enforced Isolation: When Everything You’ve Ever Taught Regarding Highly Effective Teaching Has to be Done Completely Online

ContextI am an Associate Professor of Education who has had

National Board Certification (NBC) since 2005. I am the only professor with this credential in the College of Education at my institution. As a result, my specialty has become coaching K-12 classroom teachers applying for NBC, while also teaching their research methods courses for the Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree. Each of my cohorts consists of 20–22 M.Ed students. Each student has a different set of standards and guidelines from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to complete for their application for NBC. The success of my courses over time can be demonstrated by a 71% passing rate for my students on their first attempt at applying for National Board Certification. The national pass rate is about one-half of this percentage for the first attempt by all candidates (Orange County Public Schools, 2012).

When I taught my courses in a face-to-face format, it was manageable to teach research methodology and to address all of the various NBC certificate standards being utilized by my students. I had been able to use flex-time to adjust whole class meeting times as well as to make time to meet with students individually. I, like so many of my colleagues, had also grown accustomed to using technology for virtual class meetings, creating class websites, and mixing online delivery with our face-to-face time. I had been doing this very thing for the past three years for my social studies content courses.

But this time was different. Almost without warning, I was put into medically enforced isolation during and after a stem cell transplant. Even if I wanted to set up a face-to-face class meeting at the beginning of the first course just to review what the website would look like and how it would be used, I couldn’t. For the two months prior to the start of the first course, I was in a foreign country (Turkey), 23 hours ahead of my students, and I was seriously ill. Due to isolation, medication, and recovery once I returned home, there would be no Skyping or video class meetings.

The change in my health prompted an eminent change in the way I taught my courses. Everything had to be written out in great detail and posted on the website while trying to anticipate and minimize questions and technical issues. At the same time, I had to address all of the individual content standards, portfolio directions, and data collection for the 21 different graduate students enrolled in the course. For each course, materials were posted online via Laulima (the primary tool for online learning in the University system). These materials consisted of PowerPoint presentations, readings from relevant research journals, research articles from the NBPTS website, workbook activities to guide students during the discovery phase (investigation into their NBPTS standards and their portfolio directions), discussion sites, and blogs.

Additionally, when confidentiality issues arose, I had to e-mail directly with individual students to avoid public viewing or comment.

Purpose of the StudyThe sudden change in my ability to interact face-to-face

with my students, to develop teacher-student relationships, and to provide interactive support in a physically present manner was of concern to me as a teacher educator. I pondered whether or not I would be able to fill the role of teacher educator I had effectively carved out for myself. Therefore, this study focuses on my experiences establishing rapport and quality learning experiences via various types of technology with the master’s degree–seeking NBC students in three 600-level graduate courses in the M.Ed. program at the University of Hawaii.

Connections to the LiteratureSince this study concerns online teaching, my first

task was to Google “e-learning.” In less than 10 seconds, I learned that there were in excess of 177,000,000 sites relating to the topic. One thing this might tell us is that e-learning is one of the fastest growing areas of education—even more so now because it enables us to cut down on costs relating to specific aspects of higher education (Gilbert, Morton, & Rowley, 2007). For the purposes of this paper, e-learning and online learning are synonymous. Only recently have articles and studies been written as e-learning relates to methodological issues associated with the delivering of online courses (El-Deghaidy & Nouby, 2008). As the number of university students enrolled in e-learning continues to increase worldwide, the concern in higher education becomes how these online learning class environments affect the quality of teaching and learning (Kim, Kwon, & Cho, 2011).

Researchers have begun to identify challenges that faculty are facing in the relationship between pedagogy and e-learning. One such concern is the concept of self-regulation among students in online environments.

Chief among them (concerns) is the need to be self-directed and regulate one’s own learning in pursuit of academically relevant goals. Setting goals, monitoring progress towards these goals, and reflecting on outcomes are hallmarks of effective self-regulation, and these skills have been clearly linked to achievement. (Bol & Garner, p. 105) Azevedo, Moos, Greene, Winters, and Cromley (2008)

argued that the demands of some distance education settings are greater than the demands faced by students enrolled in traditional face-to-face settings; the challenges occur because of the autonomous nature of e-learning and the lack of on-going, interactive support that a physically present professor

typically provides to students. The need to be a self-regulatory learner becomes crucial to e-learning environments.

Aim and Questions of StudySince 2010, I have been fighting serious health issues.

In March 2011, I received a stem cell/bone marrow transplant. Because I now have a totally new immune system, teaching face-to-face courses is not an option for me. Therefore, I engaged in this self-study of my teaching practices to give insights into my ability to successfully teach my students through non–face-to-face methods compared to the success I found in teaching them in more traditional ways in the classroom. The question that guided my study was “How can I build rapport and effectively teach my cohort when changing course delivery from face-to-face to completely online delivery?”

MethodsThis study employed self-study using narrative

inquiry as its method of data collection and analysis. “Self-study points to a simple truth, that to study a practice is simultaneously to study self: a study of self-in-relation to other” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p. 14). Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, and Russell (2004) identify the term self-study as having an explicit focus on the research being undertaken and relating such research to teacher education practices and the teaching of these practices. With this being said, self-study describes the focus for this research but does not identify a specific method for data collection or analysis (Loughran et al. 2004).

Throughout my work with these cohorts, there were intentional reflective writing activities that included “interrogating aspects of teaching and learning by storying experience” (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002, p. 21). I was documenting my own research experiences through my journal entries, and I was also collecting narrative stories from my students as they described their journey to make sense of National Board Certification. These became the data for my study. Having varying perspectives on the culture and pedagogical elements of the course provided an opportunity for different themes to be examined.

During the first course (May 2011–August 2011), the cohort had to respond to scripted writing assignments each week via the discussion board on Laulima. I asked students to post their own reply to each scripted writing topic then to also respond to at least two of their colleagues.

For the second course (August 2011–December 2011), I modified class participation to include blogging by each student. Although I still posted discussion topics each week, the main area for student input, feedback, and critique came through their own blogging and by sharing their research via their blogs.

The third course is the last phase of research and writing prior to their submission of their NBC portfolio to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. For this course students have had the option of either blogging their progress, ideas, thoughts, frustrations, and questions or keeping a journal to be shared with only me.

Having all of the data from Laulima, a grounded theory approach was used to code the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and create a thematic analysis. Grounded theory is a methodology where a theory is constructed from data that have been collected when the initial explanation of phenomena is not known. This small study makes it nearly impossible to create a theory from the data, so the grounded theory

design was followed closely to determine emergent themes in response to the questions. To make this a true grounded theory study, the data would need to be collected over a longer period of time with a much larger population (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Using scripted writing prompts, the discussion board via Laulima, student-created blogs, and my personal journal worked within the realm of grounded theory because it allowed for the discovery of themes from all stakeholders within the cohort.

OutcomesTheme 1: Rapport. The first semester of my new

teaching approach, I found that building rapport with this cohort of students was extremely difficult. The ability to do simple “ice breakers,” as I do with face-to-face classes, was not a viable option. During the first semester, students posted online only when absolutely necessary. Five different times during the semester, I had to send reminder e-mails to the class to get them to post their required work. Even still, not all students in the cohort were eager to respond to each other. I found the members of this cohort were very much into teacher-directed discussion. I was hoping my students in the same schools would develop small learning communities and support one another in person, not just online.

During the second semester, I decided to use blogging instead of scripted discussion posts. This did provide a more relaxed atmosphere among the cohort. I provided guidelines for the class blog and identified key concepts to address in the blog. While the majority of students found blogging helped to ease stress and build relationships among their cohort, one student stated, “After reading posts from everyone, it is having the opposite effect on me. Instead of becoming more at ease with the conversation between all of us as we go through the same process, I have become more stressed out.” I was hoping that the blogging process would help students use constructive criticism of each other’s work and trust themselves as experienced educators. I found a major weakness in this area with my online cohort. Most initial blog postings failed to mention even one component of data collection for the NBC process, entry writing for the NBC portfolio, or reflection of their teaching. However, the other side of this was that students were sharing stressors they were experiencing both in their teaching and personal lives, meaning the cohort was finally creating and developing their rapport with one another. With the emergence of a supportive online culture, I began to see critical feedback relative to the NBC process emerge in November. One of the postings from a fifth-year teacher said, “I have come up with one lesson for one entry at this time. I have not started teaching yet, collecting data yet, or videotaping. Come January, I will teach, video, collect evidence.” An example of a student response was, “I’m not sure if I’m jealous of you not having to go through the process yet so you can really prepare for this or feel sympathy for starting a little later. Use all of our experiences and try not to repeat the errors we have made and learn from the process we have gone through already.”

The third course is the last phase of research and writing prior to their submission of their NBC portfolio to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. For this course students have had the options of either blogging their progress, ideas, thoughts, frustrations, and questions or keeping a journal to be shared with only me. It was during this course that I documented all conversations between students that dealt with their NBC portfolios. I did not see any conversation of a personal nature. One student noted, “It is now after January

and for some reason it just hit me that the portfolios are due at the end of March and so are our Plan B documentation. All of sudden I really would appreciate any feedback from you guys.” Knowing that two prior semesters have been devoted to this process didn’t have much of an impact until students were down to the wire. “Thank you all so much for helping me to analyze my teaching video. I don’t think my original video would have been good enough. Word to the wise…don’t procrastinate; you never know when you will have to re-tape/re-teach a class,” wrote one student.

Theme 2: Effective instruction. The question for me in this type of instructional setting was to determine if I was still successful as a teacher of teachers. This also proved to be the area where I have the most to learn. Through my own journal entries, I noticed I never “walked away” from class feeling like I had hit a homerun. In one instance I wrote, “After typing out very specific directions for unpacking the content standards, reading them through to myself three times, and then posting them I still don’t feel like my students will have the ‘ah-ha’ moment.” And I was right. I had received numerous e-mails asking for clarification on the posted class. When students respond to me with e-mails such as, “I just don’t get it,” “Why are the portfolio directions so detailed?” and “Why are standards so important in teaching anyway?” I have this overwhelming sense that if I could just be in the class with them, have some face time, then I could ensure the “how’s” and “why’s” made sense.

This doesn’t mean that there weren’t highlights in teaching this cohort. Over the three courses, I could find myself getting stronger with Laulima and understanding different ways to navigate the site so it was more user-friendly for my students. The implementation of student blogs increased the number of conversations between students and it also felt less scripted.

Summary“Many educators pride themselves on being

pedagogically (as opposed to technologically) driven in their teaching and learning designs” (Anderson, 2009). McLuhan (1964) first argued technologies also influence pedagogy. Working under the assumption that the two are connected, “it is as if they are intertwined in a dance: the technology sets the beat and creates the music, while the pedagogy defines the moves” (Anderson & Dron, 2011, p. 82). With this being said, I am still trying to hear the music.

Theme 1: Rapport. Building and maintaining rapport within a cohort is something I have been very successful with in my traditional face-to-face courses. In this teaching environment, I struggled. I found that my students were not comfortable during the first semester and well into the second semester. Students were not comfortable interacting with each other online due to fear of being judged or showing weaknesses in their own classrooms. One student, whose blog entry title was “Scared,” wrote, “I was afraid in the beginning of this program to really say what was happening in my classroom. I did not want anyone to know that I was dealing with a very difficult 4th period. I just knew everyone would think I couldn’t handle my own room.” Keeping this in mind, it is now apparent to me that I must do more to create a safe environment in my virtual classroom than I do in face-to-face settings. What I must do is educate myself about how to do activities with my students in an online environment that are as effective as the “ice breakers” I do in face-to-face sessions. It is essential for this to happen so that the conversation among cohort members moves from personal to critical pedagogy

for this course sooner in the first semester. Once this is done students should feel less stressed to meet the deadlines in March.

Theme 2: Effective instruction. I’m a good teacher; this I know. My pedagogy is sound; my knowledge of technology and how to best deliver course content online needs improvement. The single greatest thing I learned from this study is that at some point the students in the cohort need to be taught how to use Laulima. The next cohort will be provided with a Laulima training session prior to the beginning of my courses. This was overlooked with this group and proved to be a major issue. Through this process I became an advocate for future cohorts to have a live introduction to Laulima. I found myself also needing help in learning all the facets of the site. No matter how many times I would try to write out the steps clearly for navigating Laulima, it was of little use for those who had trouble with basic access.

Next StepsThrough the forced process of teaching completely

online, I have found myself in the role of a student, a student who is learning how to take all that I know about my craft and reinvent it in a way that is motivating, invigorating, and challenging and will succeed in an online format. Currently I have found myself attending numerous webinars and reading as much as I can about rapport in online courses. I have begun to examine the types of multimedia visuals I can create to teach my next cohort.

References Anderson, T. (2009). The dance of technology and pedagogy

in self-paced distance education. Paper presented at the 17th ICDE World Congress, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(3), 80–97.

Azevedo, R., Moos, D. C., Greene, J. A. Winters, F. I., & Cromley, J. G. (2008). Why is externally-facilitated regulated learning more effective than self-regulated learning with hypermedia? Education Technology Research and Development, 56, 45–72.

Bol, L., & Garner, J. (2011). Challenges in supporting self-regulation in distance education environments. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 23, 104–123.

El-Deghaidy, H., & Nouby, A. (2008). Effectiveness of a blended e-learning cooperative approach in an Egyptian teacher education programme. Computers and Education, 51(3), 988–1006.

Gilbert, J., Morton, S., & Rowley, J. (2007). E-learning: The student experience. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(4), 560–573.

Kim, J., Kwon, Y., & Cho, D. (2011). Investigating factors that influence social presence and learning outcomes in distance higher education. Computers and Education, 57(2), 1512–1520.

Loughran, J. J., Hamilton, M. L., LaBoskey, V. K., & Russell, T. (Eds.). (2004). International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Lyons, N., & LaBoskey, V. K. (Eds.). (2002). Why narrative inquiry or exemplars for a scholarship of teaching? In N. Lyons & V. K. LaBoskey (Eds.), Narrative inquiry in practice: Advancing the knowledge of teaching (pp. 11–27). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Toronto, Canada: McGraw-Hill.

Orange County Public Schools. (2011). National Board Certified Teachers. Retrieved from https://www.ocps.net/lc/east/hwp/staff/Pages/NBCT.aspx

Strauss, A. C., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. London, United Kingdom: Sage.

CLARE KOSNIK & LYDIA MENNA SHAWN BULLOCKUniversity of Toronto University of Ontario Institute of Technology

No Longer Digital Novices: Integrating Technology Into Our Literacy Methods Courses

Those attempting to integrate technology in new and innovative ways would benefit from receiving mentoring from more experienced users, learning about examples of successful technology integration, and working within a community that supports technology innovation … Along with having access to successful models, faculty will also need time and opportunities to try out and experiment with new innovations. (Boling, 2005, p. 2)

Context of the Study As the quote above suggests, integrating technology into

education is not an easy task. It requires a number of supports which include developing learning communities and time, both of which are often in short supply in academia. Two of the authors (Clare and Lydia) co-teach two literacy courses in a two-year post-baccalaureate teacher education program and the third author (Shawn), an expert in digital technologies, is our critical friend. While our courses receive high evaluations, we felt that we were not fully integrating technology into our courses and we were only touching on multiliteracies pedagogy. In 2010-2011 we completed a self-study on our efforts to infuse technology into our courses. This study builds on that work, in particular addressing gaps we identified in our practice such not really actualizing the practices of multiliteracies (e.g., using multimodalities).

As we read the research on multiliteracies we were struck by Cervetti, Damico, and Pearson’s (2008) simple statement: “Future teachers should learn about, through, and with technology-based media” (p. 383). An article by Leu, O’Byrne, Zawilinski, McVerry, and Everett-Cacopardo (2009) advanced our understanding because they argued that we must “see the Internet not as a technology but rather as a context in which to read, write, and communicate” (p. 265). When we started to think of digital technologies as literacy issues we were encouraged. Our thinking was deepened by Davies and Merchant (2009), who describe Web 2.0 as “a term that attempts to highlight a new wave and increased volume of users who have developed new ways of using digital technology to interact with each other” (p. 3). Much of the rhetoric around this new paradigm of digital technologies highlights previously unimagined potential for human interaction, from facilitating collaborative content generation projects on a massive scale (e.g., Wikipedia) (Tapscott & Williams, 2008) to facilitating revolutions against oppressive regimes (Ghonim, 2012). We realized that in our pedagogy of teacher education (Loughran, 2006) we needed to have technology fully integrated into the literacy courses—we had to teach with it and help students acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to incorporate technology into their own teaching (Bullock, 2011; Cervetti, Damico, & Pearson, 2008; Kirkwood, 2009).

This study was multi-layered following Samaras and Freese’s (2006) description of self-study research as “layered and multifaceted with overlapping objectives and with the key purpose of refining, reframing, and renewing education” (p. 14). We sensed that as we engaged in this research, our findings would inform our continuous reflection

on our practice and, in turn, require us to modify the way we approached our work as teacher educators. Our practice as teacher educators was but one facet of this work. Hamilton and Pinnegar (1998) describe self-study as involving “critical examination of the self’s involvement both in aspects of the study and in the phenomenon under study” (p. 240), a definition which applies well to our research because we were studying both our practices and technology use in general. We were attempting to understand and improve the various aspects of our practice. Laboskey’s (2004) five principles for self-study were relevant for this work:

• Self-initiated and focused • Improvement-aimed• Interactive • Multiple, primarily qualitative, methods • Exemplar-based validation (p. 842–852)

Objectives Our three main research questions were 1. How did our use of technology in our preservice literacy courses change in 2011-2012? 2. How did a greater focus on technology change our identities and practices as teacher educators? 3. What barriers (technical)/problems of practice (our own skills) did we encounter as we integrated technology into our courses?

Method(s) We had five data sources for this study. First, after

each class, we debriefed and wrote notes. Second, we kept a running tally of our efforts to incorporate technology into the courses. Third, at the end of the courses we each wrote reflections on our efforts and responded to each other. Fourth, we had ongoing discussions, both face-to-face and online, with our critical friend, Stephen. Finally, the student-teachers gave us weekly feedback, which provided us with their perspective on our work.

In terms of analyzing our efforts to infuse technology, we chose Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Glazewski, and Newby’s (2010) six different ways to incorporate technology:

1. information delivery 2. hands-on skill building activities 3. practice in the field 4. observations and modeling 5. authentic experiences 6. reflections (p. 20)

We used a ground theory approach which, as Punch (2009) explains, is not a theory, but a strategy used to generate theory that will be grounded in the data (p. 130). The theory was developed inductively from the data using a set of techniques and procedures for collection and analysis (Punch, 2009). Throughout the analysis we identified key themes, then worked together selecting the themes that we felt captured our work. As Strauss (2003) puts it, “The basic question facing us is how to capture the complexity of the reality (phenomena) we study, and how to make convincing sense of it” (p. 16).

Results Categorizing our efforts. In the first self-study (2010-

2011) we identified 32 ways we had integrated technology into the courses. When we analyzed these using Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al.’s (2010) framework, we found that our efforts were predominately in the categories of information delivery and modeling. This is probably because we had a hit-and-miss approach; for example, we would find a YouTube clip while prepping for class and quickly decide to use it. This ad hoc approach helped us get over the hurdle of our insecurities but had limited educational value.

Increasing our use of technology. During the summer of 2011, Clare and Lydia spent significant time trying to find ways to use digital technologies to support student learning (e.g., websites of exemplary literacy teachers). As Boling (2005) noted: “For many K-12 teachers, resources and activities for integrating technology do not come ready-made, in packages … these same challenges exist for college and university faculty, as they attempt to find and develop resources that match the content of their courses and their teaching practices” (p. 2).

Although keen to improve our use of digital technologies, we needed professional assistance. We approached many in our thriving Information Technology Department to ask for assistance, but the support they provided was limited for two main reasons. First, we were not certain what we needed because we had only a global question (How can we infuse technology into our literacy courses?) to guide us. Second, the experts we consulted often talked at a level and in a discourse that was beyond us. They launched into description of topics such as RSS feeds or asynchronous timing. Although their intentions were good, they could not work at the very practical level we needed nor speak in a language we understood. Their responses were consistent with Deborah Ball (2000)’s research on teachers of mathematics. She noted that teachers must be able to unpack their knowledge to work backwards to the level of their students; this aptly applies to the situation because Lydia and Clare were the students. Ball says that mathematics educators must

deconstruct one’s own knowledge into a less polished and final form, where critical components are accessible and visible. This feature of teaching means that paradoxically, expert personal knowledge of subject matter is often ironically inadequate for teaching. (p. 245)As our goals became clearer, to support student learning,

we became more systematic in our efforts to infuse technology through two initiatives. One was developing a Wiki for our courses. Unlike our earlier efforts (in 2010-2011), we realized that we needed to determine why we wanted to use a Wiki.

• It would be a repository for materials related to literacy which the student-teachers could contribute to.• It would show students a way to organize materials.

• It would be an on-going site to access and share materials which students could use after graduation.• It would model for students a way to use a Wiki in their classrooms with children.With clearer goals, we located a computer expert, Tony,

from the school district to help us. He spoke a “language” we could understand and showed us his course Wikis, a model we could use. Lydia and Clare took the lead on developing the Wiki which was a huge leap for them and found Wiki Spaces a very easy program to use. When it was launched we were so proud of our efforts: proud of our technical abilities and the development of our pedagogy as it became enhanced by the purposeful use of digital technologies. Pages included course materials, professional literature, children’s literature, websites and digital technologies, and lesson/unit plans.

A second initiative was revamping an assignment, responding to a text on writing, which required students to present their response (summary and analysis) to a small group of their fellow students using a digital technology (e.g., iMovie, a graphic organizer, a web quest, a comic book template, Wordle, Word Puzzle, digital photos, music, podcast, activity from the Read, Write, Think site). Through the student presentations, we learned a great deal about various computer programs; the students became our teachers, which was a validation for them and a great source of learning for us. Almost all of the presentations were uploaded to the course Wiki.

Moving beyond the status quo. When doing the analysis of our data in the first self-study, we realized that we were simply trying to map technology onto existing courses. We were barely using the affordances of Web 2.0 in our teaching. The field of literacy has changed in the last few decades; in particular, multiliteracies theory is causing educators to rethink communication with others and the types of literacy experiences students have. As the term implies, one of the central ideas of multiliteracies pedagogy is that there are many types of literacy: a “burgeoning variety of text forms” (New London Group, 1996, p. 61). Accordingly, it is inappropriate for schools to focus on “a singular, canonical” language form such as formal written English (p. 63). In terms of teaching, educators must recognize that “[w]hen technologies of meaning are changing so rapidly, there cannot be one set of standards or skills that constitute the ends of literacy learning” (p. 64). Not only were we maintaining the status quo in our literacy courses, but we also felt that our student teachers were approaching our courses with a traditional mindset of teaching/learning. From the Ticket Out the Door sheets, we realized that we needed to help student teachers think “outside the box” regarding their own literacy practices and teaching. For example, one student commented, “I never would have thought of Instant Messaging as a form of writing.”

In addition to expanding readings to include literature on multiliteracies, discussion of the concept, and greater use of digital technologies, we adopted the question “What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century?” as an overarching question for our literacy courses. Having this question as the framework for the course immediately sent a message to students that we were thinking very broadly about literacy, encouraging them to think beyond the textbook and consider how their personal literacy practices inform their views of literacy. When we defined Web 2.0 as a form of communication, students were stunned! Further, we now realize that planning for infusion of technology requires the same forethought as choosing readings and determining the goals for the course. As we developed a repertoire of strategies

using digital technologies, we could be selective in matching the learning outcomes to the technology. In our teaching, we still capitalize on the “wow factor” of technology, such as the rap video I Can’t Read about a young fellow who could not read and was going to use sports as a way to get out of the ghetto until he broke his leg (Carey, 2007). We use technology to engage students but are now much more conscious of what we are doing.

Turning points in our identity as digitally competent. A wise colleague of ours, David Booth, noted that “you teach who you are.” If we were reluctant digital users in our personal lives, most likely we would be so in our professional lives. We needed to use digital technologies in our personal lives beyond word processing and cell phones. As we became adept with more kinds of technology (e.g., Clare using an iPad) we became more comfortable with technology in our professional lives. This step was an important bridge into using technology in our courses; for example, when Lydia got a new computer she experimented with iMovie, which led to us making a video in the first class of each literacy course. Each student teacher was asked to respond to a question (e.g., what they hope to learn in the literacy course, favourite memory of reading and writing, and so on) which was videotaped. Using iMovie, Lydia made a movie from the clips. The students were absolutely “blown away” with the video and requested that we make a similar video at the end of the course because it would be a great pre- and post-measure of their learning.

Although we initially did not feel like digital natives, over time we began to see ourselves as competent users of technology. As we acquired more teaching strategies using technology, our confidence increased and shifted our identity from novice to competent. There were four turning points in our development. The first was launching our Wiki. Second, Clare, who is a very experienced doctoral supervisor, knew that having her students talk about their research gives them confidence, helps them understand their topic more fully, and provides an opportunity for them to get feedback. We decided to apply this advice to ourselves. We volunteered to present our self-study research to the Science, Mathematics, and Technology Research Centre at a Brown Bag Session. These researchers would be considered experts in digital technology; although the prospect of presenting to them was intimidating, we felt that we might receive some valuable feedback on our work. The session went incredibly well in part because our critical friend Shawn was with us. He provided the gravitas and expertise and could talk in the academic language of technology researchers. When 25 people, both experts in technology and novices, showed up to the session, we were stunned. The latter wanted to know how to incorporate technology into their courses! That we could talk to both teacher educators and digital technology experts influenced our identity—we felt like 21st-century teacher educators.

Third, bolstered by our efforts with the Brown Bag Session, we submitted a proposal to the Social Media Conference organized by a local teachers’ federation. Putting together the proposal moved us deeper into the research literature, and writing the proposal helped us clarify our ideas.

Finally, our course evaluations were very strong, and not a single student mentioned that he or she wished there had been more integration of technology. This is the first time that students have not requested more technology and many commented that they really liked the way we had incorporated technology.

Educational Significance We were trying to weave technology seamlessly into

our courses to support student learning; however, this was extremely difficult to do. Since we have not experienced learning in a technology-rich environment, it was very difficult to teach in a way that we were not taught. Teacher educators must “have access to more experienced technology users who can serve as role models for innovative technology integration” (Boling, 2005, p. 2). Returning to the opening quotation, we fully concur with Boling that digital novices such as Clare and Lydia need mentoring. We, Clare and Lydia, could not have done this work without Shawn because he offered us insightful feedback on our efforts, provided a broader (more philosophical) perspective on use of digital technologies, helped us with analysis of our data, raised pertinent questions, and provided examples of integration of technology into his courses. Without mentors, integration of digital technology may remain the arena for digital experts. Further, we definitely saw that our personal and professional lives intersected, which means that educators need to be using technology in all aspects of their lives.

Although there is a call for increasing technology into teacher education programs, from our review of the literature we see the various fields balkanized into silos: teacher education, literacy education, and technology. There are few studies and examples of cross-discipline work. There need to be far more studies done collaboratively; for example, literacy teacher educators jointly doing research with the “pure” technology researchers. This kind of collaboration would marry content and technology (pedagogy).

Education has been plagued by jargon; as Kosnik and Beck (2009) found in their research on beginning teachers, simply knowing the terminology is not sufficient. The repeated call to integrate technology into teacher education, although a laudable goal, is far too vague and has reached “jargon status.” We are not sure that we know (or if others know) what integration of technology actually means. Use of technology should not be the goal; rather, the goal needs to be use of technology to support student learning, which is a far more challenging task and much more nebulous.

Without question, many of our students were very tech savvy and they have grown up with technology in their personal lives, but it is naïve to assume that they know how to use technology in their teaching. Like us, they do not have examples of how to do this. Teacher education programs must provide settings where technology is integrated into course delivery and students are taught how to use technology in their teaching. Teacher education courses could serve as ideal places where student teachers and teacher educators jointly explore the pedagogical implications of working with technology.

References Boling, E. (2005). A time of new literacies: Who’s educating

the teacher educators? Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=11742

Ball, D. (2000). Bridging practices: Intertwining content and pedagogy in teaching and learning to teach. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 241–247.

Bullock, S. M. (2011). Teaching 2.0: (Re)learning to teach online. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 8(2), 94–105.

Carey, L. (2007). I can’t read. HBO Def Jam Poetry. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lByDfPOG0LA

Cervetti, G., Damico, J., & Pearson, P. D. (2008). Multiple literacies, new literacies, and teacher education. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 378–386.

Davies, J. & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Ghonim, W. (2012). Revolution 2.0: A memoir and call to action. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (1998). Conclusion: The value and the promise of self-study. In M. L. Hamilton, S. Pinnegar, T. Russell, J. Loughran, & V. LaBoskey (Eds.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education (pp. 234–246). London, United Kingdom: Falmer Press.

Kirkwood, A. (2009). E-learning: You don’t always get what you hope for. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 18(2), 107–121.

Kosnik, C., & Beck, C. (2009). Priorities in teacher education: The 7 key elements of preservice preparation. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

LaBoskey, V. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Leu, D., O’Byrne, I., Zawilinski, L., McVerry, J. G., & Everett-Cacopardo, H. (2009). Expanding the new literacies conversation. Educational Researcher, 38(4), 264–269.

New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60–92.

Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A., Glazewski, K., & Newby, T. (2010). Preservice technology integration course revision: A conceptual guide. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 18(1), 5–33.

Punch, K. (2009). Introduction to research methods in education. London, United Kingdom: Sage.

Samaras, A., & Freese, A. (2006). Self-study of teaching practices. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Strauss, A. (2003). Qualitative analysis for social scientists (14th ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2008). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything (Expanded ed.). New York, NY: Portfolio.

JEFF KUZMICDePaul University

Failing at Democracy: The Pedagogy and Epistemology of Self in Self-Study Research

Introduction Like many of my previous efforts at self-study research

(Kuzmic, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008), this study has a dual focus. First, this is an attempt to understand the critical pedagogical incidents that continue to “haunt” (Gordon, 1997) my professional life and, for me, signal the need to explore the intersection of my personal and professional identities in terms of my role as a teacher educator. Second, this self-study is an effort to explore the intersection and meaning of these incidents in terms of the epistemological implications for extending our methodological understandings of self-study research.

At the midpoint of my career, I recently made a small, but significant, shift in my professional life, moving from one department (Teacher Education) to another (Leadership, Language, and Curriculum). In this “new” role, I have been teaching a special topics doctoral seminar titled Curriculum for Democracy and the Public Good. In my twenty-plus years of teaching in higher education, this was arguably the best class I have ever taught in terms of its pedagogical significance, the depth of intellectual engagement, and the establishment of a shared teaching and learning community, what Bullough and Gitlin (1991) refer to as an educative community. From my perspective, some of the real defining aspects of our educative community were not only our ability to engage democratic educational theory in terms of both its philosophical and practical significance, but also our efforts to establish and engage in the democratic process pedagogically. That is, until it all fell apart, literally at the last moment (fifteen minutes before the end of the next-to-last class). I have come to think of “the” incident in class that contributed to this as “the failure of democracy,” “my failure with democracy,” and “our failure at democracy,” depending on the perspective from which I now look back at “the” incident. “The” incident was initiated as a misunderstanding between two students based on deeply held belief systems that seemingly were in conflict with each other and demonstrated the challenges of constructing and maintaining community in the face of difference and the tensions between self and other, private and public, and individual and community. My efforts immediately following “the” incident and during the last class session a week later to understand and recover the community that “the” incident brought into question not only seemed insufficient, but somehow seemed to further highlight the myth of a democratic and educative community. As noted at the outset, unlike many critical pedagogical incidents that I have encountered over the years, where with time and reflection I can put the critical pedagogical incident into a “lesson learned” category, this failure of/with/at democracy has haunted me for the past six months and seems resistant both to being classified as a “lesson learned” and to closure.

Methodological ContextWhile I didn’t go into Curriculum for Democracy and

the Public Good thinking that I would do a self-study project, it has turned into one. The irony of “failing at democracy” in a course designed to explore the relationship between democratic theory and educational practice still haunts me. As such I have turned the events at the end of Curriculum for Democracy and the Public Good and the aftermath of this into a self-study project. As a methodological and archival starting point, I will be drawing on a variety of documents created for the course (syllabus, my lesson plans, student evaluations, the reflective notes I write following each class, and e-mail correspondence from students). More importantly, this self-study research (Loughran & Russell, 2002; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) takes up where the class itself left off: in the aftermath of the failure of democracy in Curriculum for Democracy and the Public Good. In particular, I draw on a variety of data that documents several meetings with the students involved in “the” incident, conversations with other students in the class, and my own written reflections in response to these and my ongoing efforts to make sense of what happened. While the latter efforts are still ongoing, the following section seeks to articulate the broad parameters of what I/we have come to understand in the aftermath of failing at democracy.

Democracy, Self, and Self-StudyThis paper seeks to accomplish two broad aims. The

first aim is to revisit and visit anew the events that occurred in at the end of Curriculum for Democracy and the Public Good through self-study research in order to make sense of and better understand the challenges that I (as instructor), they (the students in class), and we (the combination of these) faced in engaging in the democratic process. In particular, I seek to provide answers or at least some possible understandings for why democracy failed. Key here will be exploring what this means for me as an instructor and for thinking about the larger project of “practicing what we preach.” Drawing on Bullough and Gitlin’s (1991) conceptualization of educative communities and a body of scholarship exploring democracy, education, pedagogy, and difference (Katz, Noddings, & Strike, 1999; Mouffe, 2009; Young, 2000; Zajda, Davies, & Majhanovich, 2010) in the first part of the paper, I seek to make sense of the intersection of the private with the public, the self with the other, and the individual with community. Central to this is the need to understand how “complex identities of difference” complicate and frame our individual and collective abilities to engage in democratic pedagogical practices. In order to address this with the audience, I will seek to engage them in a conversation about their own experiences

with democracy and difference based on the narrative example I provide.

The second aim of this paper, building on my own previous work and the work of others (e.g., Loughran & Russell, 2002; Mitchell, Weber, & O’Reilly-Scanlon, 2005; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009; Samaras, 2002; Samaras & Freese, 2006, 2009; Schulte, 2009 Tidwell & Fitzgerald, 2006; Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009) in exploring the epistemological and methodological significance of self-study research as a means for engaging, understanding, and researching educational phenomena, seeks to understand how the tensions between self and other, private and public, and individual and community shape and give meaning to the self of self-study. While my previous research has explored the ways in which self-study extends and enhances the epistemological boundaries of educational research in general and qualitative research more specifically, this paper offers a more cautious epistemological tale. In particular, I seek to both problematize how the self of self-study research can ever be knowable on the one hand and how self-study research makes the self (more) knowable on the other. I will provide a brief overview of this following the first part of the dialogue mentioned above.

“The” Incident At my university, we are on an eleven-week quarter

system with ten weeks of classes and an exam week. Since I generally don’t have a final exam, but rather a final paper/project, my classes usually meet during exam week to bring our class to a close by reflecting on what we have learned and will take away from the course (in this case with regard to the relationship between democracy and education). Since this was a doctoral-level course, along with these broad goals there were additional foci related to students thinking about their own doctoral research focusing on how this course contributes to our ways of thinking about non-binary relationships between theory and practice and the implications for thinking about epistemological and methodological issues in educational research. Since our course took place during spring quarter and was held on Monday evening, we did not meet during week ten due to the Memorial Day holiday.

“The” incident took place at the very end of our week nine class session. As with most doctoral classes, this course had an enrollment of thirteen students. For most students, this course would come in the second or third year of their three years of coursework, and I had had over half of these students in previous doctoral courses. Because this was a special topics class, there were a number of first-year doctoral students (with one being in her first quarter of classes) and even a master’s student. This is not uncommon for Special Topics courses that are taught on an irregular basis.

For week nine I had asked students to prepare 10-minute presentations that summarized their rough drafts of final projects. These 15–20 page “research” projects sought to explore the relationship between democratic educational theory, curriculum, and educational practice. Specifically, in the syllabus, I stated that “this paper represents a scholarly effort on your part to articulate, from your perspective (but situated within and linked to the larger discourses on democratic theory), the relationship between education within/for/about democracy” (CS 794 Syllabus, spring 2011, p. 5). It was during the last presentation, given by Rachel, a Jewish woman, where democracy as practice was challenged in our class. Rachel was in her first quarter in our doctoral program,

and while she was finding her way and embracing the readings and class discussions, I sensed she also felt a bit intimidated.

Perhaps for this reason she waited until everyone else had volunteered to present her paper. Rachel had taken to heart several themes that emerged in our readings, particularly the problematic nature of the tensions between self-other, private-public, and individual-society. Her paper was a thoughtful analysis that sought to see the hot topic of “bullying” through a critical democratic lens. As she started her presentation, it was obvious that she was a bit nervous, and unlike her previous contributions to our class discussions, seemed to lack focus, and the overall focus of her project was less than clear. What was clear was that she was trying to complicate our “public” discussion of bullying by looking at the larger structural, contextual issues and trying to understand this issue from multiple perspectives. To try and illustrate, she offered the example of suicide and how we tend to see this as a selfish act when viewed from the perspective of the person who commits suicide and often ignore or downplay the impact on others and how this view is socially constructed. At least this was my perception of her example. It was at this point that Jayant, a South Asian Indian American male, interrupted Rachel and pointed out that the notion of suicide as a selfish act was a culturally and religiously situated construct and that in some cultures suicide is not viewed as a selfish act.

While Rachel began to address Jayant’s comments (hesitantly and defensively), another student spoke up and mentioned that she also had trouble with her example based on her own personal experiences. At this point, Rachel was near tears and the conversation had all but ceased. It was at this point that I interjected something like this: “One of the things that has been highlighted throughout our texts and we’ve talked about in our conversations about these are the challenges of dealing with difference in democratic settings. With the little time left tonight, I think we should recognize and think about this and take it up during our last class.”

As I write this is has been over eight months since “the” incident and while I have made peace with the fact that this was the decision I made, I have regretted making that decision at least a hundred times.

Failing at Democracy: The AftermathAs class ended, several students huddled around Rachel,

who had become more visibly distraught, providing comfort. I heard snippets of conversation as I dealt with end-of-the-quarter questions from other students—things like “Not your fault” and “You didn’t say anything wrong.” I noticed that Jayant had left. Before Rachel left, I asked her if we could talk in order to get her sense of what had just happened. She mentioned that she felt that what she had said had been misinterpreted and that she felt verbally attacked. I said that I recognized how she was feeling, but that I had not interpreted Jayant’s statement in that way. She noted that this was not the first time that she and Jayant had had a “conflict”; this had happened before in one of our small group discussions. I noted that while Jayant (who is extremely well read and very articulate) can be strident in his comments, his intention, from my perception, is to articulate different perspectives, but not to challenge or accuse. We talked for another 15 minutes, and while I tried to see if she would be willing to discuss the misunderstanding with Jayant in order to try and resolve it or reach a different understanding of things, she stated that she didn’t think at that moment that she would be willing to do that, that she was misinterpreted, and further conversation wouldn’t change that.

I also talked with Jayant later in the week. He informed me that he wouldn’t be at our last class session because he was going to a conference (something he had informed me of at the beginning of the quarter, although I had forgotten). When I asked for his sense of what had occurred, he informed that he was sorry that Rachel felt wronged, but that had not been his intention; he was merely pointing out how one’s views could be culturally and religiously situated and that there were other ways of “seeing” the world. He felt that what he had said was appropriate, that she was, perhaps, being too sensitive and had taken his comments personally. He also didn’t think the idea of meeting to further discuss this, to reach a different understanding, would be worthwhile.

Last Class: Hope and DespairAs the last class approached, I was feeling more and

more uncomfortable with my ability to get past what had happened in the previous session. As I prepared for class, the gravity of my pedagogical error seemed to take on more weight. While I toyed with the idea of not addressing what had happened, in the end I decided to address it. As class began, I shared the following statement with the class:

I’d like to say a few things about the way that our last class session came to a close….in general, unsatisfactorily.

In the weeks since then, I’ve given what happened, reconstructing it in my mind, a lot of thought. Interestingly, given all that we’ve read, I keep coming back to the Fields and Feinberg text [2001]. Partly, because this text, more that any of our other readings, concretely illustrated the complexity, messiness, uncertainty, ambiguity, and challenges of engaging in the democratic process. The situatedness of language and one’s perspective, the ability of these to shape communication and dialogue, and the problematic character of these were all on display as we read about individuals and groups coming together to think about educational policy and practice.

Our dialogues about democracy in this class take place within a particular time frame, but the democratic process we engage in does not. I think this is where I slipped last week. Class was coming to an end and I tried to facilitate that while recognizing the interaction that had taken place by suggesting this by stating, “the challenges of engaging in democratic dialogue, the power of language, and the situatedness of knowledge.”

In part, uncertain of how and where to go, I chose to not go. For this I apologize. In hindsight and through dialogue, because that is all we have, I should have sought to extend rather than leave the conversation, to understand, to explore, and to try and make sense of what had occurred. Leaving it as we did, I suspect, left a bad taste in all our mouths.

Still, I want to problematize this a bit more.I say this to illustrate the challenges of engaging in the democratic process, the uncertainty, and the responsibility of everyone involved to engage in the process. As I think about what would have happened next, had I had encouraged instead of discouraged further dialogue, would we have found a way to get past, through, and beyond “the interaction”? That would

have been the true test of the “challenges of engaging in democratic dialogue, the power of language, and the situatedness of knowledge.” My point is that we can’t know the answer to this at this point, but it is worth thinking about, as an academic exercise, how we would have responded. I wish I would have given us the opportunity to give this a shot. (Class notes, June 13, 2012)While we did have a dialogue about the incident

following these comments, without all of the major players there (Jayant, as stated above, was attending a conference), our conversation seemed too distant, too removed from, and too focused on what was said, rather than what might have informed our conversation to provide me or the class with a sense of resolution/understanding.

The Aftermath Revisited I have provided the above account as a way of

framing my presentation and dialogue with audience at the conference. I will also provide a brief synopsis of my own efforts to understand the pedagogical and epistemological implications of my/our failing at democracy. In seeking to address the pedagogical, I will be drawing on Liz Ellsworth’s (1989, 1997 scholarship about the limits and possibilities of critical pedagogy to discuss the relationship between power, voice, respect, and responsibility in dealing with difference in the classroom and using this to (de/re)construct my ways of thinking about democracy in the classroom. From an epistemological perspective I will be drawing on the work of Ann Phillips (1993) and Iris Marion Young (2000) around difference, inclusion, and democracy to explore the implications of understanding the self of self-study. As I seek to understand how “our selves” and “our others” are constructed and understood in the classroom, I have come to think about how our understandings of self are always partial, contextually situated in “relation-to,” and continually emergent. Epistemologically I will seek to explore the limits and possibilities of this proposition for self-study.

ReferencesBullough, R. V., & Gitlin, A. (1991). Educative communities

and the development of the reflective practitioner. In B. R. Tabachnich & K. Zeichner (Eds.), Issues and practices in inquiry-oriented teacher education (pp. 35–56). London, United Kingdom: Falmer Press.

Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Education Review, 59(3), 297–324.

Ellsworth, E. (1997). Teaching positions: Difference, pedagogy, and the power of address. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Fields, A. B., & Feinberg, W. (2001). Education and democratic theory: Finding a place for community participation in public school reform. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Gordon, A. F. (1997). Ghostly matters: Haunting and the sociological imagination. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press.

Gutmann, A. (1999). Democratic education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Katz, M. S., Noddings, N., & Strike, K. (Eds.). (1999). Justice and caring: The search for common ground in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Kuzmic, J. (2000). Confronting the myth(s) that blind us: Research as a way of knowing (and seeing). In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Exploring Myths and Legends of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Kingston, Canada: Queen’s University.

Kuzmic, J. (2002). Research as a way of knowing and seeing: Advocacy for the other. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study. London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeFalmer.

Kuzmic, J. (2004). “Working the hyphen” in teacher-research (and self-study): Exploring guilt, anxiety, and researcher subjectivity. In D. Tidwell, L. Fitzgerald, & M. Heston (Eds.), Risking the Journey of Self-Study in a Diverse World. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 273–276). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Kuzmic, J. (2006). Resisting teacher-research: Professionalism, power, surveillance, and the practice of teacher education. In L. Fitzgerald, M. Heston, & D. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 165–170). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Kuzmic, J. (2008). “Split at the roots”: Epistemological and ontological challenges/tensions/possibilities and the methodology of self-study research. In M. L. Heston, D. L. Tidwell, K. K. East, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Pathways to Change in Teacher Education: Dialogue, Diversity and Self-Study. Proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 207–212). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Loughran, J. J., & Russell, T. (Eds.). (2002). Improving teacher education practices through self-study. London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeFalmer.

Mitchell, C., Weber, S., & O’Reilly-Scanlon, K. (Eds.). (2005). Just who do we think we are? Methodologies for autobiography and self-study in teaching. New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.

Mouffe, C. (2009). The democratic paradox. New York, NY: Verso.

Phillips, A. (1993). Democracy and difference. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Samaras, A. P., & Freese, A. R. (2009). Looking back and looking forward: An historical overview of the self-study school. In C. A. Lassonde, S. Galman, & C. Kosnik (Eds.), Self-study research methodologies for teacher educators (pp. 3–20). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Schulte, A. K. (2009). Seeking integrity in teacher education: Transforming student teachers, transforming myself. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Press.

Tidwell, D. L., & Fitzgerald, L. M. (2006). Self-study and diversity. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Tidwell, D. L., Heston, M. L., & Fitzgerald, L. M. (2009). Research methods for the self-study of practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Zajda, J., Davies, L., & Majhanovich, S. (Eds.). (2010). Comparative and global pedagogies: Equity, access and democracy in education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

LOUANN LOVIN & KYLE SCHULTZJames Madison University

Illuminating Mathematics Teacher Education Through Decoding Disciplinary Thinking: Unpacking Mathematical Knowledge For Teaching

Faculty who are deeply ingrained in their disciplines oftentimes struggle to remember what it is like to initially learn particular disciplinary ideas or to pay attention to how they approach and work through common disciplinary tasks. Mathematics teacher educators are no different. We are two mathematics teacher educators who collaborated in self-study research with a two-fold purpose: to unpack and better understand our disciplinary thinking and to better understand and refine ways that help our prospective teachers (PTs) develop their own disciplinary thinking.

ContextLouAnn teaches mathematics content courses for

pre-K–8 PTs while Kyle teaches mathematics methods courses for 6–12 PTs. The particular mathematics content course that provides part of the context for this study is the first of three required courses for pre-K–8 PTs at our university. One of the goals of the course is to help PTs unpack their mathematical knowledge, which is typically procedural in nature, and to help them develop conceptual understanding of the mathematical concepts and skills within the pre-K–8 mathematics curriculum. Although the course is a freshmen-level course, about half of the students have sophomore to senior standing, either because students changed to the major late or they have taken and not passed the course previously. In a pre-course survey, at least half of the students typically indicate that they have neutral to negative feelings towards mathematics.

The mathematics methods courses focus on how learners come to understand mathematical ideas and ways to facilitate this understanding in middle and high school classrooms. One methods course focuses on teaching middle grades (6–8) mathematics content and the other on teaching high school (9–12). In these courses, the greatest challenge is getting students to shift from modes of instruction focused on memorization and application of procedures and formulas to those focused on cultivating a deep and connected understanding of mathematical ideas. Because most students have experienced learning mathematics only through the former approach and had some measure of success, it is difficult for them to see the apparent need for the latter.

Connections to the LiteratureShulman (1986) was the first scholar to begin to

differentiate between the different kinds of knowledge a teacher uses to teach effectively, namely subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. Ball and her colleagues (e.g., Ball, Hill, & Bass, 2005; Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004) continued to refine the multi-dimensional nature of teacher knowledge, identifying three kinds of subject matter knowledge—Common Content Knowledge (CCK), Specialized Content Knowledge (SCK),

and Knowledge at the Horizon (KH)—and three kinds of pedagogical content knowledge—Knowledge of Content and Student (KCS), Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT), and Knowledge of Curriculum (KC). Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) is a term used to refer to these various components of teacher knowledge as a whole (Ball, Lubienski, & Mewborn, 2001; Hill, Schilling, & Ball, 2004).

There is agreement in the field that teachers need a rich understanding of mathematics that is different from what an average person might need (e.g., Hill, Dean, & Goffney, 2007). Not only does teachers’ mathematical content knowledge impact the quality and nature of their teaching (Schoenfeld, 2000), but teachers’ MKT has been identified in the research literature as having positive effects on student achievement (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005). Unfortunately, studies have shown that current and prospective K-12 teachers lack the deep understanding of mathematics needed for effective teaching (e.g., Butterfield & Chinnappan, 2010; Eisenhart et al., 1993; Even, 1993; Forrester & Chinnappan, 2010; Livy & Vale, 2011; Ma, 1999; National Research Council, 2001; Knuth, 2002).

In thinking about how MKT might be developed in PTs, we turn to work conducted by cross-disciplinary experts on decoding disciplinary thinking in a university setting. Middendorf and Pace (2004) described disciplinary thinking as the thinking specifically used by experts in their discipline and as something that is rarely presented to learners explicitly. They presented a model, the Decoding the Disciplines Model (DDM), that guides university faculty through a process to better understand the implicit ways of thinking exhibited within their disciplines and how to make those ways of thinking explicit to learners. DDM targets specific bottlenecks to student learning, instances during the learning process where a significant number of students falter. Once a bottleneck is identified, the faculty member attempts to unpack how he or she might navigate through it. Middendorf and Pace called the process of unpacking the specifics of thinking and learning in a given discipline “decoding disciplinary thinking.” This unpacking results in a list of ideas and tasks used by the faculty member to work through the bottleneck. This list of ideas and tasks can serve as a heuristic guide for novices to support their navigation through the bottleneck.

AimsA common goal for those who engage in self-study

research is to gain a better understanding of the pedagogy that shapes their practice. With this study we sought to investigate how unpacking our disciplinary thinking (MKT) and attempting to make our disciplinary thinking more explicit to our learners helped us gain insight into our pedagogical

approaches. In particular, we were interested in identifying significant ideas in our disciplinary thinking that lay implicit in our practice.

MethodOur ultimate goal as teacher educators is to help PTs

develop their own disciplinary thinking or MKT. However, it was necessary to first become more aware of our reasoning as we engage in particular kinds of discipline-related tasks. In an effort to understand our practice differently (i.e., become more aware of subtleties) we engaged in decoding our disciplinary thinking. Through interacting with each other and a critical friend outside our discipline, we were pressed to justify and consider alternative ways of articulating our disciplinary thinking.

We each began the process of decoding by first identifying bottlenecks to learning in each of our courses. To identify bottlenecks, we examined PTs’ work from a variety of assignments, such as in-class tasks, lesson plans, analyses of children’s mathematical work, and written explanations for solutions to mathematical problems, to determine specific instances where a majority of them demonstrated difficulty with key ideas of the course. We also considered data from a program assessment as well as focus group interview data about the tasks on this program assessment to help identify content that caused issues for learners. In articulating bottlenecks, faculty tend to initially identify ideas that are too broad and jargon-heavy. Through questions, such as “What do you mean by that terminology? What would ‘that’ look like? What processes are involved? What are the key points? What do you mean by…?” we attempted to push each other to articulate more well-defined bottlenecks. The discussion sessions involved the researchers taking notes about how to make the bottlenecks more specific, allowing opportunities to review the notes to aid in further refinement of the bottlenecks as well as data to inform our turn back to self.

Once we were satisfied with the articulation of a given bottleneck for learning, we reflectively talked through the steps we do or think about as we engage in tasks that create the bottleneck for learners. Kurz and Banta (2004) claim that the “importance of breaking down a bottleneck into small, manageable steps, defining those as precisely as possible in terms of what students should know and do, cannot be underestimated” (p. 94). Disciplinary thinking becomes more explicit to students through the reconstruction of these steps. To help unpack the steps we use to navigate through a given bottleneck, we asked each other questions such as “How would you reason through that task? How are students supposed to do that? What does that activity/task assume students are able to do? What’s the difference between … and…?”

As “critical friends” (Loughran, 2004, p. 157), we challenged each other’s claims, which frequently required us to become more explicit about the meanings and purposes underlying our bottlenecks and developed tasks. Furthermore, in an effort to ensure we were “constantly asserting ideas and interrogating them, inviting alternative interpretations and seeking multiple perspectives” (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009, p. 165), we shared our bottlenecks along with the small, manageable steps and the corresponding tasks and activities with a trusted colleague who is not a mathematics teacher educator and who is familiar with the notion of decoding disciplinary thinking. Repeating this process with our out-of-discipline colleague further improved our articulation of the

identified bottlenecks and how one might navigate through each one.

Next we identified ways (e.g., tasks, class-based activities, assignments outside of class) that we assumed would help make the small, manageable steps embedded in navigating through bottlenecks more explicit to our learners and that would provide practice and feedback to our learners as they engaged in developing disciplinary thinking. As we individually developed these tasks and activities, we shared them with each other as a way to evaluate their integrity in addressing the small, manageable steps. To determine the impact of these tasks and activities on our PTs’ development of disciplinary thinking, we considered data from observations of classroom activities, discussions between the instructor and PTs during office visits, instructor journals, PTs’ written work on assignments, peer reviews on assignments, and PTs’ responses to test items and surveys.

The experience of articulating bottlenecks, navigation steps, and corresponding tasks followed a “recursive nature of data collection-analysis-interpretation” (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) as we struggled to bring our disciplinary thinking to the surface. Further, as we analyzed our PTs’ work on assignments and exams using rubrics we developed, we continued to question whether we had been explicit enough in decoding our disciplinary thinking. In these data, we optimistically looked for evidence of learners successfully navigating a given bottleneck. But it was the evidence of learners unsuccessfully navigating the bottleneck that provided more insight into how we might further change our practice.

FindingsEach of us initially identified two to three bottlenecks.

The bottlenecks we identified are not the only bottlenecks our learners encounter, but we believe them to be some of the most crucial to PTs becoming successful teachers of mathematics. We consider here some of these bottlenecks and the impact of the activities and tasks we used to help our learners navigate through them.

One of the bottlenecks LouAnn identified was “creating models or representations (e.g., diagrams) that clearly show relationships between quantities in a problem”. Our PTs typically have not been asked in the past to engage in this kind of reasoning; however, as future teachers, they need to be prepared to think about mathematical tasks from multiple perspectives. PTs’ responses to problems completed in the content course were analyzed in terms of their use of a diagram in the solution process, and coded using the following scale:

2 – A proportional diagram was used to solve the problem. Through labeling and color coding, it is clear how the diagram was used in the solution.1 – A diagram is present, but there are issues with the solution (e.g., diagram was not proportional or was not labeled). It is unclear how the diagram was used in the solution.0 – No diagram is present. There is evidence that a procedure was used. After analyzing her PTs’ work on the second exam of

the semester, LouAnn realized that some of the PTs were using diagrams to work through a mathematical problem as she had intended while others were simply using a standard computational procedure or algebraic approach and then illustrating their answer with a diagram. Using the diagram to solve the problem was so obvious to LouAnn—it was certainly something she was looking for as she analyzed the

PTs’ work—but it had somehow remained implicit for some of the learners. Revisiting the statement of the bottleneck, she realized that the idea of using the diagram to solve the problem was even implicit in the statement of the bottleneck. Consequently, she revised the bottleneck by adding “and that can be used to solve the problem” and added a clarification about the purpose of the diagram or model of the problem to the small, manageable steps she had identified to navigate through the bottleneck. In the future she plans to share with her PTs examples and non-examples of how to use diagrams to solve problems.

One of the bottlenecks Kyle identified dealt with a key component of lesson planning: identifying important mathematical understandings that mathematics students in grades 6–12 should attain. From previous lesson plan assignments, Kyle was aware that too often PTs focus on facts and procedures and find it difficult to relate those to broader mathematical understandings. It is imperative that PTs become explicitly aware of how facts and procedures build toward bigger mathematical ideas so that they can help their future students develop a coherent and connected understanding of mathematics. In an effort to help PTs distinguish between mathematical understandings versus facts and procedures, Kyle familiarized his PTs with Charles’s (2005) definition of mathematical understanding: “an important idea students need to learn because it contributes to understanding [central overarching mathematical ideas]” (p. 10) and described how mathematical understandings eclipse a statement of knowledge or related skills. Through various activities Kyle challenged PTs to describe mathematical understandings without using specific examples, representations, or details about associated procedures.

Kyle analyzed PT-defined mathematical understandings associated with specific state standards according to three characteristics: (a) mathematical focus and correctness, (b) precision of expression, and (c) avoidance of details about facts and procedures. The quality of their written statements of understandings varied. A few statements met all three criteria, but the majority of the PT-defined mathematical understandings failed to meet at least one criterion. For example, some understandings were implicitly stated (e.g., “The student will understand the use of graphs as modeling tools”), some used imprecise mathematical language or were mathematically incorrect (e.g., “Students will understand that mathematical functions have boundaries” [not all functions have boundaries]), and others were written in a non-mathematical context (e.g., “The student will understand that ideas can be rearranged in order to be utilized more effectively”). Given the struggles of his PTs, Kyle returned to the literature and found evidence that might support his observations:

Some mathematical understandings for Big Ideas can be identified through a careful content analysis, but many must be identified by “listening to students, recognizing common areas of confusion, and analyzing issues that underlie that confusion” (Schifter, Russell, & Bastable 1999, p. 25). Research and classroom experience are important vehicles for the continuing search for mathematical understandings. (Charles, 2005, p. 10)

In other words, identifying mathematical understandings requires an unpacking of various kinds of knowledge (e.g., CCK, SCK, KCS, KCT). Despite having read this passage several times previously, Kyle had overlooked the significance of classroom experience in identifying overarching mathematical understandings. Reviewing notes taken during Kyle’s engagement in the decoding process, we saw evidence

of this tension, but at the time disregarded it as something that could be circumvented. This revelation has prompted him to plan new experiences for his PTs using authentic classroom data (video, written cases, vignettes, etc.) to provide them with opportunities to listen to 6–12 students, recognize common misconceptions, and analyze issues contributing to these misconceptions.

Discussion: What We Learned About Self and Our Practices

Before this study, we knew that seemingly easy tasks to disciplinary experts can be complex to a novice. Even with our efforts to be explicit in our practice, we realized those efforts did not necessarily result in our learners tracking on what we had intended. This study increased our awareness that much of our disciplinary thinking is often nonlinear and draws from various kinds of knowledge that can be difficult to tease apart—even for experts.

Moreover, PTs’ resistance to embrace significant ideas in our courses that we believed were so obviously beneficial to learners was perplexing. For example, LouAnn has valued the use of diagrams in solving problems because she has found it helpful personally as well as helpful for university-aged and K–8 students, many of whom had previously struggled with problem solving. However, LouAnn observed PTs, even late in the course, resist using diagrams as they instead tried to use algebra, usually unsuccessfully, to solve a problem. and simply refused to attempt a diagram. Others attempted to use a diagram as if to satisfy LouAnn (e.g., used a diagram to illustrate an answer) but did not use it to make sense of and solve the given problem. LouAnn feels that because these learners are preparing to become teachers, they need to be flexible thinkers capable of using a variety of representations. However, this study has provoked her to consider why some PTs quickly tap into using diagrams to solve problems while others resist this strategy.

Another epiphany resulting from our turn back to self arose from moments when we sensed tension during the decoding process. In these moments, we unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, ignored this tension to accomplish the task at hand. We now realize we need to pay closer attention to those moments during the decoding process if we want to become more aware of our disciplinary thinking and, in turn, make it more apparent to our learners.

ConclusionBecoming more aware of our disciplinary thinking,

particularly previously undetected subtleties in our thinking, “urges us to consider and reframe our practices and approaches” (Schuck and Pereira, 2011, p. 6). Although some ideas that were implicit in our practice still remained so even after decoding our disciplinary thinking, we argue that the decoding process moved those ideas further into our peripheral thoughts so that we were better able to recognize when PTs did and did not navigate successfully through given bottlenecks.

Recognizing that teaching requires a specialized body of knowledge, teacher educators need to find ways to make this disciplinary knowledge more explicit to PTs. Decoding disciplinary thinking can be a valuable approach for teacher educators in mathematics education as well as other fields as they attempt to support PTs in developing this specialized body of knowledge on their journey to learn to teach.

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IntroductionWe, the 11 authors of this paper, are experienced

teacher educators, working in different teacher education institutes in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, most teacher educators hold teaching-only positions, without a research component, but practitioner research is becoming increasingly important. This is why three of us (Rosanne, Fred, and Mieke), experienced researchers, initiated the project Teacher Educators Study Their Own Practices. The others participated in this project (2007/2008). The aim of the project was to support the participants in conducting a self-study.

We have published extensively about this project and the self-studies carried out (Van den Bos, 2008; Geursen, de Heer, Korthagen, Lunenberg, & Zwart, 2010; Lunenberg, Korthagen, & Zwart, 2010, 2011; Morshuis, 2009; Rentrop, 2010; Ruit, 2009).

Early in 2009, we decided to continue our collaboration as a community of self-study practitioners, taking turns in organising our meetings. According to Wenger (1998), communities of practice are groups of practitioners sharing a concern or a passion for something they do and learning how to do it better as they interact regularly. This matches our experiences. Our group meets regularly to reflect on our work, discuss our research in progress, and explore the boundaries of self-study. Some of us have continued to carry out self-studies, some focus on supporting the self-study research projects of their students, and others have extended their research focus to using other types of research as well.

Hence, we were and still are a quite varied mix of people, whereas at the same time we experience ourselves as “one group.” This interesting phenomenon elicits a question about our group identity, which seems important for making decisions about next steps in our development as a group: where are we now and how do we want to proceed?

Continuing a tradition set in the project, we begin each meeting with a reflective exercise. These moments, during which we share feelings and thoughts, help us focus on the here and now and highly contribute to a warm, personal, and safe environment. Our meeting in May 2011 began with listening to a famous Dutch song entitled Sing, Fight, Cry, Pray, Laugh, Work and Admire, with the invitation to choose the verb representing each participant’s feelings at that particular moment. After sharing our choices, we discussed the article “Professional Learning Through Collective Self-Study” (Davey et al., 2010), which describes the impact the authors’ collaboration had on their practices and individual self-studies. We decided to use this discussion as a starting point for a collaborative self-study and formulated the following leading question: What do we gain from our co-operation in our roles of teacher educator, researcher, and colleague?

Theoretical FrameworkWe embrace the notion formulated by Zeichner (1999)

that self-study research is the new scholarship in teacher education. According to LaBoskey (2004), the aims of self-study are twofold: to study one’s practice in order to improve it, and to produce public knowledge that can contribute to the improvement of the practice of others. Loughran (2010) emphasises the double aims of self-study by encouraging self-study researchers to “move beyond the story.” He argues that while learning through self-study at an individual level is a crucial first step towards professional growth, it is not sufficient for the development and articulation of knowledge. By moving beyond the story, you articulate and underpin professional assumptions with empirical evidence.

An important characteristic of self-study is collaboration (LaBoskey, 2004). Self-study requires that personal insights be documented, shared, and critiqued to validate the researcher’s interpretations (Loughran & Northfield, 1998). Collaboration is not always easy. John-Steiner (2006) argues that collaboration is “charged both cognitively and emotionally” (p. 124) and that in productive working relationships “making oneself known and heard is central to emotional survival and growth” (p. 146). Loughran and Northfield (1998) pointed to dialogue as a methodology to enhance productive collaboration, which was further developed by Guilfoyle, Hamilton, Pinnegar, and Placier (2004). Care, respect, and acceptance of inconclusivity are important characteristics. Hence, Lunenberg and Samaras (2011) emphasise that one of the major goals of successful collaboration is to create an intellectually safe and supportive environment.

Davey et al. (2010) and Davey et al. (2011) added a new perspective to the debate on collaboration. They say that in S-STEP literature many studies advocate collaboration as an important element, but that few have made collaboration itself the focus of the study. They present a group self-study on their collaboration to better understand the effects on each of them as well as on their collectivity. Their collaboration contributed not only to the development of their individual professional identity, but also to a “we-identity.”

According to Conway (2001), professional identity is embedded in a process of interpretation and re-interpretation. It is an ongoing process, dynamic, and not static. The same is true for the “we-identity” of a community. Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) acknowledge that being able to recognise that the nature of a community is dynamic and that members are subject to change is important for a community of practitioners, as is the ability to create opportunities for participants to explicitly discuss the value and productivity of their participation at any time.

MIEKE LUNENBERG CETAR, PAUL VAN DEN BOS, JANNEKE GEURSEN, WILLEM HOEKSTRA, FRED KORTHAGEN, YKE MEINDERSMA, & ROSANNE ZWARTVU University, Amsterdam

JOKE MORSHUIS JOKE RENTROP PETER RUITHogeschool van Amsterdam Utrecht University Driestar University for Teacher Education

Learning About Research: Acting as a Researcher-- Experiences From Our Self-Study Community

In sum, a safe and supportive community can support the development both of the professional identity of its members and of a “we-identity.”

MethodsInstrument and data collection. As we needed a shared

framework enabling us to compare, classify, and analyse the various effects our collaboration had on us in our roles of teacher educator, researcher, and colleague, we developed a matrix based on Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2006)’s learning evaluation model. The rows represented the three roles and the columns the four levels of evaluation. These levels of evaluation were

1. Reaction: To what degree do you appreciate participating in the community?2. Learning: To what degree have you acquired knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence and commitment?3. Behaviour: To what degree do you apply what you have learned?4. Results: To what degree can you point out effects?

The matrix was completed by each of us.Data analysis took place in two phases. In the first phase,

Janneke, Paul, and Mieke started the analysis by reading all the answers for one cell and preselecting representative examples, making sure to include positive as well as critical remarks and using remarks from all participants. This procedure was repeated for each cell.

Secondly, nearly all group members met face-to-face in September 2011 and re-analysed the data extensively through a dialogue among the group members. It was not always easy to decide on the level of evaluation for a specific answer. In our dialogue we respectfully recognized each other’s voices through careful listening and asking for further clarification. This enhanced a process of individual reflection, making implicit notions more explicit and helped individuals to become clearer about the relationship of specific answers to the Kirkpatrick level.After this reflective dialogue, we accepted the final decisions of those who had given the answers, arguing that he or she would be most knowledgeable about the background and context of the answer.

Janneke, Paul, and Mieke wrote the draft for this paper, which was then commented on by e-mail by all members of our community before it was submitted. After receiving the reviews, e-mailed suggestions for improving the text were collected by Ari, Janneke, Joke M., and Mieke, who edited the final text. We feel that adopting this approach has contributed to the trustworthiness of our outcomes.

OutcomesWe wanted to discover what collaborating in our

self-study community had meant for our perception of and development in the roles of teacher educator, researcher, and colleague. For each of these three roles, we wanted to find out whether we had appreciated participating in the community (level of Reaction), whether we had learnt something (level of Learning), whether we applied what we had learnt (level of Behaviour), and whether we could point out effects (level of Results).

Teacher educator. With regard to the role of teacher educator, we all gave one or two answers for each of the four levels.

Reaction• Demystification of research literature: I read more.• More conscious of my core qualities as a teacher

educator.

• Happy to feel the connecting and bonding that takes place.Learning

• I am more competent in guiding my students’ research projects, technically as well as emotionally.

• I have learnt to combine my roles of teacher educator and researcher.Behaviour

• I am more relaxed in my teaching: sometimes it is better to wait than to intervene.

• I use academic literature in my lessons to underpin my teaching.

• I encourage my students to take a meta-perspective; I tell them that all researchers rewrite drafts several times and need feedback.Results

• One of my students wrote a self-study article.• I stimulated my colleagues to read more literature.• Discussions about the background of our work.• My research students tell me “you are there at the right

moment and help us further.”It is interesting to notice that all the answers are positive

and show that participating in our community has made us feel more comfortable as teacher educators, that theory has become more important in our practices, and that we feel more confident when talking about research.

Researcher. For the role of researcher, we can present the following examples of answers:

Reaction• No longer fear research.• I am more conscious that doing research is a profession.• I regret that I did not finish my paper.

Learning• Aware of a deeper level of learning, because there is a

constant need to be precise and explicit.• Another way of thinking about conducting research. • I know what kind of researcher I want to be.• Researchers need each other.• I would like to learn more about methods.

Behaviour• I do a self-study project with someone I met at the Castle

Conference.• I am more alert to interesting research questions and

data.• I am not active as a researcher, but like to read and use

studies of others.• By not publishing in the end, I feel more reticent about

starting a new research project.Results

• Publications, presentations, research proposals.• Continuing facilitation for research.• I realise it is not easy to become a researcher; it is a

profession for which you have to be trained.As the examples show, the answers for the role of

researcher vary. In addition to positive notes, doubts and wishes were articulated. Moreover, the data for the role of researcher were unevenly spread amongst the four levels. The levels of Reaction and Learning evoked a large amount of answers, whereas fewer examples related to the levels of Behaviour and Results were given. It was clear that participating in the self-study community did not automatically lead to a change in our (research) practice.

These outcomes became the main topic of our meeting in September 2011. We aimed at going beyond the story and discussing the deeper meanings behind the answers, such as “Have our self-concepts and our professional identities really

changed or not?” and “Are we dealing with a transfer problem from Learning to Behaviour?” In our discussions, one of us put it this way:

It just depends on your definition of researcher. As a teacher educator you have to play different roles and one of them is the role of researcher. At the start of the project I already was a researcher of sorts…. Now I am even more aware of that, even though that may not have resulted in visible products or observable behaviour.

So for some of us, the criterion for having become a researcher was not in the first place whether there was concrete output, but rather the way in which an inquiring attitude had become part of our practice as teacher educators. This was represented in aspects such as working in a more evidence-based manner, using literature, asking more profound questions, and so forth. In line with this, one of us mentioned that on the one hand we now feel less awe towards research (hence most of us were able to grow in the role of teacher educator/researcher), but on the other hand our collaboration had made us more conscious of the complexities, difficulties, and pitfalls of doing research.

We concluded that the way in which we define our individual identities differs. This might be visualized as a continuum. During our meeting we literally lined up and explained our choices. For a part of our group (teacher educators with a formal research task) the roles of teacher educator and researcher have become even more integrated. For those group members who define themselves primarily as teacher educators, research has become part of their professional make-up. They now have a better understanding of research, a more solid theoretical background and feel more comfortable in supporting their students’ self-study research projects. For some of them, producing public knowledge, however, has not become part and parcel of their teaching-only position.

We agreed that all different identities were legitimate and worthwhile. So in the end our collaboration helped each of us to further elaborate and strengthen our identities as teacher educators/researchers.

Colleague. With regard to the role of colleague, most of us gave an example for each of the four levels. Some representative examples are presented below.

Reaction• I am able to speak from different perspectives; the

contacts with my colleagues have deepened.• This community has strengthened the connections

between me and my colleagues in my own institution as well as in others’.Learning

• I am more able to underpin my feelings and opinions, also using literature.

• I have a clear opinion on research as an example of professional development.

• It feels great to have a self-study partner; this increases my commitment.Behaviour

• My colleagues and I co-operated with a colleague from Australia at an international symposium.

• I continue to create opportunities to work together with colleagues on the professional development of teacher educators.

• I encourage colleagues and set an example by sharing insights and data.Results

• I find it harder to support policy decisions that are not supported by evidence.

• For our self-study, my colleagues and I won the award

for the best article in the Dutch Journal of Teacher Education.

• I got promoted.• I use my function as coordinator to make talking about

research part of our meetings.The answers for this role are positive and evenly

divided across the four evaluation levels. They show that connections with colleagues in our own institutes but also in other institutes have strengthened and that we are better able to make our ideas explicit and provide them with a theoretical basis. Moreover, the feeling of being a part of an international professional community has become stronger.

Conclusion and DiscussionIn this paper we have presented the outcomes of a

collaborative study on the effects that participating in our community of self-study practitioners had on our practice. We have found that we have gained a lot as teacher educators, researchers, and colleagues.

Our community proved to be a safe meeting place (Wenger, 1998), a place where we could inform each other about the discoveries we had made when studying our practices, discussing not only the how, but also the why of our findings and thus contributing to improving not only our personal practices, but also each other’s (LaBoskey, 2004). By analysing deeper meanings underlying the outcomes, we have “moved beyond the story” (Loughran, 2010).

With regard to the chosen instrument for our study, two critical remarks can be made. First, it was not always easy to decide on the level of evaluation for a specific answer, although our reflective dialogue helped us in this respect. Second, in retrospect, one can question whether defining “Researcher” as a separate role was wise. This study showed that for all of us the roles of teacher educator and researcher have become even more integrated. We are all better able to explain the contribution of research to our practices, and we are conscious about and satisfied with the fact that this contribution varies among us. Cochran-Smith (2005) describes the broad spectrum of activities of teacher educators/researchers. She distinguished the following activities: consuming research, exchanging understandings and questioning one another, exploring the bases of one’s behaviour and beliefs, and conducting empirical research on one’s practice to determine the outcomes for prospective teachers’ learning and for their pupil’s learning. Such a broad spectrum can also be recognized in our community. For some of us, being a teacher educator/researcher has become an integrated role. Other group members define themselves as teacher educators for whom research has become part of their professional make-up but is not their primary focus.

Conducting this collaborative self-study was meant to help us decide on the future of our self-study community. Our community has changed (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Carrying out individual self-studies is no longer what connects us. Nevertheless, we still have interesting discussions about self-study research, are committed to each other, and enjoy the warmth of our meetings. After five years of collaboration, not only are our individual professional identities still growing (Conway, 2001), but we have also developed a strong “we-identity” (Davey et al., 2010; Davey et al., 2011).

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NONA LYONS & CARMEL HALTON HELEN FREIDUSUniversity College Cork Bank Street College

Extending Inquiry Into Learning Over Time Across Professions: Promoting Teaching and Learning Within a Self-Study

Context Two years ago, three teacher educators became

interested in examining a question of deep contemporary concern: What do students learn over time and know that they did not know before as a result of participating in a class, a course, a college or graduate program, or a life experience. Surprisingly, to date the question of learning over time is little studied in the field of education (Bok, 2006; Bowman, 2010; Ewell, 2010; Katz, 2010; Kuh & Ikenberry, 2009; Perez-Pena, 2012). Yet, as James Pellegrino and colleagues at the National Research Council (2001) argue, knowing what people learn over time is especially critical “for determining what people know, how they know it, and how they are able to use that knowledge to answer questions, solve problems and engage in additional learning” (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001, p. 3). These questions are preeminently appropriate for self-study to address as self-study offers “both an invitation and a challenge for teachers and teacher educators” (Loughran, 2004, p.30). The invitation involves using self-study to better understand and improve one’s own practice as well as increasing students’ learning and, “through this, to influence the very nature of teaching and teacher education programs” (p. 30).

Recognizing the significance of uncovering what students were learning over time, we began a self-study of learning over time in our three different settings. The three studies were a pilot study to test how a random set of individuals respond to questions about their own learning over time experiences; a study of a class of MA-level, experienced social workers taking a year-long program on supervising beginning social workers in their first practicum; and a ten-year longitudinal study of a group of elementary teachers who upon graduation decided to meet voluntarily to discuss their learning to teach.

Two colleagues who launched the project have worked together at University College Cork, engaging in and encouraging self-study by faculty of their own teaching and student learning (2000–2011). The third colleague, from Bank Street College, has been involved in the ten-year longitudinal study.

Aims/ObjectivesThe purpose of this self-study is to uncover answers

to questions such as “What do people in these three settings report of their experiences of learning over time, of its meaning, and of their own learning?” and “What do we, as teacher educators, find we learn and understand from these different experiences—about learning and time, and how these learnings are kept, retrieved and used?” While we recognize our project as a modest exploration,, we believe that alerting teachers, teacher educators, and ourselves to the intricacies of

investigating learning over time gives us important firsthand knowledge of a question that will only grow in significance (Eaton, 2010). Therefore, the aims of this self-study were to identify

1. What people report they learn in three different learnings over time settings,2. If there are common themes or patterns of differences in learning within or across the time context,3. What ways time interacts with human learning that are important for teacher educators to understand, and4. How learnings over time are stored and retrieved.

Review of LiteratureThis study draws on three bodies of research: self-study,

reflective inquiry, and narrative inquiry. Self-study directs attention to teaching and learning and the significance of the self in that experience. Loughran (2006) argues, “Self-study is a way of purposefully examining this relationship between teaching and learning so that alternative perspectives on the intentions and outcomes might be better realized” (p. 174). The teacher educator may become better informed not only about the nature of learning in a situation “but also of possibilities for developing appropriate alternatives for future experiences” (p. 174). Critical to this is the interaction of the self. Attention needs to be paid to beliefs, actions, and ways of interacting with others and with self-awareness of teaching. “Educators need to be thoughtful about their work, which means that they must question assumptions, consider multiple perspectives, avoid judgments, recognize complexity and be primarily concerned about the needs of their students” (LaBoskey, 1997, p. 161).

Reflective inquiry is a method of significance to human learning. Articulated by John Dewey in the early twentieth century, reflective inquiry gained widespread currency in the 1980s through the work of Donald Schӧn and came to be well regarded in teacher education. However, it carries a great diversity of meanings. For Dewey (1933), reflection involved deliberation close to scientific thinking; for Schӧn (1983), thought is embodied in action or on action. Lyons and LaBoskey (2002) found reflective inquiry to be “an intentional act of mind, engaging a person alone or in collaboration with others in interrogating a situation or subject of teaching or learning to construct an understanding of its meaning…that will shape action” (p. 99). Today reflection remains an increasingly sought and valued element in teaching and learning across professions—teacher education, medicine, the law, business, social work, etc. But practitioners of self-study point to the necessity of allowing apprentice teachers to grow in being reflective of their own experience, to see the complexities of learning about teaching as part of their significant learning.

The third body of literature is narrative inquiry. It is an acknowledged phenomenon that discussions of teaching by teachers are likely to be cast in story form but sometimes denigrated. Indeed, until the mid–twentieth century, knowledge claims of teachers were highly contested. But the great interpretive turn in knowledge as well as works of Bruner (1990) and Clandinin and Connelly (2000) cast narrative not only as a mode of inquiry but of knowing (Mitchell, 1981; Rabinow & Sullivan, 1987). Story as a way of knowing was of intense interest to teachers and fostered greater teacher participation in narrative inquiries. We see narrative inquiry as “intentional, reflective human actions, socially and contextually situated in which teachers or students, alone or with other colleagues, or researchers, interrogate their teaching/learning practices to construct meaning and interpretation of some compelling or puzzling aspect of teaching and learning through the production of narratives that lead to understanding, changed practices and new hypotheses” (Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002).

MethodsData sources. Project methods are linked to the methods

of the three self-studies here briefly described. Project 1: The pilot study. This study took place in the

US in 2010–2011 and involved 10 people, eight teachers from a range of levels and two students. This purposive, serially selected sample was recruited by one of the authors to test if and how people would respond to questions of learning over time (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). The methodology is an interview and/or a written narrative format asking participants such questions as “Can you identify and describe something you know you have learned over time, something that you did not know before?”

Project 2: Social work supervisors’ study. This study sets out to research what and how students learn in a single course and to investigate the process of that learning into fieldwork. Collaboration between students and researchers is a fundamental aspect of the research design. The interrogation of teaching and learning styles and practices leading to review and revision is a primary objective (Loughran, 1996; Kolb, 1984). This one-year program of University College Cork is designed for experienced social workers engaged in supervising social work students on a fieldwork placement. Participants take this course while in employment, engage in classroom learning and self-study, and undertake a 14-week placement (January–April) as they supervise a social work student. Their supervision is observed and assessed. Completing a course portfolio is the method of assessment. In 2011 and 2012, ten students were invited to reply in writing to the following: “Identify something you have learned since coming on the course, something that you did not know” and “How might you apply this new knowledge/awareness/skill while you are on placement?”

Project 3: Post-graduate teachers study their practice. The Bank Street Reading Alumnae Group began 10 years ago. Beginning in diverse teaching settings, the members worried that their new professional competence would not suffice for the work ahead. Their goal was to form a self-directed group to study and grow together. They shared a professional discourse, educational vision, and a nascent knowledge of literacy practices. The Bank Street faculty member was invited to facilitate. The goals of this research are to document a process of self-directed professional development, provide evidence that this process becomes more effective when coupled with a process of self-study, and demonstrate that

meaningful professional development requires time. Members have documented their work using self-study as a means of examining their practice, deepening reflection, and setting forth their work and their interpretations for examination by critical friends. Data include audio recordings and transcriptions of meetings, field notes, individual interviews, written reflections (essay, personal narrative, and poetry), and visual (collage) representations of group members’ perceptions of their professional growth.

Data analysis. Data analysis was conducted for each of the three studies by its author and then read and reviewed by all three authors. Data of the first two studies consist of responses to the questions of what individuals report of their experiences either in interviews or in writing to questions of learning over time (Study 1) or as members of a yearlong class (Study 2). Study 3 has data collected over ten years, including the authors’ summaries of what people reported over the years.

Outcomes of all three studies document perspectives of what is learned over time. Findings allow for studying change. A long-term view of working on problems in teaching reveals rich glimpses of the growth in understanding, the involvement of the self, and the process of becoming more competent. These are detailed in the Bank Street project, yet in listening to apprentice social workers discuss their learning over one year, similar insights and developments are apparent.

Discourse analysis and narrative analysis procedures have been applied to these data to identify themes and outcomes (President & Fellows Harvard University, 2008, pp.1-7). Narrative analyses involved three steps. First, taped interviews were transcribed, translated into written texts, read, reflected on for meanings, and re-read by the self-study project author. Next, texts were read for identifying characteristics (how they were used and how often). Last, features were summarized.

The standard of validity of self-study adopted here is defined as trustworthiness “determined by the degree to which other practitioners or researchers turn to or will rely on and use the concepts, method, and inferences of a practice as the basis for their own theorizing, research or practice” (Mishler, 1990, pp. 415). Trustworthiness is the model of validity adopted by self-study practitioners for the field ( See LaBoskey, 2004: Lyons & LaBoskey, 2002). It is the practice of this self-study.

Outcomes and DiscussionAnalysis revealed several similar outcomes across

all three projects, which are summarized here with a small sampling of examples provided.

Reflective inquiry guides the self to greater consciousness. Students report that learning is significantly facilitated by reflection and reflective practices. Teachers or mentors cite new insights and awareness into the meaning of their own and their students’ learning, seeing links between the personal and the professional, and valuing trust in these developments. Participants identify elements of the process in becoming reflective: having a shared discourse, being introduced to reflection and having opportunities to practice as well as to make refinements of it; creating reflections on practice through—journaling, creating portfolio entries, sharing these writings with colleagues or instructors and students, and constructing summary portfolios.

Awareness through a reflective process leads to new insights, to awareness of one’s own knowledge, and to how knowledge is acquired and used. Reflective learning fosters attention to the necessity of paying attention to what is going on in teaching and one’s own learning, to opportunities for

improving learning, and to attending by both students and instructors so that new practices can be created or refined.

Narrative inquiries reveal insights of experience enclosed in story. Examples across all three self-studies reveal the value of the use of narrative. At one level, narrative captures and encloses experience and can make it available not only to self but others. Each story contains some critical understanding, valued as an insight. Because experience can be encapsulated in a story, it becomes easily accessible to oneself, available for sharing across time and space, and for storing and retrieving in memory.

Time: A hypothesis. All three studies reveal that time is necessary for professional development. Data suggest a hypothesis of how the process of learning over time works: by conscious and continuing layering of experience. Learning experiences that puzzle or intrigue the imagination of an individual are likely to be added to over time. Individuals are conscious of the process and aware of the discovery of something new. They can acknowledge it as important to them in both their personal and professional lives and value the continued learning. The process is initiated by some puzzle, such as learning to paint or teach, elaborated through continuing exploration and puzzling. As new elements are revealed, new evidence is added and creates a habit of mind and a hypothesis: that deliberate thought continues a process of evidence-gathering as consciousness expands.

The intermingling of time, reflection, and story. To provide a sampling of responses of individuals in the three settings to learning over time, we offer sample responses from the studies. They especially suggest differences in the intermingling of time, reflection, and narrative.

Pilot study of individual experience. The Director of a Teacher Institute recalled:

I remember years ago an intervention that revealed the power of the realization that the learner is a meaning-making creature. I remember being asked to devise our own research to test out how children might experience a topic differently at different stages of development. I chose to ask students to write what a movie or a picture of some other learning activity was about. The results were quite stunning to me—they all wrote different things and gave me insight into the multiple ways a student in a class could experience the most carefully planned lesson…what did this mean to me as the teacher? My awareness of the active mind of the student at work expanded and deepened. That was a start. That awareness has stayed with me over time. How do I know this? That’s a very difficult one to answer. It is intuitive at this point and it has guided me in how I think about people. There is a certainty in it that feels solid. I also know that when I stray from this habit of mind, I can easily slip into becoming intolerant. So I have to remind myself of the wisdom in trying to understand how we are all different. (Lyons & Halton, 2010-2011).The yearlong course. A social work student commented

on her encounter with reflection: Reflective practice was relatively new to me coming on the course…. It was quite a vague notion…. I did not have time or space to reflect in my professional life before… I had never used a learning journal. Never kept written reflective logs…doing so allowed me to develop my own levels of self awareness in respect of why I do what I do and how I do it…a new level of consciousness …All of this was introduced and modeled at the beginning of the course…I have introduced reflection

into my work with the student on placement. . . We both keep learning journals. I learned that we are teachers and learners together… I never thought about the process of practice teaching in this way before. I reflected on student feedback to me and lessons I brought to their placement experience. I learned we are on a continuum of learning… I have shared this new understanding with my student on placement. He shared with me that he is dyslexic and what it means to him in terms of learning…we will journey together. (Lyons & Halton. 2010-2011) Ten-year study. The data indicate that shared discourse

and shared understanding of practice facilitated a professional community of learners. Susan, a student, wrote, “The language that we internalized, regarding how we honor and respect a child, seeps into the ways we interact … and honor and respect each other as learners” (Interview SF, 2009). This language and mode of teaching and learning, Vygotskyan in nature, began in participants’ graduate school experience (Glassman & Wang, 2004).

As the group became more cohesive and members found the practical and effective support in their meetings, they began to articulate how the experience enabled them to grow. Brianna wrote,

My peers recognized things in me that I did not see in myself. …Most of all, though, the group helped me to appreciate that all the questions I was asking did not mean that I was a bad reading specialist. They convinced me that asking questions is the only way to become the reading specialists we all strive to be. (BS, written reflection, Spring, 2004)

In January 2012 the group reflected on their growth. Laurie summed up. “We have doubts all the time, about how we will meet the needs of the children. But, there is not desperation. We have more confidence. We know that if one way does not work, we can try another” (Freidus et al., 2009).

ConclusionsProfessional development is development for

professional practice. Self-study affirms the need for competency in reflective attention to how one creates, retrieves, and uses knowledge in practice. Querying individuals about their learning over time in pursuit of professional competency yields vignettes rich in learning in action, of great similarities, yet with differences. We continue to scrutinize them to uncover meaning.

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RUTH MANSUR & DINA FRILINGKaye Academic College of Education

The Kite Syndrome—The Tension Between “Letting Go” and “Holding On”: Teacher Educators’ Perspective on Teaching and Learning in an Open Space

In this work we examine the experience of Open Space Learning (OSL) from our perspective as teacher educators. The purpose of OSL is to create an active learning space that encourages students and teacher educators to choose topics of interest and relevance for them and design their own ways of learning.

Context ACE (Active Collaborative Education) is a two-year

post-graduate teacher education program in Israel. The ACE curriculum is a learning environment composed of a set of intertwined workshops, not an aggregate of courses. Most of these workshops are co-taught by the program’s team of 12 teacher educators working together towards the goal of educating open-minded, flexible teachers who are able to examine their own practice and take responsibility for their learning. We consider the program a holistic learning environment in which we create a living space in order to enable the emergence of practical wisdom learning experiences (Gidron, Tuval, & Barak, 2008).

With that in mind, as part of the ACE program we created the Learning Community (LC), a framework which includes all 120 students and 12 team members, including the authors Ruthi and Dina. LC, an overall framework for varied learning events, rather than a specific course, is allocated two weekly hours in the program schedule, like any other workshop. Depending on the specific learning agenda, LC forms range from independent learning to meetings of the entire ACE community. It includes meetings in which students and staff read and discuss a variety of books and articles, learning conferences in which students present their work, group learning focused on a subject of interest, and more. We want to design an environment where the entire ACE community, students and staff, can learn together and share responsibility and ownership of the learning process. We assume that learning within this framework will encourage collaboration between students and teachers in the deepest sense of the word (Mansur et al., 2011)

After several unsuccessful attempts aimed at increasing shared student responsibility and ownership of the LC and its outcomes, we initiated a process of independent study that we called Open Space Learning (OSL) as one LC component. OSL is in line with Monk, Chilington-Rutter, Neelands, and Heron (2011), who developed a trans-disciplinary pedagogy that seeks to challenge the lecture, seminar, and workshop mode dominating most higher education, including teacher education. In its original conception, OSL is a physical open space without chairs and tables in which students and mentors practice learning and teaching activities (Monk et al., 2011). In ACE, the “no chairs” space is metaphorical and refers to the unorthodox ways of learning and teaching. It is defined as a

learning framework in which participants can choose subjects of interest to them and actively engage in small groups (6–8) to create their own knowledge. With Henri Holec (1981), we believe that in order to be an autonomous teacher one has to be an autonomous learner able to take charge of one’s own learning and be responsible for all decisions concerned and the implementation of those decisions. With that in mind, we wanted to create an environment in which we could move the focus from the student’s teaching techniques to the meaning of their learning, an environment that encourages and calls for peer support and cooperation (Gardner & Miller, 1999). Assuming, as we do, that learning is a social activity, then socializing their learning requires learners to recognize the benefits of working with others and be able to share, explain, discuss, and negotiate their learning with them in an acceptable manner. Though we granted the students more autonomy in choosing their subject and how to learn it, the overall instructions stated that it shouldn’t be part of the regular school curriculum and should refer to the environment they work in as educators.

The Kite SyndromeOur role as teacher educators in this situation was still

relevant, and yet we faced many questions about how far we could go in “letting the students loose” in such an unstructured learning environment. As we started this project, we had the feeling of throwing a kite into the air without knowing if there is enough wind to lift it up and keep it flying. The learning conference at the end of the first year showed mixed evidence: rich and diverse learning alongside weak learning accompanied by student voices of dissatisfaction. In the process of thinking how to improve the OSL, we interviewed our students and asked for their suggestions. The results demonstrated that what we thought we were doing and what our students experienced were clearly different.

Students reported that the OSL experience was not that meaningful to them, and some even expressed the wish for a more structured learning environment. Those responses revealed

A. A gap between intentions and outcomes concerning the students’ willingness to embrace the autonomy we offered.B. A gap between the expectations of most students concerning our role in their learning process and the role we played. C. A tension between control and freedom in learning. We detected an indisputable gap between our intention “to let go” and how we actually held on to our guiding role. Thinking in terms of the Kite Syndrome metaphor

helped us clarify the essence of our issue. As with flying a kite,

you have to wisely handle the tension created between the desire to make it rise and stay in the air and at the same time, to restrict its flight so as not to lose it—namely, the tension between intentions and desired outcomes.

At that point we decided to engage in self-study, the purpose of which is to examine our understandings and actions, and those of our students, in order to better understand the complexities of teaching and learning in this setting and then plan a response that would improve the quality of the OSL or “get our kite to fly.”

Methodology The methodological framework of our study is based

on qualitative-constructive theory (Guba & Lincoln, 1998). As we explore our own daily practice and reflect on our doing, self-study seemed suitable for us, agreeing that: “The purpose of our self-study is to make what is sought to be better understood [by ourselves and others]” (Loughran, 2007, p. 15).

Self-study helps us engage in reflective thinking, the essence of any educational activity (Dewey, 1933), conceptualize our teaching practices, evaluate these practices, and plan our future actions.

As researchers we view ourselves as “living the situation,” rather than as “spectators.” Following Whitehead (1989), we aim at producing theory as “living” truth in explanations formed from embodied values, rather than theoretical truth in the form of interconnected sets of propositions.

The data was collected from different sources in order to strengthen the trustworthiness of this qualitative self-study and to provide access to the different points of view of the participants at different points of time. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Flick, 1992).

The sources were• Interviews with students on their encounter with us due to their learning experience in OSL: personal interviews of 30 students conducted by the authors and four small-group (6–8) interviews conducted by the evaluation department of the college. • An interactive diary telling our own stories of practice. We wrote our stories of practice separately, read them, and analyzed each other’s stories as critical friends.• Evaluations of students’ learning through presentations and conversations. • E-mail correspondence between teachers and between teachers and students. For one year we followed the e-mails negotiating our way of action and e-mails regarding the work in OSL written to us by students. Narrative analysis was used for understanding the

stories (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004), along with thematic analysis of the interviews, analyzing the text fragments as units, and looking for themes or concepts that emerged across the data (Chase, 2003; Shkedi, 2003). Each of us analyzed the interviews separately then shared our thoughts and came to a common understanding.

Our research consisted of two phases. In the first phase we tried to understand the gap between expectations of teacher educators and students, which the kite syndrome reflects. The second phase focused on changes we initiated in response to the first stage’s findings

FindingsAnalysis of students interviews revealed three voices

which we named the resistant, the confused, and the accepting.

The resistant. Seventy percent of the students held on to the way of learning they knew from earlier learning experiences. They wanted us to take control of the workshop, to tell them what to do, and to assess their work according to our criteria: “You should have given us a list of topics and tell us which materials to use.” One of the students said bluntly, “They throw us in and expect us to try and learn about the topic,” telling us that the responsibility of the learning process is ours. Another student frankly admitted, “I wish you invested more effort on my behalf and led me through the project.” One might understand it as a need for dependency or resisting the empowerment that goes along with the students’ autonomy. They also expressed a wish that “everybody should do the same,” which might reflect difficulty seeing the diversity around them as well as difficulty in cooperating or collaborating with others.

This resistant voice showed a strong conviction in teacher/student roles. The teacher should be in full control of students’ learning process and is fully responsible for the success or failure of that process. For them, we decided to “make our lives easier” by letting them loose. It was a lack of responsibility on our behalf to ask them to be responsible. This led them to refuse to cooperate and engage in different learning opportunities or take charge of their own learning.

The confused. Twenty percent of the students were confused and had difficulties determining our role and their own. Some responses focused on reasons explaining why they didn’t fully participate in the learning process but didn’t object to it. Some identified feelings of being lost, not knowing what to do and how to do it: “It’s too broad, I feel lost.” Others attributed the feeling to external causes: “There was a lack of time for understanding what to do, for presentations, for discussion” or because the goals of inquiry were not clear. Other responses reflect ambivalence: “I would like to be a learning teacher but what does that have to do with my practice teaching tomorrow?”

We also identified confusion in answers simultaneously expressing feelings of satisfaction and disappointment. The ambivalent attitudes we uncovered towards the OSL process showed that the changes in teacher/student roles led to confusion. Our request for them to choose learning partners and create their own learning plan seemed unfamiliar and exposed their difficulty dealing with vagueness and open-ended instructions.

The cooperative. Ten percent of the students understood the process and our roles as well as theirs and found it interesting, refreshing, and meaningful. Their answers described personal and professional benefits and showed positive attitudes towards the OSL experience. From our point of view they were cooperative as they went along with the offered experience and appreciated the process: “This is how life goes. You have a problem, you study it, you look at it from different perspectives, you try several solutions, I have a child with learning disabilities and I am trying to learn and find new perspectives in order to change things.” This group valued the freedom to learn: “I don’t want to study in a compulsory framework. Too much guidance, and a grade, would prevent me from thinking.”

The cooperative voices showed flexibility in understanding teacher/student roles. They were ready to explore things their own way. They showed internal motivation, an ability to handle and appreciate vagueness, and a hunger to seize opportunities when they could. They also understood the connection between the OSL process and their work as teachers promoting their own and their students’ learning.

Evaluation of the students work. The quality of work done by different groups of students varied from very good, meaningful learning to redundant, meaningless work. We found a correlation between the types of students’ voices described above and the outcomes of their work. The resistant group of students had poor performance and presentations, while the confused and cooperative groups performed much better. This indicates a clear relation between the willingness to engage in the process and its outcomes.

From our point of view: Stories and correspondence. We discussed each other’s stories as critical friends. Dina had no problems in letting the students go their own way. She was hesitant about the extent of her supervision of the learning process especially with those “silent groups”: “If I initiate the contact with them again then I will be taking responsibility for their learning and give them the legitimacy not to do it themselves. If I do not get in contact with them I’ll never know if they are learning anything at all.”

Ruthi had more reservations about letting go. She was convinced that her involvement would produce deep learning, which she finds very important in every learning process. “Deep in my heart I felt uneasiness sending them on their way. I can allow a certain amount of freedom (like the choice of topics or choosing their peers for learning) but I feel I have to be there for more guidance. I do not feel ready to abdicate my control over what is transpiring in the learning process.”

DiscussionThe findings revealed an ambiguous situation in which

we found ourselves pulled in different directions. We detected two integrated dimensions, one horizontal and the other vertical, and separated them for the sake of the discussion. The first dimension related to hierarchy issues of ownership and authorship, a top-down perspective that asks questions about who is leading and who is following. These questions addressed whose workshop it is, who is responsible for the learning process and its outcomes, and who decides what, when and how to do things. The OSL is characterized by letting go of our ownership and authorship to some extent. Moreover, all the team members are the authors and the owners, and there are no clear boundaries defining whose territory it is and who is leading it. On the one hand, this situation interfered with the students’ learning, which they expressed as a growing feeling of ambiguity about OSL. On the other hand, the OSL setup was part of the teachers’/mentors’ experiences concerning collaborations, autonomy, and responsibility. The second dimension, working between tensions, showed we were moving between tensions very similar to those mentioned by Berry (2004): a lateral perspective moving between telling and letting, as described in the kite syndrome metaphor.

Three voices—three stages. We wonder if the three voices we defined above also characterize stages we can ascribe to the autonomy learning process or three different types of students. If we look at it as a developing learning process, then the initial stage puts a spotlight on resisting by holding on to traditional learning ways. The intermediate stage will be ambivalence and confusion: being able to see the benefits of such a process while simultaneously feeling uncomfortable with vagueness. The third stage is the optimal stage where the learner takes responsibility for her learning process as expected in OSL.

In the second phase of our self-study we discussed our findings with the whole team and decided to see what will happen if we adopt this developmental approach. Our new

understanding was that we have to figure out what is needed in order to reach the optimal stage of autonomy for all students. We raised new questions regarding our roles as mentors, such as Did we properly prepare ourselves and our students to this process? Did we really understand our different roles as mentors as well as learners? Did we move away from our own traditional way of teaching in order to allow the students to hold the kite string by themselves, or together with us? Did we really hand over the kite string?

Naming the students’ voices sharpened our need to focus on the “resistant group” in order to deepen our understanding of their learning process. We decided with the team to start by taking steps to reduce the resistance. Regarding ownership and authorship, as the outcomes show, these students wanted to know “who’s the boss,” so we appointed to each group of learners an advisor to accompany them through the process and redefined her role as a coordinator of the learning process. Regarding the kite syndrome tension, we redesigned the guidelines in a more structured way and added a few more group discussion meetings. Each group or individual met the advisor according to their needs. We also asked the students to document their group learning process and keep a blog shared by all group members. Group discussions also dealt with the groups’ difficulties, and the advisors encouraged the groups to find their own solutions.

We assume that stepping back, as we did, would make it possible to go further in promoting the autonomy of our learners and teachers alike.

So what? We learned that the traditional way of learning and teaching is powerful and is a core experience for students and mentors alike. We realized that we, the mentors, unlike our students, went through a process that enabled us to value different learning processes that demand less control and could provide meaningful insights. We were convinced that our students would also welcome this independence. Most of us were ready to hand over the kite string, but not all of us. The reaction of most students rejecting this freedom taught us that freedom that entails responsibility is not always welcomed. There is a state of readiness or maturity that is needed in order to be autonomous. If we wish our students to benefit from an autonomous learning process, we have to hand over the kite string gradually. As our study shows, it is a gradual process going from resistance and objection through confusion and ambivalence to cooperation and collaboration. We should be there every step of the way.

J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Vol. 2, pp. 1295–1332). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

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ANDREA K. MARTIN & ANGELA M. SOLARQueen’s University

A Professional Identity Crisis: Inquiry Into Practice Through Self-Study

Context of the StudyThis self-study was prompted by the “living

contradictions” (Whitehead, 1993) that we experienced due to imposed changes to the structure and delivery of a preservice course that we each have taught for several years. We had reached the point when our beliefs and practices were so conflicted that our professional identity was called into question. This study allowed us to explore how foundational our beliefs are to our practice, how our teaching personae are intrinsically bound to these beliefs, and how crucial it is for us to be able to translate beliefs into practice.

The course, Theory and Professional Practice, is pivotal to our one-year, post-degree Bachelor of Education program. It is the lynchpin between on-campus courses and field experiences, [emphasizing] “understanding and improving teaching and learning and associated classroom practice” (Queen’s University Faculty of Education Academic Calendar). Instructors serve a dual role, responsible for teaching the on-campus course and supervising in the field. The intent is to provide continuity between classes and practicum and a forum for theory and practice explorations. Candidates are placed in cohorts and, for their practica, assigned to an associate school as a “school group.” Initially, multiple cohorts were combined to form course sections of approximately 16–25. Subsequently, cost-cutting measures paired two sections, doubling class size and reducing instructional time per instructor by 50%. Each instructor was expected to teach alternate classes. The 18 course contact hours remained, extended over the academic year. The course weighting for candidates stayed the same; the weighting for instructors was halved, reducing salary costs.

After one year of the new iteration, we felt “compromised beyond belief. We lost the homeroom atmosphere, lost continuity and the security that allowed candidates to share their dilemmas of practice and feel safe in doing so” (Andrea). “I don’t see any gains, only losses. I can’t even remember the names of half of them. I see them so infrequently!” (Angela). At year-end (2009-2010), in desperation, we reviewed options for change and proposed a pilot project (for our sections only) to the course coordinator, which was accepted.

We would return to a dedicated section of 20–24, teach our respective sections for nine hours, and introduce cooperative study groups with readings and tasks for the remaining nine hours. We would collaborate on the planning and develop common lesson plans but teach independently. Concurrently, we initiated a self-study.

Contextualization within the Research Literature

Professional identity is central to the teaching profession. Nias (1989) suggests that [teachers’] “self-image is more important to them than is the case in occupations where the person can easily be separated from the craft” (p. 203). Bullough (1997), writing about beginning teachers, suggests that teacher identity anchors meaning making and decision making, a conceptualization not confined to neophyte teachers. Brouwer and Korthagen (2005) describe professional identity as an interpretive lens that frames experiences. Further, they see professional identity as an ongoing process of interpretation and re-interpretation that involves person and context. These dynamic and iterative factors underscore the centrality of professional identity to practice and foreshadow the intensity of response should one’s professional self-image become compromised or threatened.

Helpful in deconstructing the concept is Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop’s (2004) review of the literature on teachers’ professional identity. They identify four key features: (1) an ongoing process of interpretation and reinterpretation of experiences (Kerby, 1991); (2) person and context are interlaced; (3) professional identity is comprised of subidentities that harmonize—more or less, and, for experienced teachers, may become conflicting with changes to the working environment (Volkmann & Anderson, 1998); and (4) agency, where teachers actively set and pursue goals and engage in professional development.

Also informing this study is Lave and Wenger’s (1991) work on community of practice, based in social learning theory and founded on principles of sharing and collaborating within the community (Dalgarno & Colgan, 2007). For collaborations to be sustainable, Brown et al.’s (2006) “grounded principles of engagement” (p. 15) are helpful; namely, shared goals and values, mutual trust and respect, open communication among all partners, and power balance. These principles are enacted collaboratively, over time.

Wenger’s (2000) conceptualization of social learning systems and modes of belonging to these systems further extends understanding of what participation entails. Within social learning systems, [professional] competence has both historical and social dimensions, derived from standards of competence and social interactions within a community. Learning results from the interplay between one’s experience and these standards. Participation in a social learning system rests on differentiating among engagement, imagination, and alignment. Engagement is the act of doing with another; imagination requires the construction of an image of ourselves; and alignment is a mutual process of coordinating perspectives, interpretations, and actions. These modes generally coexist, but not necessarily harmoniously; they can

be complementary or contradictory and can promote or inhibit action.

PurposeThe impetus for this self-study was our increasing

frustration with a preservice course that we each had taught for several years. Dramatic organizational changes to the course were principally driven by financial constraints. These led to what we saw as an erosion of course content, disjointed structure, fragmented and compromised learning, and, overall, a weakening of the relationship between instructor and candidate. Consequently, fewer opportunities remained for “constructing appropriate ways for student teachers to genuinely engage in experiencing the various aspects of teaching in an environment where such engagement is the focus” (Korthagen, Loughran, & Russell, 2006, p. 1029).

In response, we redesigned the course in an attempt to overcome these constraints and effects. We then engaged not only in implementing the course but in studying what we learned about ourselves as teacher educators, our preservice teachers’ growth during student teaching in relationship to our design, and our understanding about our identity as teacher educators. We had four driving questions:

• Is there an alternate mode of course implementation that would yield a greater depth of understanding and more intense learning for teacher candidates?

• What are the determinants to scaffolding candidates’ self-directed learning in a compressed, one-year, post-degree B. Ed. Program?

• What anchors our professional identity? • How do we determine the extent to which we have

redrawn our “landscape of learning” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999) while creating our own inquiry community?

MethodologyWe chose self-study methodology because its purpose

is to enable teacher educators “to better understand, facilitate, and articulate the teaching-learning process” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 857). Taking an “emic” or insider perspective (Creswell, 2008; Patton, 2002) and acting as one another’s critical friend, we subjected our practice to critical inquiry (Clarke & Erickson, 2004; Zeichner & Liston, 1996), probing our individual and joint dilemmas of practice and accompanying tensions (Berry, 2004). Following Schön (1983), we worked to frame and reframe what we were doing in our joint planning, individual teaching of our respective sections, debriefings, and data collection reviews. In so doing, we probed more deeply not simply our teaching moves but our understanding of our professional identity, what Feldman (2002) describes as problematizing ourselves in our practice situations to reframe beliefs and/or practices (p. 971). We explored our reactions and responses, examined how we piloted a redesigned course after one year of the imposed changes, and probed how the collaborative process enabled critical inquiry into practice and provoked critical reflection. Data sources included planning notes, collaboratively created lesson plans, individual debriefing notes, collaboratively compiled meeting notes, reflective journaling, course readings and completed assignments, e-mail correspondence, and anecdotal feedback from candidates.

Data analysis included repeated review of all artifacts, using debriefing and reflective notes to determine pressure points, i.e. problematics, and constructing new reflections

accordingly. These pressure points were nodal moments (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001) and included our recognition of the pre-eminence of face-to-face teaching interactions, what Angela described as the “organic” quality of teaching. Our debriefing notes and journaling revealed our need for ownership: “I take my job seriously. The imposed course configuration took away my power to make decisions and judgments about my course” (Angela). We attempted to incorporate multiple perspectives—candidates’ and our own—given the demands of an intense program reflected against our own assumptions about practice. With abbreviated class time, could we make a strong enough case for candidates to invest the time and effort needed to explore their learning from experience and understand the “authority of experience” (Munby & Russell, 1994)? Our ongoing interrogation of data, review of codes and categories, and revision of emergent themes represent our search for evidentiary warrants, in keeping with dialogic validity (Anderson, Herr, & Nihlen, 1994; Saukko, 2005; Wells, 1999). Working towards transformations of practice, akin to Lather’s (1991) notion of catalytic validity, is, necessarily, ongoing.

Outcomes: Professional Identity Development

Early emergent themes included professional identity, professional learning, pedagogical principles, and promoting contexts of professional learning. As corollaries to the themes, we scrutinized issues of control, compromise, and certainty, asking, Are/were we overcontrolling? Are/were we unwilling or unable to compromise with administrative edicts? And what certainty can be ascribed to our beliefs and values? We struggled to make sense of the relationships between and among the themes, ultimately recognizing that professional identity was superordinate. Revisiting and reanalyzing data, we refined our understanding of the development of professional identity and the synergy created by professional learning, collaboration, and relationship.

Professional learning. Professional learning meant that we asked ourselves, “What does it mean to be a teacher educator?” But we threaded this question to, “What does it mean to be a teacher candidate?” In so doing, we worked to redesign our sections of the course by recognizing the trajectory of learning-to-teach (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2006; Loughran, 2006). We introduced study groups with designated readings. In the interests of alignment (Wenger, 2000), we developed study sheets that often incorporated individual preparation prior to candidates meeting in their cooperative learning groups. Discussions and activities centered on their practice and attendant challenges. By configuring independent study groups, we hoped to promote self-directed learning and critical reflection anchored in authentic experience, while dealing with the structural constraints of limited teaching time. A refrain in our debriefing sessions was “How overly ambitious were we to think that we could possibly deliver an enriched course in 9 hours [of in-class teaching, 9 hours of independent study groups]?” Yet, for us, the alternative remained “unconscionable.”

Loughran (2006) describes professional learning as “enhanced by becoming more perceptive to the complexities, possibilities, and means of teaching contexts” (p. 136). We came to recognize that contexts of productive learning (Sarason, 2002) demanded that learning from experience must be pursued aggressively (for candidates and for us), that rigour needed to be embedded in relevance, that the tensions inherent in practice needed to be identified and explored within an

environment where risk-taking was possible, and that “it is safe, appropriate and necessary to consider how we learn as well as what we learn” (Russell, 2007, p. 14).

Revisiting our role as teacher educators forced us to confront how intimately our self-perceptions were tied to both our conceptions of what professional learning entails and the learning contexts we create. Embedded were our pedagogical principles that anchored our practice. Without a sense of ownership, we felt compromised and became increasingly disaffected, dispiriting for two committed educators. We continued to doubt our own efficacy as the pilot unfolded. Given limited time, fractured momentum, and concerns over variability in candidate responses to study group tasks, we questioned candidates’ commitment and accountability. “Are they [candidates] rushing through the [study group] questions so they can move on to an assignment for another course?” (Angela). “What should we have done to set it up differently? Some are invested but certainly not all” (Andrea). Yet, despite our uncertainty, we could acknowledge that we had reclaimed agency to the extent that learning outcomes rested, primarily, on our design and implementation. Whatever the outcome, positive or negative, we bore responsibility.

The collaborative process. The collaborative process promoted conceptual interrogation where we repeatedly questioned, “What are we doing?” and “Why are we doing it?” Our collaborative planning was lengthy and demanding as we worked to craft lessons that would pierce candidates’ assumptions, challenge their perceptions of practice, and enable them to embrace the complexity of the teaching enterprise. We continually strove to reverse the traditional figure/ground of coursework/practicum to foreground practicum experiences and validate the authority of experience. Although we had never collaborated previously, we did have repeated conversations during the year the changes were imposed. We discovered that we were both increasingly frustrated and struggling with perceptions of diminished efficacy.

Ironically, sharing the depth of our despair enabled us to challenge one another: “Are you pushing hard enough so candidates consider not only their own perspective but also that of their associate [cooperating] teacher and their students?” “Where are the opportunities for practice-to-theory connections instead of theory-to-practice?” “Are you explaining not only what you are doing pedagogically but why?” We explored ways and means of enabling our becoming teachers to perceive the “complexities, possibilities and nuances of [their] personal and professional being[s]” (Korthagen & Verkuyl, 2007, p. 111). We, too, explored complexities, possibilities, and nuances, sharing what we had done in our classes, what worked and what did not. Exposing ourselves in this way required trust, acknowledgment of vulnerability, and humility.

Lawson (2004) suggests that collaboration encompasses a number of companion “c-words.” These serve to animate collaboration and are necessary for successful collaborative action. They include communication, connecting, cooperating, consulting, coordinating, co-locating, community building, and contracting. These components underscore the complexity inherent in collaborative undertakings, but Lawson elaborates further. He embeds trust within collaborative relationships and describes affective, cognitive, and social trust whereby stakeholders need to trust the others’ motives, competence, and reliability. Accompanying the development of trust are norms of reciprocity or “give and take” which, in turn, rely upon dependability, reliability, integrity, and accountability. Consequently, the uncertainty and risk that may accompany

collaborative, innovative enterprises could be reduced. However, we continued to feel uncertain, not about our collaborative relationship but about whether we were moving forward. We had indeed made progress clarifying our pedagogy and identifying our accompanying teaching moves. But our professional identity remained fragile, as we repeatedly struggled with determining the quality of our candidates’ learning and the relative validity of our approach.

Revaluing relationship. Undertaking this self-study brought to the fore the significance of relationship. Russell (2002) has captured this well: “Teaching is an inherently unstable activity that requires building and maintaining a unique and dynamic relationship with each new group of students” (p. 85). We came to see how the multiple relationships that are shaped and molded between teacher and students and between students and students are intrinsic to a classroom dynamic that supports productive learning. When the class size was doubled and we taught one on, one off, we lost rhythm, momentum, and continuity. Whole class discussions seemed superficial. Small-group discussions appeared equally shallow as candidates were reluctant to challenge perspectives of peers whom they did not know.

When the personal relationship between teacher and student is compromised in any way and for any reason, it is inevitable that the quality of learning will also be compromised. Loughran (2006) places the personal relationship between teachers and students as central to identity formation and personal growth which “combine to shape the nature of pedagogy itself” (p. 2). We have come to revalue relationship and the imperative of knowing one’s students. Building a classroom community where assumptions are challenged and risk-taking promoted is contingent on the quality of the relationships that are cultivated. We had taken for granted the primacy of relationships. We no longer do.

Coldron and Smith (1999) suggest that, rather than having professional identity, teachers use professional identity to make sense of themselves as teachers. Enacting our professional identity meant that we came to understand how our professional learning was tethered to our pedagogical principles and construction of contexts for productive learning. Collaboration enabled us to interrogate our practice and ourselves as teacher educators. Revaluing relationship meant that we came to understand how our professional identity was impacted when teacher-student relationships were compromised. Although described discretely, the themes are intertwined. Of note, the themes of collaborative process and revaluing relationship were not part of the initial emergent themes, an irony that speaks to how the taken-for-granted can be exposed through self-study.

ConclusionUltimately, we viewed this self-study as an opportunity

to open our reflection and inquiry to public critique (Samaras & Freese, 2006) and redraw our landscape of learning to the mutual benefit of ourselves and our preservice teachers. Loughran (2007) suggests that enacting a pedagogy of teacher education requires confidence if the dilemmas, tensions, and concerns of public examination of the problematic nature of teaching about teaching are exposed. Retrospectively, we believe that we did redraw our landscape, while forced to confront the constraints of too little time and the realities of the degree to which program structures “necessarily influence teacher educators’ practices as well as the learning by students of teaching” (Loughran, 2007, p. 12). We were forced to recognize our professional boundaries and acknowledge

the extent to which we were prepared to compromise our beliefs, practices, and professional identities. The intensity of our feelings and the depth of our despair surprised us. “If I don’t recognize myself in the mirror as a teacher, then I can’t continue” (Angela). So, too, were we surprised that our colleagues who were teaching the course appeared not to share our reactions. Unquestionably, teaching is a moral act and “moral responsibility shapes teachers’ beliefs and values, drives their pedagogy, and ultimately goes some way towards a determination of their actions as worthy and their teaching as valued” (Martin, 2007, p. 161). We have made strides in understanding the principles, beliefs, and values that represent our professional identity. We are closer to appreciating the constructs that anchor our understanding of professional learning, the collaborative process, and the role of relationship. And we acknowledge that we could not have redrawn our landscape of learning independently. We have learned that we must honour the way we believe we need to teach if our professional identity is to remain intact.

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SUSAN D. MARTIN Boise State University

Finding The Fit: Reconciling Professional Roles of Researcher and Teacher

Context and PurposeAfter 18 years as an elementary classroom teacher, I

entered a doctoral program with the intent of working with preservice elementary teachers. Like others, my journey from classroom teacher to university teacher educator was one fraught with tensions and shifts in roles and identities (Bullock & Ritter, 2011; Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006; Guilfoyle, Hamilton, Pinnegar, & Placier, 1994; Wood & Borg, 2011; Zeichner, 2005). As a new assistant professor I faced challenges regarding interactions with adult students, development of appropriate pedagogy, and university contexts and expectations. Added into this mix were critical issues to do with my professional role as researcher.

Conducting research was not an expectation of my elementary teaching. I never heard of action research. Similarly, my master’s program was practice-oriented. I had little knowledge of research, and saw myself simply as teacher. This all changed when I entered my doctoral program. I was socialized into a professional role in education with expectations for research as well as teaching. I was enthralled as this new world opened up for me. For one course, I did an ethnographic study of communication in a tattoo parlor simply because I wanted to experience what it was like to be an ethnographer in an unfamiliar setting. I began to see myself as researcher as well as teacher.

I did not breeze into my dissertation work, however. Finding focus for research that would lead directly into my career was difficult for me. After spending eighteen years working towards coherence and wholeness in my teaching practices, I was being asked to atomize—to focus on one sliver of it. In order to move forward professionally, I had to unravel complex understanding borne of practice. I was slow to recognize myself in relation to my research. I vividly remember being in a session just for literacy doctoral students and faculty during the third year of my doctoral program. We sat in a circle and went around the room, introducing ourselves and describing our research interests. As I listened to others mention research on comprehension, phonological awareness, and vocabulary, clarity dawned: I was the only one in the room interested in what teachers did to support children’s literacy development. For my dissertation, I finally settled on investigating the instructional practices of effective elementary writing teachers.

My prior experiences as a classroom teacher helped me considerably in my research. The work was fascinating. Yet I found that conducting research in other teachers’ classrooms was tension filled. Unlike my research with beginning teachers, these experienced teachers were my colleagues. My immersion in classrooms was more complete as I interacted with students as well as with teachers. Importantly, I was now the person responsible for the decisions. I felt continually at odds with myself (Taylor & Coia, 2010) as I conducted

research on and for teachers rather than with them. Writing about these issues in my reflexive research journal led to a 20-page “methods memo” written at the end of the project. It contained my immediate analysis of the dilemmas I faced in conducting my research. I decided that research in other teachers’ classrooms was not for me.

Ten years later, however, I found myself engaged in a project that again positioned me as researcher in elementary classrooms. Although I still worried over concerns to do with complexities of conducting research in classroom settings, my research journal entries demonstrated nothing of my prior angst. Clearly, underlying understandings regarding my purposes, roles, and identity as educator had changed over this time. Intrigued by these changes and how they evolved, I began this autobiographical self-study. The question that guided this study was “How have my understandings about my roles and identity as an educator changed over the last ten years?”

MethodsThe self-focus of this inquiry is in line with other

self-studies that focus on narrative forms of representation (LaBoskey, 2004 as a means to examine the space between self and practices (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001) and how that has changed over time. Consistent with self-study and autoethnographic work (Ellis & Bochner, 2000), composing this paper has begun with personal experience and proceeded to inquiry of the “self as part of a sociocultural context” (Glesne, 2006, p. 199).

Data sources. Data sources for this study included documents written over a 13-year period (1998–2011). These documents were selected as representative of nodal moments (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001) relevant to the research question. Documents included reflexive research memos written in 2001 and 2011. As I was the only intended audience for these memos, they are a personal record of my actions and emotions (Glesne, 2006). They represent introspection on and analysis of my experiences as researcher in other teachers’ classrooms. As noted in Table 1, 10 other documents ranging from 1998 to 2010 represent nodal moments in which I portrayed my professional self to others, particularly at career junctures. Each document had social contexts that established purposes for the documents, constrained content, and informed what I chose to reveal. These documents ranged in length from a few paragraphs to three single-spaced pages.

Data analysis and interpretation. In my determination to produce an authentic, rigorous, and trustworthy account of my situation (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009), I began with memory work (Richardson, 2000) and moved to systematic selection of and examination of relevant documents. Ongoing memory work, reading of professional literature, and feedback

from others worked in concert with close analysis of the documents.

I selected documents from my writings along the continuum of my career track that are typical for most who wish to enter and remain in a tenure-track university position. Each contained statements regarding expected teaching, scholarship, and service roles. Once the documents were selected, I read and reread the documents with “reflective processes around a particular focus” (Tidwell & Fitzgerald, 2007, p. 85). I then began inductive coding (Glaser & Stauss, 1967) of the documents, in which I paid particular attention to metaphors as well as the content of what was written. I worked through the documents in a temporal manner, summarizing and creating descriptive memos for each. I incorporated memory work (Richardson, 2000) into these memos as well, as reading and writing elicited connected memories. I created a data display (Miles & Huberman, 1994) of concepts, metaphors, and words as they appeared in the documents. I particularly noted where concepts/metaphors picked up or left off. For purposes of triangulation, I also used computer-generated word-find to make frequency counts of terms such as teacher educator. I also created word-clouds through Wordle, a computer program that uses word frequencies to generate a graphic of text content. These data were added to data displays. Reviewer feedback and continued reading, writing, and memory work helped me to work towards understandings of personal development in relationship to social contexts.

Coming to Understanding Although I certainly recognized that my understandings

had changed over time, returning to and systematically analyzing documents I had written years before illuminated changes that surprised even me. Changes over time suggest shifts from a discrete-parts perspective on professional roles to one of cohesion. Furthermore, shifts to understandings about my dual roles as educator and researcher appear to have developed hand in hand with change of my identity from teacher to teacher educator. I elaborate below.

Separate, but not equal. When I left classroom teaching to begin a doctoral program, I had little knowledge of the nature and purposes of research. Changes to understanding occurred rapidly, however. I was hired as a research assistant for a qualitative, longitudinal study of beginning teachers. Why I was hired is beyond me, as at the time I equated research with control-group studies done in laboratories. Along with understandings of research came dramatic shifts in my understandings of academic work.

In flux, I grappled with new knowledge and expectations. Noticing the divide between practice (teaching) and theory (research) in academia did not take long. Teacher education course readings made it abundantly clear. So did the physical arrangement of our building—I once bemoaned the fact that “learning” was on one floor (educational psychology) and “teaching” (curriculum and instruction) was on another. My writing at the time demonstrated how I grappled with issues of this divide. The term boundaries was used frequently throughout my statement:

My coursework, my role as researcher, and socialization into the norms of higher education forced me to step outside the boundaries by which I have defined myself for twenty years as an educator… I struggled to analyze and understand the boundaries, which define and separate knowledge and discourse in the university

community from that of teacher practice, so that I might traverse the boundaries in productive.Despite my avowals at this time of “blurring boundaries”

in order to make connections across practitioner and academic contexts, separate was clearly not equal in academia. My program, for instance, required several research courses and projects, while opportunities to teach in our master’s-level preservice program were virtually nonexistent. I was a research assistant for four years, but a teaching assistant for only one. Although I had a wonderful mentor, my experiences were similar to that of a student teacher. I had little framework upon which to lay new understandings as I shifted from teaching children to teaching adults. Teacher, not teacher educator, remained the “significant part of my identity.”

Seeking the balancing act. As I began to understand both these boundaries and the multiple expectations for my future work, teaching and conducting research emerged as separate roles that needed to be balanced. Within a year of entering the program, I wrote, “I have taken a broader stance in regard to my future work and hope to eventually achieve a balance between teaching, research, and writing.” The notion of finding balance in order to bridge boundaries continued as I sought an academic position. In letters of application I wrote, “Your job description suggests a balance of teaching, research, and work with schools/school districts for which I am well prepared.” I turned down one job offer because it did not offer the balance of roles I sought: they did not ask me about my research or require a research presentation.

The job I did take offered what I saw as a balance of the multiple roles we inhabit in higher education. I was not prepared, however, for the challenges of teaching new courses, supervising in partner school settings, and engaging in service, along with those for scholarship. I was scrambling on all fronts (Bullock & Ritter, 2011). Four years later, as I prepared for tenure review, I was still grappling with issues of balance in my work. Although I worked diligently to present myself in the best possible light to the tenure committees, retrospective review of my documents suggested a lack of depth to understanding myself in relationship to my work. My introductory letter was minimal, but I wrote statements for teaching, scholarship, and service. The brief statement about teaching was essentially an unconnected laundry list of the various courses I had taught, from preservice to doctoral levels. Not much there, considering the amount of work and development I felt I had accomplished in four years. Nowhere in this statement did I even use the words teacher educator or teacher education.

The statement focused on scholarship was longer, as I endeavored to group and describe my disparate publications as “lines of research.” Institutional pressures to think in terms of lines and focus, rather than connections and breadth, were reinforced in feedback from the promotion and tenure committee. They suggested that I focus on developing a particular line of research before the next promotion. Nevertheless, shifts of thinking began to show in this statement and presaged changes to my understandings and activity. Although the statement focused on research, I used the word “overlapping” to describe the ways in which areas of my work had come together. I mentioned my new involvement with self-study: “I have become aware of and involved with the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices SIG for AERA.” For the first time, as I elaborated on self-study research, I mentioned connections between research and teaching: “I have found that this research informs and enriches both my teaching and my liaison work.” Cohesion, rather than balance, began to be important.

Weaving the parts together. Three years later, this process of baring oneself to public review of one’s peers for promotion felt even more constrained to me than before—with outside reviewers and the need to highlight both quantity and quality. I was determined, however, to construct the portfolio on my terms—to define myself and my work in regard to what I valued as an academic. In actuality, my portfolio statements became a negotiation between personal convictions and social expectations. However, purposeful presentation of my Self in the narratives demonstrated shifts in thinking about my roles and identity. In the cover letter I boldly stated, “My passion for teaching and quality teacher education carries over into my scholarship, where I have found it most meaningful to intertwine scholarship with the work I do as a teacher educator.” In the scholarship statement I noted, “My scholarly endeavors reflect my praxis orientation to teaching and research, in which theory, practice, research, and action are integrated.” Symbiotic relationships of scholarship and practice in teacher education (Cochran-Smith, 2005) had become the way I conceived of my work. Rather than disparate endeavors, research had gone beyond “lines” to become a rich tapestry in which the threads were intentionally interwoven around purposes as teacher educator. Indeed, the term teacher educator appeared for the first time in regard to myself. I had been enacting and learning an identity (Murphy & Pinnegar, 2011) that put teacher educator at the center of all I did—whether it be in the college classroom, in school settings as supervisor and liaison, at professional conferences, or in my research.

Engaging in research practices from different perspectives. As these findings emerged, it became clear that I had engaged in the dissertation research from the perspective of “separate, but not equal.” Analysis of the dissertation methods memo demonstrated multiple concerns over “stepping from the role of teacher into that of researcher” in the elementary classroom. Furthermore, the socialization into some aspects of my future work, and not others, had left me in a curious identity limbo as I began the study. I saw myself as novice researcher through doing research, but with little opportunity for doing of teacher education I did not see myself as such. Despite four years in a doctoral program, my identity was still that of teacher. So, although my teaching experience was definitely an advantage to me in role of researcher, this continuing identity as teacher wreaked havoc with my efforts. I found myself positioned by teachers and students, not as teacher, but as the other. For example, in talking about interactions with students I wrote, “I did not have the luxury of being in the role of teacher—which might confer implicit trust in some cases. Nor did I have the time I did as teacher to gain trust of students” Likewise, it seems that teachers had become the other to me: “I also connected with trying to see things from the teacher’s perspective—via my remembered experiences…But trying to see action from the perspective of others is not easy.”

In this limbo, teacher educators were also others. In my job application letter I stated, “I want to contribute to understandings that will help teacher educators,” but I never referred to myself with that term. My research was being done for publication for an abstract purpose. I did not envision its utility or purposefulness for me.

Through engagement in the doing of teacher education (Erickson, Young, & Pinnegar, 2011) in the ensuing years, I became an audience for my own research. The incredible teaching I observed became a cornerstone of my beliefs about effective literacy instruction. It provided stories and tools that I pass on to teachers and teacher candidates. Rather than

ending up simply in the confines of scholarly reports, research findings had a place in my courses. Hopefully they will wend their way back into classrooms through my students’ practices.

When I began the recent study, I no longer felt a separation between purposes for teaching and research. Importantly, I entered classrooms with an identity of teacher educator, rather than that of teacher. Preliminary findings from the recent study have already made their way into other areas of my work. Furthermore, this project was directly related to my teaching. I saw it as the natural extension of my self-study work, as I investigated practices of my former students to ascertain how my pedagogies may have influenced teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Concluding ThoughtsBeing and doing teacher education through intertwining

of teaching and research practices has been personally satisfying and empowering for me. I have found my way back to the sense of wholeness I lost upon entering the doctoral program. In my experiences, processes of enculturation into academia clearly obfuscated important ways in which roles of teacher and researcher can be enacted in a more integrated manner for teacher educators. Certainly, the choices I have made and the places to which I have journeyed are not for everyone. I advocate, however, that doctoral programs, mentoring for new faculty, and tenure policies need to present a variety of choices and opportunities for doing teacher education. The ways in which we construct our professional practices in academia is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

ReferencesBullock, S. M., & Ritter, J. K. (2011). Exploring the transition

into academia through collaborative self-study. Studying Teacher Education: Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 7(2), 171–181.

Bullough, R. V., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–21.

Cochran-Smith, M. (2005). Teacher educators as researchers: Multiple perspectives. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21 (2), 219–225.

Dinkelman, T., Margolis, J., & Sikkenga, K. (2006). From teacher to teacher educator: Reframing knowledge in practice. Studying Teacher Education: Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 2(2), 119–136.

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, and reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 733–768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Erickson, L. B., Young, J. R., & Pinnegar, S. (2011). Teacher education identity: Emerging understandings of person, positioning, roles, and collaborations. Studying Teacher Education: Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 7(2), 105–107.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.

Glesne, C. (2006). Becoming qualitative researchers. New, York, NY: Pearson.

Guilfoyle, K., Hamilton, M. L., Pinnegar, S., & Placier, P. (1994). Conversations with distant colleagues: Initiations into the academy. In R. Martin (Ed.), Transforming the academy: Struggles and strategies for the advancement of women in higher education (pp. 39–50). Earlene, IW: Graymill Corp.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. La Boskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), The international handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Vol. 2, pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Murphy, M. S., & Pinnegar, S. (2011). Teacher educator identity emerging as teacher educators enact their roles. Studying Teacher Education: Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 7(2), 183–185.

Richardson, L. (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research, (2nd edition; pp. 923–948). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Taylor, M., & Coia, L. (2010). Beyond classroom walls: Using self-study to understand our roles as educational researchers in schools. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the public and the private: Negotiating the diverse landscape of teacher education (pp. 253–256). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Tidwell, D., & Fitzgerald, L. (2007). Self-study as teaching. In J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), The international handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Vol. 1, pp. 69–102). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Wood, D., & Borg, T. (2010). The rocky road: The journey from classroom teacher to classroom educator. Studying Teacher Education: Journal of Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, 6(1), 17–28.

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SHARON McDONOUGH & ROBYN BRANDENBURGUniversity of Ballarat

“Experiences of Tunnel Vision”: Learning About Teacher Educator Identities Through Studying Mentor Roles

ContextThe research presented in this paper examines the

experiences of two teacher educator mentors in a new model for professional experience, developed and implemented in 2010. This model involved the re-development of protocols and assessment criteria, together with the expansion of the mentoring program. In the School of Education and Arts at the University of Ballarat, Robyn held the positions of Bachelor of Education (BEd) Program Co-ordinator and Professional Experience Programs Co-ordinator and was responsible for the implementation and carriage of the mentor program. Sharon was one of nine professional experience mentors who were well-credentialed teachers and ex-principals, employed one day per week to mentor pre-service teachers (PSTs) in a range of education programs. This particular model for mentoring was a new aspect of the program and involved supporting PSTs while on placement, acting as an advocate for PSTs, ensuring all administrative requirements of the professional experience program were met, liaising between the university and the school, and participating in the continued development of protocols and guidelines for the professional experience program. Each mentor was assigned 35 PSTs (on average) in a specific geographic area with most travelling up to 100 kilometres to visit PSTs while on placements, which all occurred in the same block of time and extended from 10 days to four weeks in duration. Mentors met with most PSTs prior to placement and at least twice during placement and also assessed PST portfolios at the conclusion of the placement.

As colleagues in the School of Education and Arts, we shared a professional history, including being a PhD candidate and supervisor, and we both had a commitment to improving our practice as teacher educators. We shared many experiences in education, including previous work acting as mentors for both pre-service and experienced teachers in multiple contexts. In researching our roles as mentors, we identified moments in our work which became characterised by what we refer to as tunnel vision. (Tunnel vision is when a loss of peripheral vision occurs, resulting in a narrowed field of focus of a circular nature.) In using this metaphor, we see tunnel vision as the way in which our work as university mentors shifted to a focus on the challenging and critical moments.

In late 2010 as the university commenced restructuring processes, different opportunities arose for us both and we both left our mentor positions. Our intention in this self-study was to examine our practice and experiences and the impact of this tunnel vision on our understandings of the mentoring process and on our identities as teacher educators.

Literature ReviewA body of literature exists that examines the challenges

and tensions university-based mentors experience when

working with PSTs (Bair, Bair, Madera, Hipp, & Hakim, 2010; Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Cuenca, 2010; Dinkelman, 2011; Slick, 1998; Trout, 2008). This literature identifies and elaborates on the multiple challenges experienced as part of the mentor role, with Cuenca (2010) arguing that mentors receive poor preparation for the job and are often “left alone” (p. 29), resulting in “feelings of inadequacy” (p. 30). A key focus of the newly developed professional experience mentor program was Robyn’s commitment to fostering opportunities for professional growth. There was an emphasis on establishing regular meetings of the mentor team in order to acknowledge individual contributions, while working towards a common goal of improving professional experience.

Martin, Snow, and Franklin Torrez (2011) argue that university-based mentors are involved in “cultivating and navigating multiple” (p. 303) relationships and roles with their professional identities being shaped and developed through these interactions. Slick (1998) suggests that when teachers shift into the role of university-based mentors they change their organizational affiliations but encounter tension due to still seeing themselves as strongly affiliated with classroom teachers in the field (p. 313). The role of mentors in professional experience programs can aid in the development of relationships between schools and universities (Feiman-Nemser, 2001) while also providing opportunities for critical conversations where students can “shape and unpack learning experiences” (Loughran, 2006, p. 171). Feiman-Nemser (2001) argues that the ways mentors define and enact their role impact the quality of mentoring and the influence of that mentoring on PSTs (p. 28), and in our research we have drawn on self-study to examine the ways in which our understandings of our role mediated the way we saw both our professional identities and mentor roles.

Aim and QuestionsThe aim of our research has been to examine our

assumptions and our practice as mentors in a new professional experience program, and our guiding research questions were as follows:

1. In what ways do the identification and categorization of our assumptions contribute to our understandings of our roles as mentors? 2. In what ways did self-study enable us to understand more about our practice and professional identities as teacher educators?

MethodIn using self-study as a methodology (Pinnegar &

Hamilton, 2009; Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009), we were aware of the need to systematically gather, organise, collate, and analyse relevant data in an ongoing and critical

manner. In drawing on LaBoskey’s (2004) characteristics of self-study, our research was initiated and focused on our professional practice and was improvement aimed; it was an ongoing collaborative study where we employed qualitative methods to gather data and systematically examine our practice. We had also established a focus for the research that was underpinned by our scrutiny of our mentor roles within the professional experience program. In this way, we understood self-study to have a dual role as both a research methodology and a research focus (Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009). It was through using a reflexive, retrospective analysis of our data that we gained new insights into our professional selves in relation to others (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001; Williams & Power, 2010).

A key focus of our self-study related to the identification and the categorization of our assumptions according to Brookfield’s (1995) framework. These three categories of assumptions—paradigmatic, prescriptive and causal—provided the means by which we scrutinised our assumptions about our roles as mentors. Briefly, paradigmatic assumptions are global framing beliefs that represent the ways in which we see the world, and generally they are very difficult to alter. An example of one such belief is that learning is a lifelong process. Prescriptive assumptions are those that refer to the ways in which we believe things should be done. An example of a prescriptive assumption related to learning is that it happens best when the learner is actively engaged in the process. Causal assumptions are usually stated in relation to cause and effect. For example, if the teacher knows the content, students will learn.

Self-study incorporates both the focus of the study and methods appropriate for data collection and analysis (LaBoskey, 2004; Loughran, 2006; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009). An integral aspect of this research was our intention to build critical incident analysis (using e-mail correspondence) into our research design (Brandenburg & Gervasoni, 2011). During February to November 2010, we exchanged 53 e-mails specifically related to our work as mentors in the professional experience program. In reducing the data from 53 to 10 e-mails for detailed analysis, we each selected five e-mails that reflected a critical incident, event, interaction, or conversation. For our research we drew on Measor’s (1985) definition of critical incidents, regarding them as events which “provoke the individual into selecting particular kinds of actions, they in turn lead to particular directions and they end up having implications for identity” (p. 63). Using assumptions as a lens to study our practice, we separately identified the assumptions present in each of the e-mails and then, drawing on Brookfield’s (1995) framework, we collaboratively analysed our assumptions to identify if they were paradigmatic, prescriptive, or causal in nature.

Organisation of the DataThe following example provides information related to

the extract and organisation of data. (Names marked with * are pseudonyms.)

You are doing great! Thanks for the detailed feedback, it is a real problem. She [PST] is a STAR [Student At Risk] and I think we need to be guided [by the supervising teacher] … she may fail the round. We will follow up (you and me and Peter* and Anne*) when we get back and discuss the issues with her. She will then be very clear about expectations—she obviously needs heaps of support and then a decision. (e-mail sent from Robyn to Sharon, June 11, 2010)

After reading the extract we each independently categorised the assumption in the e-mail. Robyn identified the assumption that “mentoring is a shared responsibility,” while Sharon identified the assumption that “the mentor coordinator provides support for students and mentors.” After each identifying the assumption independently we then categorised each assumption using Brookfield’s (1995) framework, and in this case both assumptions were categorised as being paradigmatic in nature. E-mails will be referred to in the subsequent text as N1, N2 and so on.

In using retrospective reflection (Brandenburg & Davidson, 2011; Brandenburg & Gervasoni, 2011) we made notes on concepts and ideas that emerged as we jointly categorized the assumptions present in our e-mail correspondence. Using the notion of theme coding (Miles & Huberman, 1994) we identified four themes in the 10 critical incidents which characterized our experiences as mentors in the program. (For an extended discussion of these four themes, refer to McDonough & Brandenburg, 2012.) In the following section of this paper we focus our analysis and discussion on theme four, tunnel vision.

Discussion and Analysis: Tunnel Vision

Our analysis demonstrated that we overlooked what we saw as the taken-for-granted aspects of our work—the positive feedback from PSTs, mentors, and school principals and the success of new strategies:

Just wanted to let you know that the early feedback from schools regarding the 1st year form has all been positive today. I met with 3 teachers who really liked the way the rubric clearly shows what students need to be doing and all the teachers said the students have been really active and involved in classes. A teacher at Seaspray Primary* said she is so impressed with Jane* and Ben*—said they ask lots of questions and … the quality of the questions they are asking are normally the type of questions she gets from 3rd year students. (N3, May 21, 2010) Despite positive feedback of this nature, which

illustrated that changes we were implementing were creating opportunities for PSTs to engage in pedagogical discussions, we became preoccupied with crisis management and administrative tasks. In this sense, we started to disconnect from our original goals and vision for the program. Initially, we passionately engaged in vibrant discussions whereby we articulated our vision and goals for the new program. There was a sense of positivity and enthusiasm among the mentor group; however, as the year progressed and the demands of the program intensified, group meetings shifted from a discussion of possibilities in the program to an administrative nature where minimal time was devoted to sharing positive outcomes and achievements.

Our e-mail communications also reflected this shift in focus. Analysis of the extracts reveals that six of the 10 e-mails focused on issues related to PSTs who were at risk in their professional experience placement. Further analysis of the data provides an interesting insight into the way that our role devolved into one of crisis management. In selecting our five individual e-mails from a total of 53 e-mails, interestingly we both chose e-mails sent on November 9, 2010. The content of this correspondence revolved around a fourth-year PST at risk of failing the final placement. Robyn wrote,

Thanks for today, it is a strain—I understand! Have spoken with Sam* at length … is upset, but has to make this into a positive, I said we were both supportive …

could fail outright and have to repeat the whole round … Just need to go on with a positive frame of mind … Don’t you stress!

Sharon stated,Thanks for your advice today … I’m quite worried about Sam* [the PST] who was so shattered about today. I feel sorry for Sam* as it just seems like a rough deal … from a rocky start feedback was all about getting better until mid last week when [PST] said that [the mentor teacher] had changed her mind and that was the stuff that she conveyed to me today. I’m feeling a bit disillusioned about it all today so I’m going to take the dog for a walk.This situation became the catalyst for change and

prompted major re-evaluations of our roles as mentors and of the processes of dealing with students at risk in the program. In a subsequent e-mail sent from Sharon to Robyn the following day, Sharon wrote,

Meanwhile I’m thinking about next year and re-evaluating if I will do the mentor stuff. I’m not sure I have the right skills to do the job (not just a result of Sam* but something I’ve been thinking about over the last couple of weeks). I feel like I’m making it up as I go along and hoping that I make some sense of it—but I don’t know if my personality (you know that type A control freak) works like that—I know I have to take the crunchy with the smooth but I find it hard to disconnect from the crunchy and from feeling that I should be able to fix it all. (N9, November 10, 2010)

Our analysis indicated that Sharon had underestimated the emotional challenges of her work as a mentor and that her prescriptive assumptions of her role led to tensions when processes for action were not clear.

ConclusionAs the University of Ballarat commenced restructuring

processes, the professional experience mentor role was subsequently redefined as a Project Management role. Robyn retained an academic position, and Sharon resigned her position as a mentor and is now a full time and ongoing member of the School of Education and Arts. Despite having different roles in the university, our self-study has informed our current practice, research, and understandings of our work as teacher educators.

Dinkelman (2011) argues that “teacher educator identities reflect an unstable and ever-shifting weave of personal and professional phenomena” (p. 309). As we began to examine our assumptions as mentors, we came to understand the complexity of what had been happening to us in terms of the development, restructuring, and re-visioning of our professional identities. We discovered that situations—often stressful, time-consuming and emotionally charged—became our focus for action. In our professional practice as mentors, we acknowledge that we took many aspects of our practice for granted, perhaps to our detriment. As the demands of the program intensified, we neglected the positives and developed tunnel vision, in which we focused on crisis management and administrative tasks. Through this self-study we identified that the tunnel vision we experienced was not only the result of the challenging situations we were confronted with, but was also a result of the intensification of our workloads during a time of restructuring.

Loughran (2006) suggests that an “uncomfortable learning experience can be a constructive learning environment—with the focus on the learning” (p. 167). Using self-study and co-examining our practice has revealed

insights about our practice that we would not have identified without this close, ongoing, and retrospective scrutiny. We discovered that our practices were framed by dominant but different categories of assumptions (Sharon, prescriptive; Robyn, paradigmatic). These categories illustrated our past and current experiences as teacher educators and leaders, and as such, we identified that we were at different stages and phases in our academic work. For each of us, the uncomfortable experiences and emotions that arose when our paradigmatic and prescriptive assumptions did not align with the reality of our practice as mentors became critical stages in our learning. Through using assumption categorization and retrospective reflection, we have developed new learning and understanding of our professional identity and practice. We argue that assumption hunting prior to commencing our new roles may have enabled us to navigate more successfully the challenging moments of our practice, particularly when the demands on our time intensified.

Our self-study has led to modifications in our current practice as teacher educators, and these have occurred due to having a greater understanding of the assumptions underpinning our work. We better understand our roles as teacher educators and mentors in assisting PSTs to take responsibility for their learning, and we also have a better understanding of how our personal assumptions influenced our reactions to the challenging situations we were faced with. We are more aware of our trigger points and of the ways emotional dimensions and challenges mediate our work as teacher educators.

We have continued our joint research and the examination of our practice in our restructured university environment, with a specific focus on research collaboration. Our collaboration as self-study researchers allows us to unpack in a supportive way our critical incidents and conversations. Rather than viewing these as personal and professional shortcomings or limitations, our use of an assumptions categorisation framework has enabled us to see these as opportunities for professional growth and learning. We continue to meet regularly to discuss our experiences and challenges and to celebrate our achievements. Our research highlighted that during times of intensification we developed tunnel vision that left us feeling challenged and burnt out. In learning from our research, we enact a more balanced approach to our work and are better able to take “the crunchy with the smooth.”

ReferencesBair, M. A., Bair, D. E., Madera, C. E., Hipp, S., & Hakim,

I. (2010). Faculty emotions: A self-study of teacher educators. Studying Teacher Education, 6(12), 95–111.

Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2002). Professors and the practicum: Involvement of university faculty in preservice practicum supervision. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 6–19.

Brandenburg, R., & Davidson, C. (2011). Transcribing the unsaid: Finding silence in a self-study. Reflective Practice, 12(6), 695–707.

Brandenburg, R., & Gervasoni, A. (2011, in press). Rattling the cage: Moving beyond ethical standards to ethical praxis in self-study research. Studying Teacher Education.

Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Bullough, R.V., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–21.

Cuenca, A. (2010). In loco paedogogus: The pedagogy of a novice university supervisor. Studying Teacher Education, 6(1), 29–43.

Dinkelman, T. (2011). Forming a teacher educator identity: Uncertain standards, practice, and relationships. Journal of Education for Teaching, 37(3), 309–323.

Feiman-Neiser, S. (2001). Helping novices learn to teach: Lessons from an exemplary support teacher. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(1), 17–30.

LaBoskey, V. K. (2004). The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.). International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 817–869). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Martin, S. D., Snow, J. L., & Franklin Torrez, C. A. (2011). Navigating the terrain of third space: Tensions with/in relationships in School-University partnerships. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(3), 299–311.

McDonough, S., & Brandenburg, R. (2012, in press). Examining assumptions about teacher educator identities through self-study of mentoring roles. Studying Teacher Education.

Measor, L. (1985). Critical incidents in the classroom: Identities, choices and careers. In S. J. Ball & I. F. Goodson (Eds.), Teachers’ lives and careers (pp. 61–77). London, United Kingdom: Falmer Press.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). An expanded sourcebook: Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Slick, S. K. (1998). A university supervisor negotiates territory and status. Journal of Teacher Education, 49(4), 306–315.

Tidwell, D., Heston, M., & Fitzgerald, L. (Eds.). (2009). Research methods for the self-study of practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

Trout, M. (2008). The supervision dance: Learning to lead and follow a student teacher. The New Educator, 4(3), 252–265.

Williams, J., & Power, K. (2010). Examining teacher educator practice and identity through core reflection. Studying Teacher Education, 6(2), 115–130.

DAVID McLAUGHLIN, VALERIE ALLISON-ROAN, & MICHAEL HAYESSusquehanna University

Striving to Enact a Listening Stance as Teacher Educators

Introduction Circumstances have placed us three junior faculty

(David, Valerie, and Michael) as colleagues in a small, private liberal arts institution in the Northeastern U.S. teaching courses in preservice education. Though not outwardly obvious, our cultural backgrounds, histories, and paths here were divergent. Fundamentally, we all desired our new context to become familiar and comfortable. Professionally, we hoped to feel valued and have been intentional in our efforts to develop a collegial “community of choice” within the larger “found” communities of our institution and department (Nelson, 1995).

We understood intuitively that our personal and professional well-beings would be enhanced to the extent we discerned the common threads that brought us to be teacher educators, particularly the ideals we hold for our emerging practices. Our goals included supporting one another in refining our practices, nurturing collegial relationships within our department, and modeling for students the disposition of listening to all learners.

AimsThis self-study grew from the recognition that we

shared a commitment to refining our practices to explicitly model a listening stance—one attuned to students’ voices. Our conceptualization of voice and listening is informed by the work of Freire (1970, 1992, 1998), as well as by Berry (2008), Schultz (2003), and Samaras (2002). In agreement with these authors, we view listening as a precursor to informed action. Berry (2008) asserted:

There is a difference between responding to what one thinks is happening in a particular situation and really tuning in to the specific needs and concerns of individual students. Genuine responsiveness involves paying close attention to one’s students, beyond what the teacher educator expects to see or hear. (p. 119) We each set out to enact listening stances in our

teaching and to reflect upon the ways in which our modeling efforts were being perceived. We also sought to consider how our unique histories influenced our work with one another and with students. Through our collaboration around these common goals, we considered consequences for our practices, our identities as teacher educators, and our collegial relationships.

FrameworkOur listening stance parallels the framework for teaching

across differences developed by Schultz (2003). Rather than reinforcing the notion “teachers talk and students listen,” we modeled that teachers must listen intently to students, as individuals and as a group. Teachers must hear and respond to

what students communicate in words, writing, gestures, and silence. Through this proximal and intimate process, teachers enact a curriculum responsive to the diversity of student needs, interests, and understandings as well as the broader social context.

Social constructivism (Samaras, 2002) and critical social theory (Blake & Masschelein, 2003; Brown, 2004) are embedded within our practice whereby knowledge is constructed through social interactions. Reflective practitioners must critically evaluate how their tacit beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences bias their practices to potentially silence and negate others (Berry, 2008; Brookfield, 1995; Bullough & Gitlin, 2001; Samaras, 2002).

“Broadly speaking, self-study begins with discomfort and dissatisfaction with the view that learning to teach is a straightforward matter of learning how to teach by being told” (Russell, 2010, p. 691). As we learn alongside one another and our students, we are guided by the work of Mills College colleagues (Galguera, 2011; Kroll, 2011; Kroll et al., 2005; LaBoskey & Richert; 2011), both in our desire to develop comprehensive outcomes for our graduates that promote social justice and in our use of self-study methodology to interrogate our efforts and transform our practice.

MethodsEducation students enrolled in three courses (David,

math instruction, n=16; Valerie, literacy instruction, n=14; and Michael, educational psychology, n=22) participated in this study. Six students were enrolled in multiple courses; thus, responses were received from a total of 46 individual students.

By sharing and discussing our own autobiographical narratives at the start of each course, we began with modeling listening to self. Consistent with Bullough and Gitlin’s (2001) “life writing” assignments, students crafted their narratives related to experiences that influenced their development significantly as learners and beliefs about teaching and learning. This use of personal narratives set the stage for positioning students’ histories and understandings of self as foundational to the knowledge they constructed about teaching and learning through our courses.

We were committed to incorporating course activities and assignments that promoted students sharing their unique histories and perspectives. We positioned small and large group discussions to occupy more class time than lectures and solitary activities. During these learning opportunities, we listened intently to utilize our emerging understanding of students to enact responsive practice. We also shared reflections about our efforts to listen, instances when we stumbled, where we felt successful, and when we were unclear of how to interpret what we heard.

Monthly, students completed anonymous questionnaires soliciting their perspectives of our efforts. Near mid-term we conducted focus group discussions with one another’s classes, which were audio recorded and later transcribed. Respondents’ identities were concealed from the course instructor and s/he was provided with only the transcript of the focus group. Additionally, samples of student work, including autobiographical narratives, were interrogated to identify recurring themes.

We each maintained a personal journal, recording observations of classroom events and interpretative reflection. Copies of journal entries were distributed to the other two instructors who responded to comments/insights contained in the journals in a dialogical manner. Throughout the study we met regularly to discuss our teaching experiences and students’ feedback.

As the study ended, we interrogated our own data sets, including our students’ anonymous feedback, the focus group transcript, and reflective journal entries. We also analyzed one another’s data sets looking for common themes across and between the data sets. In each case, we prepared summary documents; these included the themes and outliers we detected in each data set, observations of variables that might have influenced the results, and questions that rose from interrogating data.

We reviewed our summaries, noting congruity and divergence across them. We discussed how we each experienced the process of engaging in the study. Additionally, we considered how both our enactment of a listening stance in practice and interpretation of students’ and one another’s feedback were mediated by our own histories and characteristics. Following this, we individually reflected and responded in writing to the salient questions we had posed to one another through our summaries.

Students’ Perceptions of our EffortsStudents interpreted our efforts (i.e., sharing our

narratives, getting to know students as individuals from their narratives, and drawing on students’ histories and current life experiences in our courses) as narrowing the hierarchal gap that often marks student/professor relationships (Brookfield, 1995; Walton, 2011).

I think he does a good job of incorporating the class and using our knowledge to further his knowledge. So, it’s not like a one way road. It’s kind of like an exchange with back and forth as a conversation more, rather than … some teachers [who make] you feel like there is one teacher and he’s in power. (S4 – David’s focus group, November 3, 2011)

Students expressed appreciation for these efforts and articulated their hope to incorporate listening into their emerging teaching practices.

Many students appreciated our commitment to enact listening stances, drawing explicit attention to the role listening should have in classrooms built on a social constructivism. At the same time, others believed listening need not be so explicitly taught and modeled. Especially at the beginning of the semester, some thought we took the study of our practice too far. In particular, Michael’s students felt he read too much meaning into silences and asked too frequently for students’ perspectives of his listening efforts.

It’s too much of the class. It’s, “I’m listening.” But it’s good to know he’s trying, but I think that should be just second nature and you just do it automatically. Not

necessarily that it needs to be discussed almost daily. (S1 – Michael’s focus group, November 2, 2011)

Michael found he needed to engage in a delicate balancing act between promoting listening and attending to other course objectives.

We each designed learning experiences that prompted students to engage with one another (e.g., Socratic circles, cooperative learning groups, and peer-to-peer journaling). During class discussions, we promoted exchanges where students controlled the flow of dialogue. Sometimes we simply observed while at others we participated in a manner students identified as peer-like. Numerous students affirmed our facilitation of student-to-student exchanges. By “stepping out of the middle,” we created space where students learned from one another’s expertise. In doing so, we challenged the notion teachers teach through transmitting their knowledge to passive, silent learners (Russell, 2010).

You facilitate meaningful discussion but then allow us to continue that discussion ourselves and give helpful responses. (Valerie’s student feedback, September 28, 2011)

Insights into our Practice and SelvesAs novice professors we were sometimes challenged

to successfully respond to student feedback. While being responsive, some of their needs conflicted with deeply held pedagogical principles, such as a commitment to provide learning experiences that might challenge and stretch students’ thinking and knowledge construction. We each received critical feedback that we were unhelpful, unclear, or unresponsive to their needs in completing assignments or answering questions. They interpreted this as evidence we failed to listen.

Sometimes we ask questions that he can’t give us a definite answer to right away, but we never seem to get back to the answer. (S2 – David’s focus group, November 3, 2011)

Through self-reflection, we sometimes came to see we were culpable and worked to refine our communication about learning goals and expectations. In describing how Michael attended to his class as a group, one student appreciated him

Adjusting assignments and adding conference elements to help students; providing examples that the class desired. (Michael’s student feedback, December 2, 2011)At other times, we struggled to consider alternate

approaches to meet students’ desires for support that did not, in our professional judgment, take away from their learning.

I recognize an inner tension—on the one hand, wanting to facilitate students to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills while not providing too narrow of a structure, which I fear may rob them of the opportunity to struggle and subvert their growth, and on the other hand, students’ requests for greater clarity regarding my expectations … (Michael’s journal, November 3, 2011)

A small number of students were inclined to hold us responsible irrespective of the support we provided, perhaps because doing so absolved them of responsibility for their learning.

I have an outlier who consistently points out what she perceives to be my ineptitudes. I’ve done my damndest to take the high road, offer empathy, and encourage her to come speak to me face-to-face; but she seems only interested in sniping at me. (Valerie’s journal, October 13, 2011)

Student feedback was sometimes critical of personality traits and mannerisms we found difficult to apprehend or change. Valerie’s students described her tendency to make light of concerns students shared about their teaching practicum. David’s students voiced he sometimes came across as uncertain of himself and lacking confidence. Michael’s noted his use of analogies and anecdotes. Students’ images of how we teach prompted us to consider the sources of these and other traits. Careful self-reflection illuminated the role of formative childhood and professional experiences in shaping who we currently are and who we are in the process of becoming as teacher educators. We offered our own interpretations and considered alternative perspectives offered by one another.

My tendency to make light/find humor in serious matters is linked to coping strategies I developed to respond to childhood crises. If I could find something comical about a situation, it gave me a sense of not being helpless, having some agency to change the situation, or at least make the best of it. (Valerie’s journal, December 22, 2011).

I have felt a bit like an imposter in my math class since the beginning, more so than in my science classes. Not that I can’t do the math myself or haven’t taught math, but I haven’t spent a lot of time with children or math at the grade levels I am trying to prepare our students for. And so I think the comments from some of my students about my lack of confidence are right on. (David’s journal, December 15, 2011)Our dissimilar backgrounds led to differences in how we

each experienced the risk-taking and vulnerability associated with engaging in a collaborative self-study with our peers and students. Valerie was in her fourth year as a teacher educator and had previously undertaken other self-studies. Her trepidation was linked to disclosing her personal history to her peers and students. For David, a private individual and someone who had rarely had colleagues observe his teaching, agreeing to make his practice and personal reflections transparent was a leap of faith. Additionally, as a math/science teacher educator, self-study was a new research paradigm for him. Michael was more at ease with the research methodology given his background as a psychologist and by virtue of having participated in a previous self-study. His struggle stemmed, in part, from being the least experienced of the three as a teacher educator.

We confronted the multiple ways in which our identities as teacher educators and how we experienced the study were entangled with our sense of self and our personal histories. Herein we identified deeply held beliefs about self that shaped our approaches toward enacting a listening stance and responsiveness, or lack thereof, to students’ perceptions of our practice.

When personally challenged, my thinking tends to become increasingly polarized… an artifact of family of origin experiences, particularly through the model my father provided. Hence, the inflexible stance I held concerning my instructional approach mirrors my father’s approach with me as a child. (Michael’s journal, January 8, 2012)Self-reflection and careful interrogation of each other’s

interpretations enriched our insights akin to “professional intimacy” (Fitzgerald, Canning, & Miller, 2006). Through our endeavor to listen and honor our students and to engage in a collaborative self-study of those efforts, we came to know our selves and one another more fully. We refined our practices as

a result of feedback from students, our personal reflections, and honest dialogue with one another. We, in essence, engaged in a process of co-mentoring. As Hamilton and Pinnegar (2006) noted, “In the torrent of academia, we provide shelter when needed or a good push if appropriate” (p. 118). Each of us had the opportunity to learn from the honest feedback of our peers. While this critical feedback was sometimes difficult to hear, it was softened by the knowledge we shared a commitment to one another’s learning and success as teacher educators.

Conclusions and ImplicationsOur efforts had positive outcomes for our students. We

provided an authentic model of what it means to be reflective practitioners who are continually engaged in the process of learning to teach (Dinkelman, 2003; Loughran & Berry, 2005). As many students noted, we aligned our practice with the abstract ideals they had encountered throughout their education program. This increases the likelihood they will embrace reflection and learning through practice once they begin their teaching careers.

Specific to our efforts to model a listening stance, we saw evidence our students had a greater awareness for the role listening might serve in their future practices. For some, this awareness meant abandoning a previously held paradigm of teaching as transmission. Listening more intentionally to our students enhanced their learning specific to our courses. Our capacity to understand their thinking and how it was informed by their background experiences allowed us to be more precise and supportive with our feedback.

Our inquiry had consequences for us individually and for collegial relationships within our department. Previously we each experienced a sense of isolation and uncertainty about how we fit into our academic community. Through our collaboration, we each were simultaneously supported and challenged by our ongoing dialogue and the access we gave one another to our classrooms, students’ feedback, and personal reflections. This collaboration enabled us to identify and refine the common threads we share while challenging us to stretch in our enactments of practice. We encouraged one another to maintain the focus on listening closely to students and the meanings they conveyed in their responses, even when students’ voices were critical. We emerged strengthened as a chosen community (Nelson, 1995) committed to supporting one another in our work to transform both personal and collegial practices within our department.

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DENISE McLURKINThe City College of New York

A Collaborative Self-Study to Assist Students Educated Outside of America

The comment above was written in my journal in 1995 when I was in my teacher education program. I remember feeling that the notion of “moving on” at all costs was unfair. As a matter of fact, I firmly believed it then, and still do now, that this is not only unethical, but criminal. As an elementary teacher, how could I “move on” if I had some students who did not understand the lesson or the directions to complete the assignment successfully? So, I took it upon myself to make sure that all of my students had the opportunity to be successful. That meant meeting students before school, during lunch, and after school, in order to adequately prepare my students. Did it take a lot of time and hard work? Definitely! But the reward of seeing a student finally “get it” was priceless.

As a teacher-educator of literacy methods, I have my undergraduate pre-service teacher candidates write their literacy autobiographies. With the literacy autobiographies, I want my students to discuss and reflect on their literacy and educational journeys from preschool to their current experiences as undergraduates, as well as their families’ influences on their journeys. My rationale for my students writing about their literacy and educational journeys is two-fold. First, I want to know more about their literacy experiences so that I can have more insight into what I need to focus more closely on in my teaching. For instance, if I have students who recall literacy centers in their past as elementary grade students, they may have the requisite background knowledge and experience that those who did not may not have. Thus, I can work more closely with the smaller group of students who do not recall or know what literacy centers are, without boring the students who already understand the concept.

Second, and more important to their lifelong learning, according to Dewey (1933), reflection for teachers and teacher educators is an integral part of teachers’ professional development. It is seen as a way for us to actively problem solve every aspect of our teaching: the instruction we provide, the materials we use, how we interact with our students and their parents, the type of classroom community we create, etc. Furthermore, research also suggest that teachers’ past educational experiences play significant roles in their classroom practice, beliefs, and expectations (Heydon & Hibbert, 2010; Massey, 2002; Roe & Vukelich, 1998; Vartulli, 2005), thus being able to recall, reflect on, and critique our prior educational experiences is crucial. So, with the literacy autobiography assignment, it is imperative that students be able to recall as much information about their journeys as possible so that we can actively take the next steps, which are reflection and critique.

Unfortunately, one problem that I kept encountering was my students’ inability to recall relevant information about their educational and literacy journeys. So, in order to better prepare them for success with this assignment, I met with my students during office hours, before and after class, and during days that I did not teach in order to help them recall more relevant information regarding their literacy and educational journeys. However, the time to meet with students individually was taking its toll on my other commitments. So finally, I began to wonder: Is there something I could do that would provide assistance and support for all of my students without taxing all of my time?

In order to address this issue, at the beginning of the spring semester of 2011, I conducted a self-study to improve my students’ recall of information regarding their literacy and educational journeys (McLurkin, 2012). In this study, I had a focus group with two critical friends (LaBoskey, 2004), who were my former graduate students, were in-service elementary teachers in the surrounding area, and who had recently earned master’s degrees in literacy education. We decided to create a handout that outlined typical instructional strategies, methods, and programs regarding literacy acquisition that we read about in the literature and textbooks and observed or used in our own personal and professional lives.

I found that overwhelmingly, with the addition of the handout, most of my students were better able to recall more information regarding their literacy journeys. This was reflected not only in richer autobiographies with greater details about specific literacy instructional strategies, methods, programs, and materials used, but also in their discussions, reflections, and critiques, both in and out of class, regarding literacy instructional methods, programs, and materials they had experienced as PreK–12 students and were observing in the elementary classrooms of their fieldwork placements. Furthermore, I had to meet with only one student outside of class to “jog her memory” about her literacy journey. Thus, I was able to both save a tremendous amount of time and receive a much richer autobiography from most of my students.

Aim of My Current StudyWhile I was pleased with the improved literacy

autobiographies of most of my students, unfortunately, most of my students who were educated in countries other than America did not find the first handout helpful. I had several students (one from Haiti, one from Pakistan, and one from the Philippines) who told me that their literacy and educational journeys were not reflected at all on the handout provided

A student asked today, “When do you know when to move on with a lesson?” I could not believe what my professor said. “When the ‘middles’ get it.” She must have seen our confused looks because she then asked, “You have never heard about ‘teaching to the middle?’” After a brief “lesson” on what that meant, another student asked, “Is that fair?” My professor shook her head and smiled. Finally she said, “You can’t waste time with those who already get it and those who never will.” Then she added, “You have to keep on pushing on. If you don’t, your principal and your students’ parents will be upset.” Then she nonchalantly went on to the next topic.

in class. Thus, at the end of the spring semester of 2011, I began to wonder again if there was something that I could do that would provide assistance and support for my students without taxing all of my time. For this paper, I am writing about my exploration of ways to better help my undergraduate students who were educated outside of America to recall of their educational experiences and literacy instruction from preschool to the present through a self-study research project (LaBoskey, 2004; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009; Samaras, 2011). For this project, the guiding research questions are

• In what ways will additional support/resources help students better recall information regarding their literacy and educational journeys?• How do students perceive the additional support/resources?• What will I learn about my own practice as a teacher educator following the completion of this study?

Contexts of the StudyWhile completing my doctoral work, I was able to teach

literacy methods classes at several institutions throughout southwest Michigan. I found it striking that it was extremely rare to have students in my classes who looked like me or who had similar educational experiences that I had. As a matter of fact, most of my students were Caucasian females from middle class, wealthy families who were educated in well-funded private, parochial, or public schools. On the other hand, I am an African American woman who was born and raised in a working middle-class family in southern California.

While I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with these amazing students, I was interested in working with a more diverse student body when I began applying for assistant professorship positions. So when I received the job offer at the City College of New York, one of the things that most excited me was the opportunity to work with such a diverse student body. Once I began teaching EDCE 32300: Literacy Acquisition classes at City College, I was once again awed at the diversity. My students born and raised in America come primarily from New York or New Jersey, but their familial roots are just as diverse as the students in my classes, who were born and raised to some extent in countries outside of America. In one semester, I had students from Ghana, China, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Pakistan, Japan, India, the Philippines, Israel, and the former USSR. I have students who are monolingual English speakers, bilingual, and even trilingual, who speak other languages such as Spanish, French, Korean, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Tagalog, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Akan, Twi, Hebrew, and Russian. I have students whose family’s socioeconomic status would place them well below the poverty line, all the way to those whose families are considered wealthy. Furthermore, I have also have students who will be the first in their families to graduate from college, and even those who were the first in their families to graduate from high school and even middle school.

In looking at the richness of my students’ lives, I am embarrassed that I did not initially consider that students who were not educated in America may have different educational experiences that may require different types of support or resources. However, through this self-study project, I hope to improve the likelihood that all of my students will have better recall of their educational and literacy journeys.

MethodsWith this current study, I acknowledge that while

I have knowledge of the language systems and written formats (i.e., concepts about print, phonetic or non-phonetic, alphabetic or non-alphabetic) of English, Spanish, French, Asian languages, Russian, Hebrew, and Arabic, I did not have expertise in schooling systems outside of America. Thus, I had to find a critical friend (LaBoskey, 2004) who had expertise in schooling outside of America, who would preferably understand various language systems. I began working with a colleague in the Bilingual/TESOL program who was educated outside of America herself and whose expertise is English literacy instruction for second-language learners. Together, at the end of the summer semester of 2011, we co-created a handout that outlined questions regarding students’ homeland educational and literacy instructional experiences, as well as literacy instructional experiences once they arrived in America.

In the second phase of this study, I used several qualitative methods. First, in the beginning of the fall semester of 2011, I conducted a focus group with the three former students discussed above to get their feedback on the handout created. During that focus group, I explained and clarified each question and concept listed on the handout. I then had the participants give me feedback on the handout, added their comments to Figure 1, and took it back to my critical friend for feedback. After that, a week before the due date of the literacy autobiographies, I asked my current students who were educated outside of America to stay after class so that I could go over the handout with them and answer any questions they may have. Next, I closely examined the literacy autobiographies and the reflections on the process of writing their autobiographies from former students who did not have the handout and current students who did. Finally, I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews where I took handwritten field notes with five current students and the three former students above to discuss their experiences with the literacy autobiography assignment.

When all of the data were collected, I read and re-read the field notes from my interviews and focus groups and my notes from their literacy autobiographies and written reflections. Next, I categorized and coded the data around the guiding research questions. The one theme that emerged from the data is discussed below.

Findings: HelpfulnessThe majority of the students stated either verbally or in

writing that the handout was helpful to them or would have been helpful to them had they had access to it when they took my class. The students noted that the handout was helped them organize their papers, discuss more clearly their educational experiences in their homelands and in America, and assign labels for certain types of programs, activities, and materials. According to one student, “The handout was really helpful in helping me with writing about my education in my homeland. I would not have thought of all of those things without the handout.” According to another student, “I really appreciate the terms used on the handout like the different types of programs such as bilingual, dual language, etc. Now I know the difference between all of them and what each means.” According to one of my former students who did not have the handout as a resource, “I sure wish we had this when I did my paper. I think you wrote that my paper was all over the place. I know this would have helped me organize my paper.”

Now, while the majority of my students stated that the handout was helpful, all noted that having the opportunity to discuss and clarify the handout was even more helpful. According to one student, “When you first gave out the handout, I looked at it and almost panicked. I thought, OMG! What does this stuff mean? But then we sat down and you went over it with us. That was so helpful because when I got home, I still had the handout and knew what each thing meant.” According to another student, “Our discussion about the different ways books are written and red [sic] in our homelands was great. I didn’t think of that and wold’ve [sic] just ignored it. Thanks.” Lastly, another student stated, “Usually, I won’t ask a question even if I’m totally confused. But the small group we had and you meeting with me by myself to go over the handout was so good.”

In examining the quality of the literacy autobiographies from spring 2011 to fall 2011 of my students who were educated outside of America to some extent, I concur that the handout and focus group was helpful. The fall 2011 papers were more organized, contained more information regarding the language and written systems of their home language, and gave much more detailed accounts of their transition from their homeland schools to the American educational system. For instance, one student wrote, “I remember being in a monolingual English class when I came here in the 2nd grade. I guess the secretary looked at me and my mom (we’re Black Cubans) and thought, ‘she must be African American.’ However, I couldn’t speak a word of English, so I was lost for a long time in that class. I should have been in a dual language or bilingual classroom. That would’ve been better.” Another student wrote, “I remember my classroom in our state-run/religious (Muslim) one-room school in Pakistan. We had individual chalkboards and we copied everything our teacher wrote on the big blackboard in the front of the room. I also remember having to memorize a lot of things and having to get up in front of the class to say it out loud. I remember being so scared because we would get in trouble if we stumbled.” Overall, the quality of my students’ literacy autobiographies has improved tremendously since adding the graphic organizers and discussions to the assignment.

Finally, in reflecting on what I learned about my own practice as a teacher educator, I learned that I paid little if any attention to my students’ current literacy and academic needs as undergraduate students. One thing that struck me once I reflected on the literacy autobiography assignment that I did not count on was how much information I would learn about my students’ current literacy and educational journeys as undergraduate students. Honestly, I have always focused on primarily their elementary school experiences because I wanted them to be in a place where they could explore, reflect, and critique the literacy methods and programs they experienced as PreK–12 and would more than likely encounter as novice in-service teachers when they began their teaching careers. Unfortunately, I now realize that was “teaching to the middle” and inadvertently ignoring the needs of many of my students. Those realizations sadden me as I have always prided myself on not being like my professor whom I discussed above. But I am now cautiously proud to say that with the additional support of the graphic organizer and discussions, I am adequately preparing all my students for success with the literacy autobiography assignment. However, and most importantly, I now know that I cannot just take for granted that all of my students will fit neatly into either of the support systems I have put in place, and as a reflective and observant practitioner, I will continue to probe, prod, and wonder to

ensure that all of my students are prepared to complete their literacy autobiographies.

DiscussionAs a teacher educator of literacy methods, I am

preparing future teachers who will one day teach children how to read, write, speak, and listen proficiently. I truly believe that this responsibility is too great to take lightly. Thinking on a larger scale, all of us who teach in institutions of higher education are preparing candidates to one day be not only future teachers, but engineers, doctors, lawyers, and researchers, to name a few. We should all understand that it is not enough that we require and encourage our students to be reflective candidates and future practitioners. It is imperative that we too systematically reflect on our practice and investigate ways to improve our practice when the need arises. Ultimately, we will improve not only our own practice, but also our students’ outcomes and their (and their future students’) chances at a much more successful and rewarding future.

ReferencesDewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation

of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath.

Heydon, R., & Hibbert, K. (2010). “Relocating the personal” to engender critically reflective practice in pre-service teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 796–804.

Massey, D. D. (2002). Personal journeys: Teaching teachers to teach literacy. Reading Research and Instruction, 41(2), 103–25.

McLurkin, D. L. (in review). A self-study to improve my literacy autobiography assignment.

Pinnegar, S., & Hamilton, M. L. (2009). Self-study of practice as a genre of qualitative research. London, United Kingdom: Springer.

Roe, M. F., & Vukelich, C. (1998). Literacy histories: Categories of influence. Reading Research and Instruction, 37(4), 281–295.

Samaras, A. P. (2011). Self-study teacher research: Improving your practice through collaborative inquiry. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.

Vartulli, S. (2005). Beliefs: The heart of teaching. Young Children, 60(5), 76-86.

GEOFF MILLS JOHN LOUGHRAN RENEE CLIFTSourthern Oregon University Monash University University of Arizona

Is It Possible to Maintain a Focus on Scholarship in Teacher Education While Being a Dean?

There is a paucity of literature on the experience of being a dean and maintaining a serious scholarly interest in teacher education. Within the self-study community, Manke’s (2004) review of literature on teacher education administrators and self-study of teacher educator practices highlighted four related topics: power, community, social justice, and reform. Manke found that most authors acknowledged their power, but that most hoped to use that power beneficially while working with others. Roose’s (2010) analysis of her journals while serving as a teacher education administrator indicated that teacher education administration is very much a relational, interpersonal practice.

Our combined self-studies (John, Renée, and Geoff) analyze the changes, issues, and concerns that each of us highlight as central to our work at this time. The conceptual lens involves that of identity (Whitbourne, et al., 2002) as we explore the challenges that teacher educator scholars face in shifting from being a professor to being a dean. By examining the experiences of three deans at different stages in their leadership roles, we seek to make visible the business of being a dean in relation to personal views and practices that are at the heart of developing scholarship in teacher education. In so doing we illuminate the internal conflict that is inherent in the role.

MethodOur experiences form a collective case study (Stake,

1995; Merriam, 1998) whereby our work at different stages in our leadership roles illustrates different foci of being a dean. Our three different qualitative data sets are drawn together to document and analyze the commonalities in our situations and create a narrative of the combined experiences. This encapsulates our experiences and situations, resulting in snapshots in time that capture different stages, responsibilities, and perceived impact of our roles on ourselves as teacher education scholars.

Our studies began with analyses of those artifacts that did not involve working with others, human subjects, if you will. We analyzed personal journals, calendars, notes on meetings, and lists of tasks to identify and categorize our experiences independently. As we engaged in Skype conversations around our personal analyses, each co-author evaluated his or her experiences by sharing the sense of discomfort as our dean roles affected the ways we still viewed ourselves as scholars. We found that identity was a major theme for each of us, and so we then selected prominent experiences of our ongoing sense of self as administrator and scholar in order to prepare separate accounts of being a dean.

Three Aspects of Identity ShiftsOur collective case study might be viewed as a meta-

analysis of each author’s critical incidents, episodes, events, and situations (Tripp, 1993). John’s account describes a continual tension among his identity as a scholar and an administrator. Renée’s account documents the rapid and ever-changing nature of her job. Geoff’s narrative relates his decision to resolve tension and manage rapid change by returning to his scholarly roots. Our accounts, therefore, do not conform easily to the APA manuscript structure. Rather they present our cases as data that inform the discussion that concludes this paper.

John: Challenging identity. Becoming dean was unsettling. The fact that it involved a long and challenging time of transition was something I had not really anticipated. How the role looked from the outside and what it really entailed was very different to that which I had superficially envisaged. For the first two years in the job, when asked by colleagues, “How are you enjoying the role?” I heard myself constantly responding by saying, “Enjoy isn’t the word I would use.” I began to recognize that I was quietly being confronted by a personal sense of identity change most evident through another common response to inquiries about the job in which I said, “I’m grieving the loss of my previous existence!” A bit melodramatic perhaps, but a response underpinned by a number of issues that challenged my sense of identity about who I am and what I do.

The first and most immediate change was the loss of control of what I was doing, combined with an almost complete lack of discretionary time. In reviewing a typical week randomly selected from my 2011 diary, it shows little time spent in anything other than meetings (e.g., individual, small group, informal and formal Faculty and/or University meetings). If a normal “allocatable day” at the office could be described as beginning at 8:00 and finishing at 6:00, then the diary entries for the week October 9–14, 2011 highlight the point. On Monday at 8:00–9:30 and 10:30–11:00, nothing was allocated, but the rest of the day (sadly until 7:00) was fully booked. Tuesday was completely allocated from 9:30 to 5:00, and Wednesday started at 8:00 with gaps at 10:30–11:00 and 3:00–3:30. Thursday started at 9:00 and finished at 6:30 with one hour free between 10:00 and 11:00. Friday was fully booked from 8:00 to 4:00. In that week, only one time slot was related to traditional academic work, and that involved presenting in a seminar for doctoral students on “getting published.” Not surprisingly, the need to carefully plan for writing or other academic work—often weeks in advance—was crucial, which hints at the second major change.

For the first time in my career, I found myself repeatedly turning down invitations to write because the time frame was too short, or because I did not have the data needed to complete the task appropriately, or I was not working on a

project and so did not have a base to work from to write about in a meaningful way. I also found that when I did carve out the time to write, I found it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand as my mind wandered onto the diverse array of other things that I needed to pay attention to in order to manage the demands of being dean. My identity as an academic was therefore consistently challenged by the daily requirements of my work, few of which included the type of scholarship that, as a professor, had been so important to the way I worked and the outputs I sought to produce.

Teaching also became very difficult as I had little time to prepare for class and even less time to manage assessment and other crucial aspects of the work. I taught one class for a semester but struggled to be fully prepared. Paradoxically, I felt more relaxed and comfortable when in class because everything else seemed to stop for those few hours each week. I also regained a sense of achievement in my work that I felt lacking in the alternative routine of meetings, problem solving, and managing the Faculty. However, I could not maintain a teaching role and was quickly reduced to the much less frequent one-off appearances. That further challenged my identity and, at times, fostered a quiet sense of resentment about being dean, making me question whether or not I had done “the right thing” in accepting the role.

An obvious and confronting challenge related to conferences and travel. Rejecting opportunities to present and to collaborate with colleagues internationally was painful. I felt guilty at the thought of being away from the Faculty for any extended period of time. As a consequence, I found it very difficult to justify attending some of my favorite conferences (AERA, ISATT & ESERA) or could not clear enough of my diary in advance to be comfortable with being absent. The e-mails, stories, and publications from those who did attend reminded me of experiences I valued and was missing.

In all that I experienced, deaning was very different to being a professor. Where once I had ideas for research based on the context of my work, now they amounted to inaction. Ethical considerations, lack of time, and changing demands on what I needed to do (as opposed to what I wanted to do) forced me to work, act, and perceive myself differently. My identity was no longer the same, familiar, comfortable skin that it once was.

Renée: Constantly shifting foci. As the co-author on this paper who is an associate dean, I am writing from a slightly different perspective, because I am the one to whom the dean delegates tasks. In an earlier paper (Clift, 2011) I described my transition into the associate dean role and the challenges I faced while changing roles and university and state contexts. Like John, I noted that my identity as a scholar and as a researcher was in danger of being overrun by all of the other tasks I was expected to encourage, monitor, and complete. Since 2010 my role has become even more complex because I have assumed more tasks as my college has responded to severe budget reductions by cutting administrative positions. I am now the only associate dean.

To cope, I make lists. I make lists of things for me to do, crossing things off as I do them. I also make lists of things I need to remember to tell my dean. The data for my section comprises lists from March 2011 through January 2012. The number of lists per month ranges from four (July 2011) to nine (May 2011). The number of entries on a given list ranges from 36 (March 23, 2011) to 15 (July 12, 2011). July is a very slow month. But these numbers do not capture the trade-offs I make as I work through the lists.

I have chosen two representative months to describe the essence of what I do for this paper: March 2011 and

November 2011. In March I worked with programs all across the campus to prepare a report required by the US Department of Education. This is one of the busiest and least enjoyable months for me. November was one of my most complicated months, in part because of my expanded administrative role and in part because of scholarly-related travel.

March: Compliance occupied most of March. For example, references to the report appeared on every March list and did not go away until the April 27 list. Professional preparation program design also occupied a lot of my time—thinking through ways to document our students’ performance, planning for a project advisory board meeting, monitoring one of the college’s minors, and beginning to develop a new undergraduate major. Scholarship was also prominent—reviewing for four journals, planning to co-edit a special issue of a journal, and thinking through a data collection plan with my students. Administrative tasks were also prevalent. I noted that I needed to prepare my annual report for the dean, notify teachers who would be leaving their classrooms to work for us the following year, collaborate with U of A south (our sister campus), meet with our academic advisors, and give feedback on a grant. By the end of March, except for the required report and the new major, all of the above tasks had disappeared from my lists.

November: Administrative tasks dominated the November lists. The main task was the development of the new major, a task that is almost accomplished as I write this. Other tasks related to preparing promotion documents for three people. Scholarship was also prominent. In addition to journal reviews, a co-editor and I were immersed in providing feedback to the authors in the special issue of a journal. We spent a day working together in person, and our work is ongoing. Professional preparation program design continued to be prevalent, especially organizing a series of seminars given by two visiting professors. The number of compliance tasks had diminished, but a concern for teaching began to appear as I started to worry about my graduate course syllabus.

As Associate Dean, I am constantly moving from one task and one focus to another. If something disappears from a list, it is unlikely to be completed. And when an “Ucky Problem” with a student arises, almost everything stops until the issue is resolved. It would make my life and my work so much easier if I did not review for journals, write papers, edit papers, or work with graduate students on data collection and analysis. Easier, but without the scholarship category, I would be walking away from everything I trained to do.

Geoff: End-stage: Knowing when to let go. At the time of writing this paper, I have also penned my resignation letter as Dean of the School of Education after 12 years of deaning. And so, reflecting on my roles and responsibilities of being a dean for 12 years in what has been a continuing self-study for me has provided a venue for a somewhat cathartic experience.

For the past 10 years I have been writing about deaning and presenting my self-study research at the Castle Conference (Mills, 2004; 2006; 2008; 2010). During this decade I have moved from focusing on the daily roles and responsibilities confronting the dean (as described by John and Renée). These included losing control of one’s personal calendar, having teaching experiences relegated to one-off, drop-in, “expert” presentations (in direct contrast to the values held as committed teacher educators), and undertaking a burgeoning list of activities for which I was not trained, for example, dealing with “personnel” issues, budget projections and management, accreditation reports, and university-wide representation. In short, the challenges to our comfortable (and hard-earned) professorial identities have been challenged

on a daily basis. As professors we essentially control our daily calendars and allocation of time to think, write, prepare to teach, and schedule meetings with colleagues and students. This is the complete opposite of our role as dean. As professors we teach, think, and write about our areas of expertise.

During my first full year as dean I realized that there was absolutely nothing in my academic or personal background to prepare to me to be a dean of education. While I knew something about teaching and learning and working with children, I knew nothing about leading an academic unit of diverse, intensely individualistic personalities. I had my own propositions about what it took to be a successful university administrator and found that those theories were tested on a daily basis.

Picture this: A bounded unit (tribe) whose members exhibit many, if not all of the following characteristics (cultural traits):

• Life-long learners who have never worked outside of an educational environment.• Academic degrees/pedigree in a content area taught in a university setting. • Sheltered workplace experience in a public/private “institution.”Add to this the total lack of training and experience of most academic administrators:• No formal human resource training (including personnel management, conflict resolution, etc.).• No formal budget training.• No formal curriculum, instruction, and assessment preparation (of course, as a dean of education I will claim to be an exception to this).Now, picture all of the academic administrators in the

university’s organizational structure with a similar educational background and lack of administrative training and experience. This context leads to an absurd administrative culture of individuals working in isolation with a goal of promoting a collective vision of a university.

At this end-stage of deaning, and after a decade of reflecting on roles and responsibilities of a dean, I have had an epiphany about the importance of identity rationalization in surviving and thriving in the deanship. My resignation letter is full of my accomplishments during my tenure: successful development and promotion of my faculty, development and implementation of new programs that respond to state and regional needs, development of the School of Education as a fiscally viable unit, and successful re-accreditation of teacher and principal licensure programs. My letter says nothing about my continued teaching efforts (albeit in Greenland) and scholarship during the past decade for one simple reason: teaching and scholarship by academic deans is not valued by university presidents and vice presidents. It is only our deep personal commitment to scholarship in teacher education, and our personal identities as administrator-scholars, that sustains us in these administrative roles.

Finally, this identity work has helped me pen my resignation letter with ease, for during my tenure as dean I have always felt as though I was just a visitor to the dean’s office, fulfilling the important roles and responsibilities of an academic dean while retaining my commitment to my professorial identity. Deaning is not easy work, and it is far more difficult when sustaining a commitment to scholarship in teacher education. When I was hired as dean in 2000, my Provost (vice president for academic affairs) commented, “Your problem as dean is that you think too much like a faculty member.” I now realize that this is what has sustained

me in the role for more than a decade, and it is the mind-set that will allow me to transition back to my identity as professor.

ConclusionThe call for self-study to “move beyond stories”

(Loughran, 2011) was based on the need to pay careful attention to that which is learnt through self-study. If we use each of our accounts as a conduit to how knowledge is developed and what it means for self-study research, we find that deaning creates significant personal and professional changes that are deeply felt but are not so readily recognized—and not commonly documented in the research literature. There is a shaping and sharpening of identity that leads to a shift in focus from one’s self and one’s own students to a broader focus on self in relation to numerous students, faculty members, institutional constraints, and educational policies. Deaning might therefore be seen as drawing on a different set of communication skills that need to be overtly developed and consciously used in order to manage the crucial roles inherent in change management in an educational institution. Such development is a clear purpose in self-study and offers a window into an under-researched aspect of the self-study literature: the relations among deaning and the practice and scholarship of teacher education.

What we have not (yet) documented is the relational nature of deaning and our colleagues’ opportunities to engage in the continuous improvement of teacher education. In the world of teacher education, when the notions of community and leadership are considered together, they too easily collide or are envisaged as being somehow in conflict. But an undercurrent throughout each of our accounts is that as deans we work to create spaces for others to work. John’s meetings, Renée’s overlapping activities, and Geoff’s list of accomplishments while deaning produce policies, deal with problems, and secure funding for faculty members and students. A new sense of self and purpose is being formed.

As each section of this paper illustrates, over time, the emphasis on the nature of identity as scholar decreased, but it did not disappear. It remained the major theme. As long-standing members of the self-study community gradually move into roles of leadership, accept new roles, and work in different contexts from those in which their initial allure to self-study was so crucial, studies such as this, we hope, offer significant insight into the nature of personal and professional learning and change in teacher education practices that will encourage scholarship to continue despite the changing demands, expectations, and needs of the administrative roles we almost inevitably end up carrying—because if teacher educators do not work to enhance the conditions for other teacher educators, administrators who do not perceive the scholarship of teacher education as valuable may not be as willing to create an environment for its growth over time.

ReferencesClift, R. T. (2011). Shifting roles, shifting contexts,

maintaining identity. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 159–170.

Loughran, J. J. (2011). Seeking knowledge for teaching teaching: Moving beyond stories. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 221–226.

Manke, M. P. (2004). Administrators also do self-study: Issues of power and community, social justice and teacher education reform. In J. J Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp.1367–1391). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mills, G. (2004). Herding cats and nailing jello I: Reflections on becoming a dean. In D. Tidwell, L. Fitzgerald, & M. Heston (Eds.), Risking the Journey of Self-Study in a Diverse World. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Mills, G. (2006). Herding cats and nailing jello II: Reflections on becoming a dean. In L. M. Fitzgerald, M. L. Heston, & D. L. Tidwell (Eds.), Collaboration and Community: Pushing Boundaries Through Self-Study. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Mills, G. (2008). Sustaining self in self-less environment: Reflections of a dean. In M. L. Heston, D. L. Tidwell, K. K. East, & L. M. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Pathways to Change in Teacher Education: Dialogue, Diversity and Self-Study. Proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Mills, G. (2010). Bowing to the absurd: Reflections on leadership in higher education. In L. R. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Roose, D. (2010). A few steps forward in the process of looking back: Setting parameters for a self-study of administrative and program development work over 18 years. Studying Teacher Education, 6(3), 269–280.

Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tripp, D. (1993). Critical incidents in teaching: Developing professional judgement. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Whitbourne, S. K., Sneed, J. R., & Skultety, K. M. (2002). Identity processes in adulthood: Theoretical and methodological challenges. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 2, (1), 29-45

EULA EWING MONROEBrigham Young University

Is Context Everything? Nuanced Variations in Being and Becoming a Mathematics Educator in Differing Cultural Contexts

Purpose of the Study In this study, I examine how changes in physical

and cultural contexts in combination with theoretical contexts shape my understandings of being and becoming a mathematics teacher educator. Better understanding how the physical and theoretical contexts are intertwined allows me to act more intentionally as I embrace opportunities to provide teacher education across new cultural contexts. While designed to help me understand my own orientations and practices, this study may be of help to other mathematics teacher educators as they work within and across cultural and theoretical contexts, even if their experiences vary considerably from my own.

Context of the StudyPhysical context: Time and place. During the last three

decades, I have been involved in planning and organizing sustained opportunities in mathematics education in varying locations to help teachers examine their mathematical knowledge, beliefs, and practice. The current self-study is situated primarily within these decades of practice. Yet this practice is underpinned by more than 20 previous years of teaching, most of which were with elementary children and included responsibilities for teacher education in one form or another.

Four sustained, collaborative mathematics education opportunities, differing in length and intensity and in markedly different locations and cultural milieus, were selected as contexts for the current study. These opportunities shared the same central purpose: to support teachers’ growth in the direction of reform-based mathematics education. For each of these opportunities, I led design and implementation efforts and, in collaboration with others, studied or am currently studying teacher change in relation to mathematics education. The locations include Oahu, Hawaii—involving primarily peoples of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island descent (Monroe, Bailey, Mitchell, & AhSue, 2010); Montana—primarily Native Americans (Monroe & Barnum, 2012); the South Seas—primarily peoples of Polynesia (Bailey & Monroe, 2012); and Utah—primarily Caucasians of northern and western European descent (Monroe, Bahr, Wentworth, & Rino, 2012). The studies cited employ mixed methods and utilize available artifacts: for example, course/workshop syllabi and outlines, project evaluations, photographs, e-mail correspondence with participants, and participant reflections and other written assignments. These studies as well as the artifacts used serve as important data sources for the current self-study.

Theoretical context. Because of the integral, essential nature of mathematics in the fabric of being and becoming within any society, I view equitable access to meaningful mathematics an essential right of children everywhere. From the beginnings of recorded history, mathematics has been an element of the human experience, with many cultures contributing richly to our current world mathematical heritage. Bishop (1988), a researcher who studies the role of culture in mathematics education, observed that, although mathematical ideas emerged separately in different times and places, six mathematical behaviors can be seen in all cultures: measuring, counting, designing, locating, explaining, and playing. Barta et al. (2001) concurred with Bishop, describing these mathematical behaviors as universal. From such a perspective, mathematics can be viewed as a truly human endeavor, not as an arbitrary system of rules and procedures that, at least to some minds, must simply be endured. The “growing importance of mathematics education in all societies and cultures” (Bishop, 1996, p. 1), and the expressed need for a workforce comprising individuals who have learned to reason and problem-solve (Murphy, 2011), underscore the need for mathematics teacher education that is grounded in a meaning-based approach to instruction.

Growing up in an era in which school mathematics was defined by arithmetic procedures, with little support for my yearning to understand the underlying concepts, I made the commitment early in my teacher preparation program to teach mathematics with and for meaning. After Russia’s success with Sputnik in 1957, the United States science and mathematics community worked to respond to the ensuing educational crisis, and many mathematics educators rallied around what came to be known as “new math.” This movement has been widely criticized because of its “overemphasis on sets and axioms,” but “its promotion of understanding rather than rote learning has continued to have a positive influence on mathematics education through the years” (Lay, 2012, p. 2). Soon after I entered the teaching profession in 1960, I taught from a “new math” program, and although the formalized mathematics seemed distant to children, I was heartened by the focus on meaning. An emphasis on rote learning, which diminished somewhat during the “new math” era, resurged with intensity in the “back to basics” movement in school classrooms in the late 1970s. During that time I was working on my doctorate. Blessedly, my professors in mathematics education stayed the course with an emphasis on meaning. So did many in the mathematics education community, with a critical mass sufficient to launch the reform movement in mathematics in the 1980s that continues today.

Throughout my career as a university mathematics educator, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

“Anywhere you pluck up the fabric of [mathematics education], the web falls away from your fingertips.” (Adapted from an idea presented in a science education workshop at the Bank Street College of Education in 1985; source unknown.)

(NCTM), a globally recognized leader in mathematics education, has provided extensive leadership in developing what has become commonly known as reform-based mathematics (e.g., Martin, 2007; NCTM, 1989, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2006). The nature of reform-based mathematics evolves as the research base grows, but the focus remains on student construction of meaning. The foundational principles and vision have been clearly articulated in the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000). My overarching goal for reform-based teaching and learning, reflecting my understanding of this landmark document and its affirmation of my career-long belief in a meaning-based approach, is, simply stated: All students will have access to learning mathematics in ways that make sense to them.

For me, the adoption on a wide-scale basis of the Mathematics Common Core (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012), particularly the component on Standards for Mathematical Practice, nurtures a fledgling hope that more and more classrooms will foster student mathematical practices that contribute to the construction of meaning. I see much influence of the NCTM documents in the approach and content and in the discussions surrounding the Core. I have yet to have experiences of substance or duration with the Common Core to develop insight into its potential impact on my practice.

Having embraced the goal of mathematics teaching and learning as a meaning-based, sense-making endeavor throughout my teaching career, I have found the NCTM vision and principles (2000) to provide a helpful framework for supporting me in developing and refining my knowledge and practice in mathematics education. Yet I realize that if I am to be effective in helping teachers work toward the goal that all students have access to learning mathematics in ways that make sense to them, my robust notions of what mathematics education should look like, feel like, and sound like when enacted in the classroom must always be tempered by the knowledge of the context in which the teachers and learners are situated (Schwab, 1978).

In the current self-study, I examine my mathematics education experiences in four very different physical and cultural contexts as they intertwine with the theoretical contexts in which I situate my practice. In doing so, I develop a clearer understanding of how these interrelationships helped to shape the meanings I have constructed in regard to being and becoming a mathematics teacher educator. Better understanding the nature of these relationships allows me to be more intentional as I embrace opportunities to work with teachers across both new and familiar cultural contexts.

Method The databases explored include documents from my

own history in mathematics teacher education; thus this self-study takes an autobiographical orientation. Derived from extant databases, these data sources include collaborative studies, either completed or in progress, of the professional development at each of the four locations included in this study. Also included are the course/workshop syllabi and outlines; project evaluations; and other artifacts, including photographs, e-mail messages to and from participants, participant reflections, and other written assignments selected as needed to fill out pukas (holes) in my understanding. From memory, and aided by artifacts, I retrospectively identified critical events related to adjustments to the cultural milieu as well as instances that surprised me. These critical events also served as data.

This study is primarily self-focused. Using qualitative data analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994), I coded the selected data sources according to Schwab’s (1978) curriculum commonplaces (learner, teacher, content, cultural milieu), allowing for codes that fell outside these a priori categories. I coded the selected data iteratively, revisiting previous coding to make revisions based on new insights, with nuanced variations in my expectations of self as a mathematics teacher educator and of my perceptions of my responsibilities in relation to those of participants emerging as I coded. Analysis of the data to uncover who I am as a teacher educator, and to use those understandings more intentionally to enact my beliefs in this role, make this study improvement-aimed as well.

I engaged in prolonged professional development in each of the locations under study, enlisted the assistance of critical friends in three of the locations in interpreting data for the respective site, and relied on triangulation among the data sources for evidence of truth value. The variability of the documents used as data allowed me to confront myself and my understandings at various points in my career. These circumstances and actions contributed to the interactive quality and trustworthiness (e.g., Kelly & Lesh, 2000) of this self-study.

Outcomes and Discussion Identifying patterns of individual change as a teacher

educator. My first 52 years of life were spent in Kentucky, with the exception of residency requirements for my doctorate. As a student of mathematics, my views of mathematics as meaning-based ran counter to the flow (“Don’t ask why; just do it!”). When I became a teacher in 1960, and until I completed my doctorate in 1980, these views remained marginalized by voices louder and more powerful than mine. The confluence of my having borrowed courage from my closest mentors and the low rumble of the beginnings of the reform-based movement provided momentum at this point to propel my growth in mathematics education. The steep learning curve in being and becoming a mathematics teacher educator prepared me not only to teach university mathematics education courses but also to fill positions of leadership in reform-based mathematics education in Kentucky, with my service recognized by a lifetime achievement award in 1992. In that year I retired from Kentucky, having accepted a position at Brigham Young University for the ensuing year that offered three enticements—“escape” from the heavy service load I had allowed myself to become encumbered with, teaching mathematics education for my full course load, and serving as mentor and advisor to students of a minority faith on campus. Although I had the full intention of remaining at BYU for only one year, 20 years later I am still there.

I found schools in the BYU service area to be achieving reasonably well according to traditional measures; there was little impetus to move toward reform-based mathematics education. Minimal change seemed to occur in this regard for my first few years in Utah, and locating field sites for my undergraduate methods classes that supported reform-based mathematics education was a challenge. I lamented as to how my methods students were to learn reform-based practice if they did not see it and try it for themselves. Growing discouraged at times, I felt as if I were submerged in a “quagmire of conservatism” in regard to mathematics education. I wondered if my energy and enthusiasm would sustain long enough to help make reform-based mathematics education the mode for the state.

During this time, however, I learned to celebrate small steps forward and to look for individual or small groups of teachers I could nurture to be leaders in mathematics education. I supervised some excellent graduate student theses and teacher research projects during this seemingly arid period, helping me to sustain for better times that would surely come.

Fortuitously, the Goals 2000 impetus (Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994), alongside a growing minority student population whom many teachers felt underprepared to serve, eventually stirred interest in reform-based mathematics education in the BYU service area. Since the late 90s, there has been growing support across the state, albeit accompanied by a vocal conservative backlash that has yielded more negative attention and power than merited by the numbers involved. The opening of opportunities to work with mathematics education through sustained professional development in Utah districts renewed my zest for making a difference in mathematics education on a broader scale. Working with teachers in other cultural contexts, including locations in Hawaii, Montana, and the South Seas, I have had opportunities for being and becoming a mathematics educator in ways I am certain I would not have had access to otherwise.

Awareness of being a teacher educator across cultures. I have found that teachers in every context in which I have worked want to do better. But do better at what? Developing a practice that positions mathematics teaching and learning as sense making requires not only growth in knowledge of mathematics content and pedagogy but also a major shift in perspective. The teacher must change his or her practice, an undertaking much more substantial than improving practice. To help teachers make this shift, I needed to consider the learners, myself as the teacher, the content, and the cultural milieu (Schwab, 1978). These considerations are embedded in the following discussion.

Vast discrepancies in learner preparation, both within and across cultural milieus, and the need to attend to cultural ways of knowing (e.g., Greer, Mukhopadhyay, Powell, & Nelson-Barber, 2009; Hankes, 1998) impacted what I taught and how I went about teaching it in each cultural context. Learner beliefs, often tacitly held (Schuck, 2002), regarding what constitutes appropriate mathematics teaching and learning appeared to be heavily grounded in the cultural milieu and influenced my selection of learning tasks and how I organized for them. Variations in learner preparation did not yield many surprises; reform-based mathematics education had helped me to recognize, accept, and even to value such variations as the norm. In some instances, however, learner beliefs regarding mathematics teaching and learning were challenging and sometimes frustrating, leading me to analyze my own beliefs and practices.

Underlying the reform-based movement is a commitment to equity, defined as “high expectations and strong support for all learners” (NCTM, 2000, p. 12). I found that within contexts in which I perceived a shared commitment to equitable discourse and learning environments, I could readily make needed shifts in my practice without a threat to my sense of self as a reform-based mathematics educator. In other situations, however, making the effort to be culturally responsive was not without internal dissonance. Moderating my deeply held beliefs regarding mathematics education, especially those related to discourse and learning environments, was challenging. These beliefs yielded reluctantly to even more strongly held beliefs regarding respect for the cultural ethos. And beliefs regarding respect for the cultural ethos yielded only to issues regarding human

worth and dignity. Imagine, if you can, my being willing or able to moderate my views of equitable participation in discourse to allow for laughing at others who make mistakes, a pervasive practice in one of the cultural milieus where I worked. Imagine also my struggle to learn to orchestrate equitable discourse in groups comprising participants from two distinct cultural groups with very different, yet not necessarily inequitable, discourse norms. In a mix of Native and non-Native learners, the manner of speaking for many Native Americans may seem overly deliberate and sometimes circuitous to non-Natives. And to Natives, a predominance of non-Natives may contribute to a culture of silence. What about working with learners who often engage in “talking story,” a cultural practice that sometimes tries the patience of those present who function “by the clock”? These and other understandings helped me to know that equity is interpreted culturally.

Guskey (2009) emphasized the “powerful and unique influence of context” (p. 229). In his view, “The most powerful content will make no difference if shared in a context unprepared to receive and use it” (p. 229). The findings from this self-study reveal that context was not everything in the projects studied; however, I have come to believe that deliberations regarding mathematics education may indeed be futile unless contextual considerations are central to decision making.

These findings (and additional findings to be reported in a more detailed paper), as well as the self-study process in which I have engaged, should help me optimize future opportunities to serve as a mathematics teacher educator in cultural contexts that are new to my experience. Other mathematics educators may also benefit from both the process and the results of my self-study as they serve in cultural contexts that vary greatly from their own.

References Bailey, J., & Monroe, E. E. (2012). [Effecting teacher

change in mathematics education in the South Seas]. Unpublished raw data.

Barta, J., Abeyta, A., Gould, D., Galindo, E., Matt, G., Seaman, D., & Voggessor, G. (2001). The mathematical ecology of the Shoshoni and implications for elementary mathematics education and the young learner. Journal of American Indian Education, 40(2), 1–27.

Bishop, A. J. (1988). Mathematical enculturation: A cultural perspective on mathematics education. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Bishop, A. J. (1996). Introduction. In A. J. Bishop (Ed.), International handbook of mathematics education: Part 1 (pp. 1–6). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012). Common core state standards initiative: Preparing America’s students for college & career—mathematics. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/mathematics

Goals 2000: Educate America Act. (1994). Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html

Greer, B., Mukhopadhyay, S., Powell, A. B., & Nelson-Barber, S. (Eds.). (2009). Culturally responsive mathematics education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Guskey, T. R. (2009). Closing the knowledge gap on effective professional development. Educational Horizons, 87(4), 224–233.

Hankes, J. E. (1998). Native American pedagogy and cognitive-based mathematics instruction. New York, NY: Garland.

Kelly, A. E., & Lesh, R. A. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of research design in mathematics and science education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Lay, S. R. (2012). The Prelude approach to preparing students for algebra and its effectiveness with students. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Martin, T. S. (Ed.). (2007). Mathematics teaching today: Improving practice, improving student learning (2nd ed.). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Miles, M. A., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Monroe, E. E., Bahr, D. L., & Rino, J. S. (2012, April). Special educators’ movement toward reform-based mathematics: A cross-case analysis. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Research Pre-session of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Philadelphia, PA.

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This self-study focused on our quest to use social networking tools to engage our students in professional learning communities to enhance their current learning experiences with the anticipation that they will continue to be active members of these communities as they move into their professional roles in the field of education. We realized that in order to achieve this we needed to understand the experience of being involved in professional social networks. Furthermore, we needed to engage in critical reflection at a meta-cognitive level to develop an understanding about how we could facilitate the transition of our students to become independent members of professional online learning communities.

Our goal was to explore how our practice could be improved by the development and implementation of an online community. Self-study methodology afforded an opportunity for critical reflection on the introduction of an online social network into our pedagogical practices. Dinkleman (2003) suggested that self-study was an appropriate way to consider such programmatic changes within teacher education programs. Furthermore, we considered how the use of an online community enhanced the experience of students in our teacher education program.

ContextWe both joined the education faculty at a small rural

university, located in western Canada, in the fall of 2008. We quickly realized that we had similar backgrounds as public school teachers, as technology coordinators, and as school administrators. Currently, Jackie teaches Classroom Management, Professional Teacher, and graduate-level educational administration courses. Mike teaches educational technology courses and high school mathematics methods. Together we have contact with virtually all of the students in the first year of our undergraduate program.

Over the last three years we have sought to improve our teaching practices by implementing innovative ideas and by modeling sound pedagogy for our students. We are advocates of social learning and educational technology. We have developed a relationship as critical friends and have explored a variety of strategies that have allowed us to engage our students in professional conversations that extend beyond the classroom.

We desired a strategy that would extend conversations taking place in our own face-to-face courses to online spaces, building a community in the sense described by Palmer (2007) in the opening quotation. To us, one obvious solution was to utilize social networking tools available on the Internet and already familiar to many of our students. Most recently, we have developed a Ning network for our students, our faculty, and alumni currently working in education. Ning (www.ning.

com) is a platform that allows users to create social networks that include provisions for sharing various types of content, including updates, blogs, photos, discussions, and the creation of groups for a particular topic. Ning allows the network creator to control membership and set privacy settings at levels ranging from closed to open.

Literature ReviewIt is the social nature of learning (Vygotsky, 1978;

Bandura, 1977) that prompted us to examine our own practice and look for ways to investigate emerging technologies as a vehicle to improve the learning experiences of our students. Bandura (1977) found that people learn complex behaviours by observation and modeling that result from social interactions. Vygotsky (1978) concluded from his work that “human learning presupposes a specific social nature” (p. 88). Rogoff (2003) furthered this notion, providing countless examples from her research, illustrating that learning is both social and cultural. Rogoff explained that “we are prepared by both our cultural and biological heritage to use language and cultural tools and to learn from each other” (p. 3). She further pointed out that those who studied human development recognized the importance of collaborative communication in learning. Lave and Wenger (1991) posited that learning takes place naturally in an authentic, situated context. Social learning is key as people engage in a community of practice; how could we take advantage of social networks to encourage deep learning in our own courses?

Our own experience with online communities confirmed what the research told us about the benefits for learning. Most obvious was the asynchronous nature of social networks, which allows members to contribute at a time and place convenient to them and provides time for thought and reflection not often available in face-to-face classroom situations. Other benefits included the opportunity for shy students, who do not often contribute in a classroom setting, to fully take part in discussions and a possible solution for male domination in classroom discussions (Nosko &Wood, 2011).

Online communities also have drawbacks. Wenger, White, and Smith (2009) pointed out the polarity of togetherness versus separation. Technology allows conversations to take place over time and space; however, togetherness is then compromised. It is also true, however, that active participation in a discussion is reliant on individual students; it is ultimately their choice whether or not to participate (Skinner, 2009). Yet, if they do, social media allows deep, rich conversations that extend beyond the confines of the classroom. Thus, for learning to take place for all students, methods to encourage and support participation are required. Given that online networks can cause isolation, within our own

MICHAEL NANTAIS & JACQUELINE KIRK Brandon University

Using Social Media to Engage Teacher Candidates in Relevant, Timely, and Rich Learning Experiences

“…to teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced” (Palmer, 2007, p. 92)

context, we chose to use social networks as an extension of face-to-face relationships developed within our classrooms.

One of our concerns in developing the online community was the number of factors that inhibit participation. Some of these factors included feelings of inadequacy, time constraints, lack of technical skills, and lack of motivation (Daniel, McCalla, & Schweir, 2008; Skinner, 2009; Skinner & Derounian, 2008). Other inhibiting factors found by Daniel et al. (2008) included lack of trust, competitive environment, and inadequate technology. The latter finding was corroborated by research conducted by Gray and Smyth (2011), who found that a confusing interface could deter participation. They also pointed out the important notion of multiple spaces. Many individuals are already engaged with a number of online spaces, such as Facebook and Twitter, and adding one more is not always welcome, with the result that the one of the spaces is often neglected.

Gray and Smyth (2011) also concluded that a strong sense of purpose is important in developing an online community. This is in keeping with the findings of Skinner (2009) and Daniel et al. (2008) that pointed to intrinsic motivation as a key factor to participation. When we considered student participation, we struggled to decide whether or not we should use grades as a motivator for participation. Skinner (2009) found that this type of extrinsic motivation is not sufficient to ensure “timely and effective” (p. 97) participation. Rather, providing a sense of belonging, “reaching out to individuals and making personal contact, and touching each person’s emotional interests” (Skinner, 2009, p. 98) can increase motivation by building a sense of community. The literature helped to inform our pedagogical decisions for the development and implementation of a vibrant online community in which authentic discussions about teaching and learning could take place.

Aims and ObjectivesThe goal of our self-study was to improve our

teaching practices by utilizing digital technology to provide students with a more meaningful and more personal learning experience in our respective courses. In our context, we hoped to expand course conversations beyond the classroom by having students engage in meaningful dialogue in an online community of practice. One possible measure of our success is that their experiences will motivate them to participate in these communities as they move beyond our classrooms and into their professional roles in the field of education. Our study was guided by the following research questions:

1. What strategies can we use to engage our students in meaningful online community building that will contribute to their achievement of course outcomes?2. What, if anything, can we do to motivate students to continue their participation in professional online communities?3. What motivates individuals to participate in online professional learning networks?

Method(s) Over the course of the last three years, we have worked

together to bring an element of social networking into our classes. Throughout this process we have engaged in critical dialogue to examine our professional practices regarding the use of social media for our own professional growth and for our pre-service teachers. The data collection methods utilized in this self-study included

• reflective journals,• personal conversations as critical friends, • document analysis of our shared public blog and of a focus group discussion from a related study, and• observations about changes in the participation levels in our Ning network.We elected to use self-study methodology to determine

whether or not our online social network enhanced our work with students in our teacher education program. We wanted to explore not only our own use of social networking in our classes but also the possibilities that social networking would offer for long-term benefits to the teacher education program at our university. To this end, we developed a Ning community from our shared belief in social learning theory as a way to extend students’ dialogues beyond the boundaries of our classrooms. Loughran (2007) pointed out that it is often “this overarching desire to better align theory and practice…that appears to be an underlying common purpose in self-study” (p. 14). The research questions pushed us to look retrospectively as a way to inform future practice and called for critical reflection about our own and about each other’s use of social networks within our courses. Thus, our research questions probed the underlying possibility of creating and utilizing a meaningful and relevant educational experience for students in our program.

Schuck and Russell (2005) described critical friends as ones who acted as sounding boards: friends who challenge, question, assess, and reframe each other’s practice. It was in this spirit that we made the decision to formalize our critical friendship by engaging in a self-study. We sought a process that would regularize our joint reflections and dialogues to ensure that we collected data on a consistent, ongoing basis. We agreed that in addition to our critical conversations we would commit to reflective journal writing to document our experiences and any connections we made to our professional reading. Furthermore, we agreed to become more purposeful about reflecting on the impact of changes to our online community that we made with the intent of engaging our students more deeply.

We analyzed the results using N-Vivo software to organize the data and to complete a thematic analysis. The data included 17 journal entries, four blog posts written prior to the commencement of the formal study, and the results of a focus group discussion from a related study about the design of the online community. In the first level of the analysis, we read through each of the data sources and identified 12 themes that emerged from the data, including participation, pedagogical choices, student motivation, and challenges. In the second level of analysis, we focused on the data that had been sorted into each of the original themes to develop a deeper understanding of each area. For example, passages that had been coded as “challenges” were consistent with the literature and with our personal experiences. In our journals, we had each reflected on times when students had been reluctant to participate. In a blog post written following a conference presentation, we had written, “Why does it seem like such a struggle to put your ideas and thoughts out into the public forum for critique and feedback?” Students who participated in a focus group discussion for a separate study reported that the Ning network made it “difficult to find what others had posted” and was “one more social network, username and password.”

OutcomesThroughout this self-reflective journey, we postulated,

debated, and pushed each other to find ways to successfully allow learning to supersede the boundaries of space and time by creating an environment in which our students could and would engage in ongoing professional discussions. Additionally, we sought to provide students with greater ownership and responsibility for learning. With daily informal chats, personal reflective journals, and deeper formal discussions, we worked our way through two terms of teaching and learning about the use of social networks in teacher education. We were pressed to share our strengths and our vulnerabilities as we sought to identify pedagogical practices that would facilitate an environment of open discussion and shared responsibility within our online community.

During this study, we asked students to write blogs, post their ideas to Twitter, create YouTube videos, and participate in our Ning network. At the same time, we experimented with different strategies for using social networking tools to promote authentic dialogue amongst our students. Mike elected to be involved in the beginning of the process with his class by posting a video or an article to motivate discussion. Then, he stepped back rather than being involved in the discussions so that students did not feel pressured to respond in a certain way. Conversely, Jackie asked students to generate the topics for discussion. She read and responded to each of their discussions on a weekly basis and tried to assume the role of participant rather than leader. Although the breadth of topics that emerged and the ongoing participation indicated that students were taking greater responsibility for the discussions, the major motivator for participation continued to be that Ning discussions were required for course credit. The following excerpt from Jackie’s journal in December 2011 indicated that her students articulated the same understanding:

Students…pointed out that the fact that it was a course requirement made it feel contrived. Yet, they agreed that it needed to be a requirement for them to participate…we still need to think deeply and discuss more thoroughly how to get students to engage in the discussions via internal rather than external motivation.

Comments from a focus group confirmed this observation. Students noted that they were “forced” to use the site, which took the “fun” out of it. However, they also pointed out that the Ning provided “learning beyond the classroom lecture, greater detail for exploring topics,” and the opportunity for reflection, clarification and questioning. We struggled to unlock the mystery of how to foster a greater internal incentive for learning. As a result, many themes relating to student motivation emerged in our data analysis (sustainable participation, independent student motivation, outside participation, increased faculty participation), and we engaged in deep discussions trying to establish how to motivate more vigorous participation.

Throughout the fall semester, we recorded illustrations of increased participation. More faculty members joined. Several were persuaded by their students to host a discussion group for their class. We felt that this observation was evidence of our success since students found it valuable enough to ask other professors to use the platform. In addition, we noted in our journals that during the student teaching placement our Ning network registered an increase of student-motivated activity. Mike wrote, “several conversations are going on...the students are sharing stories and their excitement with their placements—very cool.” Jackie commented,

Last year during student teaching a student [chose] to start a group…few people joined and the conversations fizzled after only a few posts. In contrast, the discussions this year were ongoing, had several participants, and covered a breadth of topics.

Jackie’s journal indicated another shift in student engagement. Students who waited until the end of the semester to participate in the Ning still made an effort to engage interactively, whereas in the previous year students posted their contributions without going back to follow up. Progress towards our goal of independent student engagement seemed slow; however, our journals indicated that we had observed and recorded evidence that our evolving practices were being rewarded with increased independent student participation.

The Ning has attracted an increasing number of outsiders requesting membership. Some are individuals who have little connection to our program, and we have struggled to consider the benefits of an open community versus a gated community. Mike actively pursued participation from educators in the field with some success, and we found that with the inclusion of their voices the conversations became rich, with varying viewpoints and ideas. Although students’ motivation to participate was mostly external, we believe that the interactive dialogue with professional educators and with other education students helped our students to realize the benefits of online professional networks.

We identified two potential barriers to participation. First, some students indicated that they had difficulty making the time to post their comments. Is it possible that the asynchronous nature of social networks, often cited as a characteristic that allows for increased participation, fosters a tolerance for an I-can-do-it-later approach? In lives that are busy with multiple layers of responsibility, the opportunity to do something later means that task that gets placed on the end of the list and sometimes neglected completely. Secondly, Mike made the connection to Gray and Smyth’s (2011) observations and suggested the feeling of not having enough time was related to the number of online spaces students were frequenting. Through further discussions we agreed that both concepts were barriers that were present in our personal experiences, as well.

In just under two years, the Ning social network that we created for our faculty has grown from 0 to 527 members, and we continue to have requests for membership. We are very excited about the possibilities that social networking has provided to enhance the learning of pre-service teachers in our courses. We are still curious about what it will take to transform our network into a self-sustaining online professional learning community where students in our undergraduate program will engage in authentic discussions about educational issues with alumni who are currently working in the field. We will continue to use the strategies of self-reflection and critical dialogue, searching for ways to build on this success and to improve our practice as teacher educators.

References Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs,

NJ: Prentice-Hall.Daniel, B. K., McCalla, G. I., & Schwier, R. A. (2008).

Social network analysis techniques: Implications for information knowledge sharing in virtual communities. International Journal of Advanced Media and Communications, 2(1), 20–34.

Dinkleman, T. (2003). Self-study in teacher education: A means and ends tool for promoting reflective teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 6–18.

Gray, C., & Smyth, K. (2011, June). Social not-working? Evaluating and building an online learning community. In P. Balcaen (Ed.), Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on e-Learning (pp. 137-147). Kidmore End, United Kingdom: Academic Conferences International.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Nosko, A., & Wood, E. (2011). Learning in the digital age with SNSs: Creating a profile. In B. White, I. King, & P. Tsang (Eds.), Social media tools and platforms in learning environments (pp. 399–418). New York, NY: Springer.

Palmer, P. J. (2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teachers’ life (10th anniversary edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Schuck S., & Russell, T. (2005). Self-study, critical friendship, and the complexities of teacher education. Studying Teacher Education, 1, 107–121.

Skinner, E. (2009). Using community development theory to improve student engagement in online discussion: A case study. Research in Learning Technology, 17, 89–100.

Skinner, E., & Derounian, J. (2008). Building community through online discussion. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 2, 57–70.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wenger, E., White, N., & Smith, J. (2009). Digital habitats: Stewarding technology for communities. Portland, OR: CPsquare.

KAMI M. PATRIZIOVirginia Tech

Trust in Self-Study, Trust in the Classroom: Listening, Vulnerability, and Leadership

IntroductionI am in my fifth year of teaching graduate courses in

educational leadership. My students are teachers, district employees, assistant principals, and principals. Some are seeking to assume more responsibilities as teacher leaders, while others are pursuing master’s degrees, administrative certification, or doctoral degrees. At the beginning of every class that I teach, I ask students why they are pursuing their course of study. The most common response that I hear is, “I want to learn so that I can create change at my school.”

A major part of leading change is learning to let go of control and allow others to define and resolve problems (Murphy, 2007). Trusting others enough to depend on them is a critical part of this process. A culture of trust fosters the interdependency that denotes highly effective collaborative efforts (D’Amour, Ferrada-Videla, Martin-Rodriguez, & Beaulieu, 2005; Gajda & Koliba, 2007; Henneman, Lee, & Cohen, 1995; Taylor, 1996). Indeed, collaboration and trust have been statistically correlated (Tschannen-Moran, 1999). Trust acts as a “glue and a lubricant,” solidifying relationships and making the work of organizations run more smoothly (Tschannen-Moran, 2004, p. 17). It is often undermined by the competition that pervades schools in the United States today, but when present, it can facilitate the conflict that inevitably arises as a natural part of change processes (Fullan, Bertani, & Quinn, 2004). Trust, then, is an essential idea for students in my classes to explore and understand as they also seek to make change in respective settings.

I have become interested in the idea of trust after my own three-year self study project with a group of two pre-tenure colleagues. The three of us experienced benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty, and openness, the five facets of trust (Tschannen-Moran, 2004), and it is with these characteristics in mind that I consider the following questions:

• What have I learned about trust through self-study?• In what ways have I applied this knowledge to my work with students?

Vulnerability, Listening, and LeadingAddressing my questions requires establishing a

working definition for trust, which I believe is best conceived of as “an individual’s or group’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest, and open.” (Hoy, Gage, & Tarter, 2006, p. 251). Trust undergirds all interpersonal relationships and must be “earned, available, and delivered under pressure” (Poetter, Badiali, & Hammond, 2000, p. 167). Demonstrating “reluctance to trust often leads to the unraveling of the goodwill that serves as the foundation for a learning community” (Ennis & McCauley, 2007, p. 151). Demonstrating vulnerability is difficult, and

reluctance is understandable. Minimally, educators make themselves vulnerable through the deprivatization of practice. Transformational vulnerability requires even more personal exposition, including sharing one’s deeply seated beliefs, assumptions, values, and perhaps even fears. It is no surprise that trust can be slow to develop, fragile, and difficult to rebuild if damaged (Poetter, Badiali, & Hammond, 2000).

Transformational vulnerability supports deeper meaning-making in groups. People can express themselves most candidly when they feel safe and can trust that others will be kind, be reliable, and follow through on their commitments to see through conflict. Individuals working in nurturing environments know that interpersonal differences help them to accomplish their goals (Dallmer, 2004). They can articulate personal beliefs and assumptions with confidence because they know that others are listening to understand them with respect and even caring.

This is important for those teaching and learning about leadership. Leaders, after all, “must be seen to be trustworthy and competent by followers” (Barnett & McCormick, 2003 p. 70) if they hope to create a culture of inquiry in their organizations. Those who lead in educational settings—be they teachers, administrators, or university faculty—must learn to listen to others, even those with whom they do not agree (Hargreaves & Fullan in Doecke, 2004, p. 209). Listening is crucial when creating and sustaining trust, rendering listening skills an imperative. Solving problems, a major leadership task in any educational setting, requires paying careful attention to what others say, the way that they say it, and what they leave unsaid (Murphy, 2007). This kind of listening takes “practice, patience, energy, and hard work” (p. 58). Good listeners recognize that they are dependent on others and that they must “involve teachers and other staff members …to help them adjust” (p. 59) to the implications of change. In so doing, listening in a culture of trust allows those who lead to share that leadership with others in a real, meaningful way.

My new faculty self-study group was characterized by benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty, and openness. We shared some of our most personal beliefs and assumptions and worked through interpersonal differences throughout the course of our research. Listening played a key role in developing trust. The protocols that we used to examine artifacts of our professional practice required that we suspend our evaluative instincts and listen for understanding. I had a hunch that I had begun to emphasize the importance of listening more in my courses, and that the concept of trust came up more often in my courses. However, I was unclear about the extent to which I did so.

MethodsMy personal search for meaning inspired me to convene

a faculty self-study group when I first became an assistant professor on an east coast teaching university in the United States four-and-a-half years ago. I had many questions about my new role as a faculty member, but the one that was foremost in my mind was “What does it mean to engage in the scholarship of teaching?” (Boyer, 1990). I gathered two colleagues to join me in a self-study of this question. Each of us hailed from different disciplines and departments in our college of education. With the exception of the occasional visitor, the three of us met alone for about two hours a month over the course of three years. We examined artifacts from our teaching practices with protocols, and in between our meetings wrote letters to each other containing our reflections.

The group recorded and transcribed all of our sessions. We individually looked over all of the data and came up with our own lists of themes. After this, we reconvened and used Spradley’s Domain Analysis (1979) to consolidate our individual themes into a new list of themes that were organized taxonomically. Finally, we worked in pairs to analyze our 300 pages of transcripts and letters page by page using this new taxonomically organized list of themes. This research process and the major findings from the study have been described in detail in another publication (Patrizio, Ballock & McNary, 2011) so I do not report them fully here.

Relevant to this research is the fact that the domain of vulnerability and sub-theme of trust often surfaced in our data. Our group discussions about the prevalence of these themes validated what we intuitively knew, based on our experiences: we had created a safe, trusting learning climate. I realized that the scholarship of teaching, for me, meant that I wanted students to leave my courses knowing that they had learned because we had developed trust as a class. I wanted them to experience what I had experienced in this faculty self-study group. This made me wonder: Do I take actions to create a lived understanding of trust in my classes? Do students really understand how to create a similar environment in their schools? Addressing these questions fueled my study.

Our group data helped me to begin to address these questions, and I then extended the original data sources by analyzing an additional 150 pages of our transcripts using our group’s collective list of themes. This analysis provided additional evidence, illustrating that listening was also an important part of building trust. What remained to be seen, however, was how my self-study group experiences connected to my course design and implementation. I conducted a content analysis (Patton, 2002) of nine semesters of course syllabi and corresponding student work samples, course evaluations, and end-of-course reflections. I also considered my own journal. This analysis suggested that I modified my teaching practices and course activities throughout the course of my work with the self-study group. The data suggested that I increasingly modeled, examined, analyzed, and practiced listening for understanding with students. I also incorporated scholarly writing about trust into more of my courses over time. What remained to be seen were the ways that these changes to my courses and practice impacted students.

It is fair, then, to characterize this self-study on trust as one that was originally methodologically collective (Kitchen & Ciuffetelli Parker, 2009; Samaras, 2011), since my personal interest in trust, vulnerability, and listening surfaced from our faculty self-study group. That collaborative work undergirds and inspires the second self-study that I present here, one that addresses the relationship between my

own learning about trust and its connection to my courses. The research in this paper is more intimately connected to my individual experiences, is an examination of the “alignment and authenticity of [my] own beliefs and practices” (Whitehead, 1989, in Samaras, 2011), and includes integration of philosophical muses and personal renderings of themes originating in the group’s collaborative analysis. As part of this study, I found myself “reading, critiquing, and reflecting on text and voices of colleagues” yet again, but in a manner that “reframes ideas” from the original self-study (Kelchtermans & Hamilton, 2004, p. 788).

Insights about Listening, Trust and Developing Pedagogy

In this section, I connect my experience with our self-study group to my simultaneously evolving pedagogical practices. The findings speak to the roles that listening and trust played in students’ learning. I also share my personal reflections on developing a relationally oriented pedagogy.

Listening connections.Speech is a uniquely powerful force in our relational lives, and so much of our life is relational, the inclusion of speaking and listening in…practice enables the power of practice to infiltrate our entire life. Language brings our practice the force of intellect, the associative power of words, and its own potential to reveal limiting beliefs, desires, grasping, and fears. Language is a powerful tool for both constructing and deconstructing such formations. (Kramer, 2007, pp. 104–5)

Gregory Kramer wrote these words about the role of speech in the process of Insight Dialogue. This method promotes mindfulness, or “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, pp. 145–146). Kramer’s words capture the essence of the experience that I had using protocols to review student work samples with my faculty colleagues. The model that we developed and the protocols that we used were based on inquiry-oriented questions. We relied on processes that promoted dialogical exploration instead of evaluation. The protocols gave us time to think, and we realized that ideas emerged when protocols required us to sit and listen to others’ descriptions of our work samples.

My syllabi reflect that I spent increasing amounts of time on the topic of listening, to the point where it was eventually integrated into all of my courses. Students read, discussed, and learned to identify different ways of listening (Cannon & Griffith, 2007), and I developed new text-based activities and role plays to provide opportunities for applied analysis and practice. Student work samples reflect that the listening began to pop up spontaneously in students’ reflections during my third and fourth year of teaching/self-study, suggesting that my increasing emphasis had a greater effect on students. One student utilized an open-topic reflection as an opportunity to analyze the listening practices of a district committee she had observed:

The high school teacher has declared herself an authority in the subject of mathematics … She does not ask for input from the rest of the group and does not respond to what we say or acknowledge us when we speak. Her listening behavior would be described as ignoring. I am led to infer that she sees herself as the group expert … because she acts as if she has little use for our contributions. The middle school teacher is expressive and claims to have expert,

research supported opinions…he tells the group of his knowledge of research, but does not provide specific examples of research that relates to what we are trying to do when we ask for it. He demonstrates selective and pretend listening, nodding his head when others speak, but looking in other places all the time and never responding to questions that we pose…it makes me wonder if he truly wishes to participate in our decision-making process. Sometimes, I think he just has a need for someone to hear what he has to say… If I was in charge of this group, I would stop the curriculum work and discuss listening skills so that we could build our relationships and trust. Leaders should assist group members in understanding the value and impact of their contributions and the contributions of others.

The student identifies listening orientations, considers their impact on the group, and suggests ways that listening might be improved for the group’s benefit. She demonstrates awareness that people listen differently and attempts to understand why others listen the way that they do. The reflection shows that she has connected theory to practice, as she explains how different listening styles can look and sound to others and the impact that they can have on trust. She does not see her colleagues’ limiting beliefs as insurmountable, but as an occasion to develop listening skills in the group.

Trust connections. My syllabi and journals reflect that my course structure morphed increasingly to resemble the self-study group. I did not lecture, but rather had students work in large and small groups on protocol-driven activities. One culminating group project, for which all group members received one grade, evoked strong feelings from students. As one reflected,

Our group members were very accommodating to one another’s needs. When one group member declared that she was anxious about the group aspect of the paper and said she would, “rather turn in individual papers,” we responded with compassion instead of being offended. To help ease her anxiety, we agreed that she could look over everyone’s paper and make any final decisions on editing etc. As we continued the project, a synergy developed within our group, and she began to trust our abilities and realize the benefits of working as a team. Specifically, our whole was greater than our parts… this assignment helped me realize that trust is essential, both gaining one’s trust and entrusting others.

The students saw their colleague’s hesitation and showed her kindness. This took them more time and required addressing emotions and potential conflict. They collectively devised a strategy to facilitate the situation and consistently followed through with their plan. Their compassion created a safe environment for everyone, and highlighted the challenge—and triumph—of trusting others.

Students also began to make connections between trust and written curriculum in their course activities. Two students’ journal entries provide examples:

Student 1: In dialogical assessments with students, feedback is immediate and on so many levels, including body language, the words themselves, and the underlying tones of the words. It circles back to the trust that is needed between teacher and student in order to form an educational schema for the student and educational plan for the teacher. Student 2: Building trust through student designed assessments should allow students to begin to understand the value of taking risks and will hopefully challenge themselves on their own paths... We have

studied how important relationships are…it is important that each member of the school, students included, feel valued…Students, teachers, and administrators must all find value in this kind of assessment, trust each other in the production of assessments, and look for ways to improve assessment through and for learning.Student 1 connects the value of listening to the

development of trust that is necessary for successful classroom interactions with students. Student 2 speaks to the student/teacher relationship as well, but in the context of student-designed assessments. He understands that trusting students to design assessments is a way for them to demonstrate learning, though one that exemplifies risk-taking in his standardized test-driven school district. In fact, he sees this activity as so valuable that he calls for all teachers and administrators to trust each other to take the pedagogical risk inherent in the activity. Another student spoke to this risk, but in a slightly different way:

Involving your staff in big decisions gives them a feeling of security, that the principal trusts their judgment and uses their ideas to create an environment where all feel supported…my school leader has done this to help her staff reach our common vision. In these examples, trust develops when hesitancy is

treated with understanding, risk taking is supported, and leaders demonstrate competence with school staff. Differences are important tools for growth instead of roadblocks to learning because trust is enacted.

Towards a Pedagogy of ValuesStudents in my courses have demonstrated a better

understanding of the lived experience of trust over the course of my teaching. I still worry that for many, the pressure of American schools will prevail over their desire to create safe, caring spaces. Have they learned relational ethics, wherein they judge their relations to others based on “the relation itself” and how “others may feel and how they may respond to the act under consideration” (Noddings, 1988, p. 219)? Have they left the class with a desire to act “out of love and natural inclination” (p. 219), or having judged relations “simply by conformity to the rules and principles” (p. 219) I had set?

It is important to be explicit when modeling behaviors for students in teacher education (Loughran & Berry, 2005) and leader education. Educators must highlight the difference between action and intent with pedagogical choices. Students in my classes lived the reality of trust and learned about it. But my journals reflect a consistent need to be clearer about the difference between my actions and intentions. My hope is that doing so in the future will help me to ascertain the reasons why students have internalized the value of creating trusting cultures. Were there critical incidents or epiphanic moments that really allowed them to see the power of trust and listening? It would seem having a better sense of these influences better informs my capacity to teach about trust in the future. It is only in a climate of trust that they might engage in the “continuous scrutiny and refinement of expectations based on new experiences, appreciation of the subtleties of context, and identification of novel aspects of context” (Hoy, Gage, & Tarter, 2006, p. 238 2003) that arise in schools.

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TAMIE PRATT-FARTROUniversity of Mary Washington

Walking the Walk as Servant? A Self-Study of Learning, Teaching, and Leading

As a literacy teacher-educator and researcher, it is my responsibility to know myself, my beliefs, my perspectives, and my biases in order to create democratic and socially just classrooms. The motivation behind such knowing is that it moves me from self-serving toward serving others because an authentic representation of who I am and how I am as situated within my community of adult learners has been unearthed. Focus can move from self to other when one understands that education is service. More importantly, as a teacher-educator, before I can ask pre-service and in-service teachers to explore and reveal their own beliefs, I must walk the road of personal and professional inquiry into my own teaching.

ContextTwo years ago, I accepted the position of assistant

professor of education at a small liberal arts institution. I quickly realized that I was now a member of a cohort of intelligent, experienced, and motivated teacher-educators who collectively led a college while still individually maintaining unique senses of self, beliefs, and convictions. It was this context which led to me to question how my vision of self-as-leader fit into this community of teacher-educators and, more importantly, how I was contributing to the literacy growth of pre-service and in-service teachers. Investigating my own authentic questions of practice could allow me to discern if and how my pedagogy was contributing to the co-construction of literacy knowledge among graduate students (Bullough & Baughman, 1997; LaBoskey, 2004). I realized the depth of my responsibilities and thus embarked upon a personal history self-study (Samaras, Hicks, & Berger, 2004).

Personal history self-study incorporates an individual’s personal and professional experience to come to a better understanding of how the past often directly influences beliefs (Samaras & Freese, 2006). Sfard and Prusak (2005) explored identities through personal history using narrative and claimed that through exploration of self, our vision of our experiences rather than the actual events themselves shape how we see ourselves. Personal history self-study can help provide teacher-educators with insights into how leadership identity is shaped by students and colleagues and how that identity impacts instruction. This is true only if methods are rigorous and historical, promote connection, and reflect authentic teacher-educator issues with a purpose that seeks to improve self and other (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to reveal more about my service as a literacy leader by answering the following research question: “How have I used leadership opportunities to transform literacy teaching and learning in others?”

Theoretical FrameworkThe theoretical framework which guided this study was

the leadership theory of servant leadership, first introduced by Greenleaf (1977). A servant leader is a one who possesses “the natural feeling…to serve first” (p. 27) and then lead others. Although servant leader is seemingly a contradictory use of terms, Greenleaf stressed that servant leaders are not beneath others in a top-down, pyramid-shaped organizational hierarchy. Rather, they are designated leaders who are smaller in number in an organization, but who support and serve the greater numbers doing the work in and of the organization. Their purpose is to “make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served” (Greenleaf, 1977, p. 27).

Sipe and Frick (2009) expanded on Greenleaf’s (1977) conception of servant leadership by identifying seven pillars or characteristics of servant leaders who work to support an organization and its stakeholders: 1) “person of character (makes insightful, ethical, and principle-centered decisions); 2) puts people first (helps others meet their highest priority development needs); 3) skilled communicator (listens earnestly and speaks effectively); 4) compassionate collaborator (strengthens relationships, supports diversity, and creates a culture of collaboration); 5) has foresight (imagines possibilities, anticipates the future, and proceeds with a clarity of purpose; 6) systems thinker (acts strategically, manages change effectively, and balances the whole with the sum of its parts); and 7) leads with moral authority (is worthy of respect, inspires trust and confidence, and establishes quality standards for performance)” (p. 5–6).

Although servant leadership has roots in Biblical theory and ties into organizational leadership (Sipe & Frick, 2009; Greenleaf, 1977), it is increasingly applied to education leaders, including teacher educators. Crippen (2006) discusses how entire school divisions and professional teacher associations are learning about servant leadership and reconsidering individuals’ roles as educators. To some, “servant leadership provides the promise of an effective educational leadership program that is in direct opposition to traditional hierarchal leadership theory which often assumed that leaders were born, not made” (p. 12). In servant leadership–driven schools, all teachers have the ability to lead as teachers, and administrators are foundationally focused on the needs of all learners rather than the advancement of the school or division as a whole.

Research has shown that in schools where principals consistently demonstrate servant leadership traits, teachers show more commitment to the school (Cerit, 2010). Thus, servant leadership may be a continued predictor of teacher retention. The benefit to students is also evident in schools where teachers adhere to servant leadership principles, as effective teacher leaders contribute to increased student achievement (Wenig, 2004).

In so much as “servant leadership in the classroom speaks to the universal human longing to be known, to care, and be cared for in pursuit of the common good” (Bowman, 2005), the current research base is void of literature specifically addressing the unique contributions of literacy leaders. My interest in servant leadership and its application specifically to literacy leadership developed through my dissertation research on K-12 district literacy supervisors enacting roles as advocates for students and reading specialists. Results indicated that this small population of women leaders viewed themselves as responsible for the literacy growth of all students regardless of ability, familial situation, or lack of resources. They negotiated relationships differently and strategically with literacy stakeholders within and outside of the districts in which they worked in order to ensure that reading specialists were able to fulfill their responsibilities for literacy achievement and growth in schools. I found that literacy supervisors, as advocates, were in fact demonstrating characteristics of servant leaders, although none named herself as such (Pratt-Fartro, 2010).

The benefits of adopting a servant leadership stance to praxis and inquiry have become more evident in recent years, yet there is a dearth of research using self-study methodologies to examine this theory. Crippen (2010) indicates that the leadership beliefs and values held by teacher educators are central in determining and conveying to pre-service teachers the deliberate steps necessary in reaching school democratization. This notion, combined with my previous research on advocacy (Pratt-Fartro, 2010), prompted wondering of my own possible leadership contributions that are supportive of literacy advocacy and reflective of servant leadership.

MethodsWhen considering potential participants to invite

along my self-study journey, I reflected on those with whom I have had personal or professional relationships. I chose participants who I believed knew me closely enough to provide honest and relevant feedback regarding my literacy teaching leadership over the past two years. I felt it important to include a spectrum of participants, which included two colleagues at the college, a colleague in a PK-12 setting, three current graduate students, and two critical friends who are also teacher-educators and self-study researchers. All participants were female and none of the graduate students were currently enrolled in any of my courses.

Multiple data sources were used to inform my interpretations of leadership practices and to help establish trustworthiness of those interpretations. I chose to use artifacts from only these first two years of teaching rather than introduce any new data such as personal reflections about my teaching. This was a purposeful decision made on the basis that I was too far removed in time from reflecting deeply (Griffiths & Poursanidou, 2005) and accurately on experiences. The artifacts selected best represented my actual contributions as servant leader.

Following consent, each participant was asked via email to construct a narrative in response to the following prompt: “From your perspective, describe how my leadership has contributed to the growth of the college and to the literacy growth of students.” Initially, I considered not using the word “leadership” in the prompt because I didn’t want to steer responses toward a leadership stance if a participant felt there wasn’t one there to begin with. However, I needed to invite others into the study through a common understanding of

purpose; therefore, including the word “leadership” allowed participants to more fully connect to that purpose.

Artifacts from my previous two years as a teacher educator were used to help document my leadership through multiple lenses. These artifacts included literacy course syllabi, student narratives taken from course evaluations, my current curriculum vita, and my faculty academic accomplishments report (FAAR). This document, written by me, included all college, university, and community involvement. Accompanying the FAAR was a narrative written by the department chair highlighting and summarizing my key contributions.

Narrative data from the prompt were collected via individual emails to me. Responses were attached as Word documents and gathered within one week after providing the prompt to participants. All other data sources were readily accessible to me as documents already in my possession. I organized the data according to the semester year in which it was gathered, as well as participant: student, colleague, or self.

Data were analyzed using an inductive content analysis approach (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009) framed on the International Reading Association’s (IRA) Standards for Reading Professionals: Roles of Teacher-Educators (IRA, 2010). These performance-based standards “describe what candidates for the reading profession should know and be able to do in professional settings by focusing on the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective educational practice” (IRA, 2010, p. 1). Standard 6: Professional Learning and Leadership has four sub-standards: 1) possess foundational knowledge; 2) possess positive dispositions; 3) lead professional development; and 4) influence policy. The purpose of using the professional standards was to juxtapose or align them with the pillars of servant leadership (Sipe & Frick, 2009) based on what the data revealed. This triangulation of standards, pillars, and data served as the foundation for understanding if and how I enacted servant leadership to transform self and others (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001).

After gathering all data, I sorted segmented phrases and complete sentences of text by placing them underneath the IRA sub-standard to which they most closely aligned. Next, I coded the text within each sub-standard, looking for word repetitions and key words in context (Ryan & Bernard, 2002) to identify patterns in the data. From those patterns, I developed several themes within each sub-standard and aligned them with the pillars of servant leadership identified by Sipe and Frick (2009) to contextualize my literacy leadership as applicable to that of servant leader.

OutcomesData analysis revealed that I used leadership

opportunities to transform literacy teaching and learning in others in four of seven attributes of servant leadership: 1) systems thinker; 2) has foresight; 3) compassionate collaborator; and 4) person of character.

First, I identified as a systems thinker with regard to professional standards related to leading effective professional development and influencing policy (IRA, 2010). A colleague expressed her perspective of my abilities to integrate components of literacy teaching in this manner:

You convey confidence, deep and critically filtered understanding of the field, an abiding curiosity, and a can-do energy. I think these qualities weave together the fabric of your instructional persona. Literacy students are drawn to this and open themselves, their minds, their learning needs, their practice and their concerns to the

challenges you present instructionally, feeling confident that the experience will be challenging, supportive, and significant. You have good organizational sense so you effectively translate good or compelling ideas and innovations to action.A graduate student wrote the following regarding our

upcoming state higher education conference presentation:I feel that I am gaining another significant opportunity for growth in literacy because you have provided me with the opportunity to attend the upcoming conference in order to share my experiences with literacy. Not only will this be an amazing opportunity for me to further explore my relationship with literacy, but I will be able to learn from others as well regarding their struggles and triumphs surrounding literacy.It was interesting that the data revealed my identity

as a systems thinker professionally, as I personally feel I am aligned to think that way in all of my endeavors. I try to consider the larger picture before making decisions, as well as consider how those decisions will impact and are impacted by the context in which they are made.

Second, interpretations of data suggested that I have foresight related to professional standards of possessing foundational knowledge and influencing policy (IRA, 2010). A colleague wrote the following in her narrative response to my impact on the literacy coursework in the college:

You are a thorough practitioner and that comes through in your leadership of the program. I believe that you have influenced how the courses will be configured to provide a more comprehensive picture of what the reality of elementary education in the state of is at the current time. Your experience brought that leadership a fully informed voice from the perspective of praxis rather than from an observer’s role.The above comment is quite meaningful to me as a

novice assistant professor because of my caution in accepting a position in higher education. I was comfortable and confident in my role as a K-12 reading specialist but was unsure how I could make a difference in the lives of adult learners. Through self-study, I realize that I can impact others in a positive way.

Thirdly, I identified a compassionate collaborator with regard to possessing positive dispositions (IRA, 2010). The following quotation, from a graduate student in the final stages of her literacy specialist preparation program, exemplifies this type of servant leadership:

Your enthusiasm for learning is so contagious. You truly believe in your students. You make your students feel as though they can accomplish anything they put their minds to and that with hard work, nothing is out of their reach. You pushed us out of our comfort zones, you ask us to think outside of the box, you challenge us…you make us better teachers. Of course, you do this in a caring and compassionate way.The final outcome to which I identified as servant leader

was person of character with regard to possessing positive dispositions (IRA, 2010). A graduate student simply stated, “You are very personable and approachable. You are someone we all trust.” I hope to continue to impact students in this way.

While these comments from colleagues and students were complimentary in nature, I was reminded of one of the tenants of self-study methodology in that as a researcher, I am not just seeking out conclusions that validate my current practice and identity as a teacher-educator (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001). Rather, I need to also consider ways in which data inform necessary change and growth as a teacher-educator. This is true of servant leadership as “servant leaders

are ambitious, but direct their ambition toward the mission, not themselves. They are humble” (Ebener, 2011, p. 34).

The three servant leadership characteristics to which I did not identify included 1) puts people first; 2) skilled communicator; and 3) leads with moral authority. These align with the literacy professional leadership standards of possessing positive dispositions and influencing policy (IRA, 2010). I collectively named these characteristics as inconsistent because I need to become more cognizant that to truly serve, one must strive for consistency in all teaching contexts.

To better identify the tensions that exist between my current leadership practices and these inconsistencies, I am collecting new forms of data to more clearly identify how I am inconsistent in these areas of leadership and to consider ways to become more effective. First, each semester, I have committed to video-taping at least two sessions of each of my four courses to understand how body language and verbal language may be marginalizing or devaluing others. Second, I am keeping weekly reflective journals of my work by writing honest and authentic narratives focused on communication and relationship building. Finally, I have reconnected with a critical friend who is periodically observing my classroom practice and reviewing video-tapes with me. We engage in deep discussion about advocacy in a safe relationship built on years of trust, a mutual understanding of literacy leadership, and a reciprocal desire to be more impactful teacher-educators. As these new forms of data are collected, I am monitoring self-growth in my ability to transform literacy teaching and learning in others.

Walking Further Down the RoadOwning my teaching is often a struggle. After receiving

my first set of course evaluations over two years ago, I didn’t have the courage to open the envelope for months. I was worried that I wasn’t a “good enough” teacher to hold all the responsibility that accompanies preparing PK-12 teachers and literacy specialists. Part of me felt fraudulent, as if my experience and education weren’t enough. I didn’t know then and I still don’t know if I am a “good teacher.” What I do know, through this self-study, is that high-quality, effective teaching is an ever-changing contextualized process between teacher and learner rooted in relationships with and advocacy for others (Griffiths & Poursanidou, 2005; Dinkelman, Margolis & Sikkenga, 2006).

Guajardo and Guajardo (2006) found that leaders gained personal power by uncovering past histories of themselves as “the educational leader must be able to understand the self before he/she can begin to understand the students, the programs and their implementation” (Guajardo & Guajardo, 2006, p. 6). However, servant leaders gain this power as they serve others because power is the ability to act to accept a mission rather than to advance the self (Ebner, 2011). Without this rigorous process of inquiry, I fear that my understanding of transforming literacy teaching and learning would still be “in the envelope.” As a teacher-educator, I continue on the journey of self-study as new experiences and new data present themselves.

ReferencesBowman, R. F. (2005). Teacher as servant leader. The Clearing

House, 78, 257–259.Bullough, R. V., Jr., & Baughman, K. (1997). “First year

teacher” eight years later: An inquiry into teacher development. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Cerit, Y. (2010). The effects of servant leadership on teachers’ organizational commitment in primary schools in Turkey. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 13, 301–317.

Crippen, C. (2006). Servant leadership as an effective model for educational leadership and management. Management in Education, 18(5), 11–16.

Crippen, C. (2010). Serve, teach and lead: It’s all about relationships. Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, 5, 27–36.

Dinkelman, T., Margolis, J., & Sikkenga, K. (2006). From teacher to teacher educator: Reframing knowledge in practice. Studying Teacher Education, 2, 119–136.

Ebener, D. R. (2011). On becoming a servant leader: Seven myths and seven paradoxes of Christian leadership. Sojourners, 2, 32–34.

Greenleaf, R. (1977). Servant leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Griffiths, M., & Poursanidou, D. (2005). A self-study of factors affecting success in two collaborations on the teaching of social justice. Studying Teacher Education, 1, 141–158.

Guajardo, M., & Guajardo, F. (2006). Narratives of transformation: A look at an educational leadership process. Catalyst for Change, 34, 3–15.

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Pratt-Fartro, T. (2010). Intrinsic and extrinsic contextual factors influencing advocacy in literacy leaders: Perspectives of district reading supervisors. (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3392498)

Ryan, G. W., & Bernard, H. R. (2002). Techniques to identify themes in qualitative data. Retrieved from http://www.analytictech.com/mb870/Readings/ryan-bernard_techniques_to_identify_themes_in.htm

Samaras, A., & Freese, A. (2006). Self-study of teaching practices. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Samaras, A. P., Hicks, M. A., & Berger, J. G. (2004). Self-study through personal history. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 905–942). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Sfard, A., & Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: In search of an analytic tool for investigating learning as a culturally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–21.

Sipe, J. & Frick, D. (2009). Seven pillars of servant leadership: Practicing the wisdom of leading by serving. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.

Wenig, R. E. (2004). Leadership knowledge and skill: An enabler for success as a technology education teacher-leader. The Journal of Technology Studies, 30, 59–64.

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BRIAN J. RICEBrigham Young University

Unpacking My Graduate Learnings for Improved Teacher Education: A Task of Poetics

I first discovered poetry as a senior in high school. Though I had read assigned poems in English classes, it was not until I was challenged to produce a poem that poetry became a part of me. My English teacher was difficult to please, and for the poetry assignment I wrote and read my poem about a hooker plying her trade. I wasn’t concerned about my grade; I just wanted to irritate her. She responded with an A grade and compliments, and thus my confidence in producing poetry began.

I made a second attempt at producing a poem. I showed this iteration to my father, a high school administrator. He seemed impressed and extolled my talents as a poet. Believing I possessed the ability to produce poetry, I began to practice the art of poetry, writing during classes in lieu of note taking. Eventually, I came to take notes through poetry.

Thus, I began writing poetry as an additional form of note taking during classes. The poems reflected the assigned readings and lectures, as well as my classroom beliefs and experiences. This practice continued as I entered the university setting and continued as I pursued my postgraduate studies. One of my professors, while instructing, became aware of my practice of writing poems during lectures. He began to imbed poetry into his instruction and shared a few personal poems of his own. Thus the writing of and exchange of poetry evolved.

The purpose of this study was to create accounts that amalgamated my teacher knowledge from working as an English as a Second Language teacher and Special Educator. The accounts of this knowledge were developed while I participated in my educational leadership graduate courses that would have bearing on my work as a teacher educator.

Review of LiteratureThe literature that I reviewed for this study fell into

several categories. The first category discusses using poetry with students as an assessment tool. I reviewed this literature because of my status as a student when this poetry was written. The second category conceptualizes arts-based research in educational research since the purpose of this study is not only to assess myself but also to provide fodder for viable discussion in the academe about arts-based forms’ self-revelatory qualities for teachers and teacher educators.

Poetry as an assessment tool. Moeller (2012) contends that a writer must write from what they know best and what they are learning. In a similar vein, Cooper (2012) contends that the connections a student makes between the self and the teachings introduced within the classroom can serve to produce emotional memories and feelings worth exploring in storied poetry through simple and productive exercises. In the space of my graduate program, I was a student; as a mature learner, I took control of that space. My poetry serves as an account of my learning as a student. It is, in a sense, an

assessment of my learning that did not reside on the formal assessment landscape during my graduate program.

Student learning is often measured in ways that do not reflect what the student knows or actually learned (Marzano, 2003). In typical classroom situations, it is difficult for the teacher to know what learning occurs for students in the curriculum of their lives (Huber, Murphy, & Clandinin, 2011). The teacher’s ability to convey to students the essential learning is undermined by the structures that make school efficient and predictable, both of which are necessary aims.

Huber, Murphy, and Clandinin (2011) as part of their study in curriculum making outside the classroom conducted research with families located in western Canada using narrative inquiry. Orie and Loyla are mother daughter participants in the study. Loyla was 4 at the beginning of the study, which looked at curriculum making as Loyla entered and attended Kindergarten at a K-Grade 8 school. Orie contributed journal entries and observations and interview were conducted with family members.

The notion of the student’s essential learning being undermined by school structure is evident in Orie’s journal entry as part of her daughter Loyla’s home report card (Huber, Murphy, & Clandinin, 2011). The journal entry, written in prose, spoke of many things that Loyla had learned. The lines of this poem serve as Loyla’s ability statements, which had been compiled by Orie for the purposes of the assessment. Upon sharing the home report card with her teacher, the teacher offered to change Loyla’s ranking in the class. Orie responded that that was not the intended purpose of their collaboration; her purpose was to communicate the diversity of learning of which a teacher may be unaware.

What my poetry did for me was cast information in a manner that promoted my own meaning making, which lead to new paradigms of thinking and growth for me as a graduate student and a teacher educator. Although poetry has been part of education since the times of Homeric Greece (Frost, 1930), its purpose has often been one of socialization or even a task of memorization or interpretation, rather than a means to establish or confirm personal, nuanced learning of individuals.

Poetry in itself is no balm of Gilead for the demonstration of learning. It is a potential means for students to communicate new understandings as they emerge in a classroom context. Poetry allows students to connect with the curriculum in ways that note taking or worksheets cannot (Clandinin et al., 2006). Poetry allows for the unpacking of personal stories and experiences in a way that allows learning to be both global and representative of everyone. Through the use of poetry in the classroom, teachers can see deeper into their students’ understanding in ways that other forms of assessment may not be able to allow.

As in the above example, when poetry has space in the curriculum, it takes on multiple functions. Another such

function, according to Rice (2011), is the distribution of literacies. Fostering such distribution is desirable since it enables students to enact self-positioning in their narratives of themselves as students. These self-positioned narratives bridge what the student knows with the new elements the teacher is presenting. By responding in self-selected forms, students are allowed to demonstrate their understanding and ability to create.

Rice’s (2011) analysis of her participant Brandon’s poems identifies his literacies, which she later interprets. Since Brandon’s work can be interpreted, it serves as a form of assessment. Assessment through poetry occurs on multiple levels: the work is analyzed as a response to the curriculum, as a work of art, and as a reflection of the student. The connections, which occur in Rice’s work within the space on the literary landscape, weave new knowledge with old knowledge in ways the curriculum suggests distribution should occur. In my case, I was seeking to position myself on the landscape of educational leadership as well as the landscape of teacher education.

My experiences as a student using poetry as a means of learning allowed me to interact with my professor in ways that I could use as classroom teacher and teacher educator. His willingness to share his own personal poetry and use it as part of the whole-class instruction provided me with a better understanding of ways I could include poetic opportunities of learning and expression for my students.

Arts-based research and teacher knowledge. Barone (2000) offered examples of arts-based research as literary non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. In representing research, Barone argued that the work produced ought to have actual aesthetic appeal that can stand on its own in addition to being grounded in the featured program of research. To me, this did not mean that I should just publish my poems by themselves, but that I should provide an analysis of them that revealed my thinking. This analysis leading to interpretation would contribute to my thinking as a teacher-educator. Butler-Kisber (2010) also discussed aesthetic processes in arts-informed research. Her work not only focuses on the qualities of representation but also emphasizes how such projects can be analyzed and evaluated.

There is a great body of literature about teacher knowledge and how to conceptualize it. Aristotle, who was among the first in Western literature to frame the concept of poetics, spoke of two types of knowledge in general: epistome and phronesis. Fenstermacher (1994) unpacked these terms as practical knowledge gained from reflecting on actions and formal knowledge deemed valid and reliable by engaging in various procedures. Epistome represents a modernist paradigm that is often used in quantitative research, whereas phronesis is emerging as a concept interesting to qualitative researchers. Due to their ideological differences, there has been some tension between epistome and phronesis as researchers develop methods for studying teacher knowledge. In his work The Enlightened Eye, Eisner (1997) re-introduced the idea of aesthetic as a type of knowledge separate from epistome and phronesis, and this added a third paradigm for conceptualizing teacher knowledge.

MethodsThis self-study of aesthetic ways of revealing knowledge

about teaching and learning focused on merging my aesthetic sensibilities with my practical knowledge, current practice, and the formal knowledge proposed to me during my educational

leadership coursework. This section makes explicit the forms of data and the data analysis process.

Forms of data. The forms of data collected include my notes from class, my leadership program internship reflection journal that I am required to maintain, and the poems that emerged and the drafts that I developed while writing the verses. In addition, poetry that my university students (who are teacher candidates) generated through curriculum assignments, practicum experiences, and teaching experiences were also used.

Notes from class. When teachers are animated and what they are saying is interesting I take a note. On occasion, I take notes from the board. I also copy diagrams of interest. I usually make annotations to what I am recording so that when I go back to study, I can easily reference it. All note taking is done on my laptop with a word processing program. In one class that I took, the professor told a lot of stories—of things he observed in class, conversations with some of his patience, and even his displaced Jewish childhood growing up in Latin community. I knew that when he told a story, he was leading to some point. Under these circumstances, I listened to the story and then wrote what I thought the implication was in terms of the subject matter of the class.

Leadership program internship journal. This journal is actually a portfolio, required by my internship. There are several checklists and an artifact section. The journal part is included with the artifacts. I am supposed to keep track of critical incidents from my internship experiences and then reflect on them. For example, when I interned in an elementary school, I was struck by how many of the children wanted to hug me. In a junior high context, hugging the students is taboo. I had to consider what the policies were for hugging younger children, how to decline a hug, and what I thought about hugging in that context in general. My internship journal and artifacts are also a place where I express frustration. During my internship in one of the secondary schools, I was often discouraged that I was not given tasks that I thought were authentic. Mostly, I was given supervisory duties. In contrast, I really enjoyed working at the elementary school where the principal assigned me tasks that I thought were administrative.

Poem drafts. As part of class preparation, as a graduate student, I read the assigned readings to ensure that I understood and was prepared to discuss the day’s topic. Based on my reflection on the reading and using snippets of what I had taken as notes or written as reflections, I developed a draft. Initially I found myself writing one long poem based on everything I was learning. However, the long poem did not flow as well from an aesthetic standpoint. When I realized this, I started a new set of poems. These poems were more focused around one image from my learning. When I realized that my poems were functioning as assessments, I invested even more energy into crafting them. I also showed them to my professor who told the stories in class, and he provided encouragement and support. He requested that I submit my poems to him often, and he began sharing his own poetry in class.

Student poetry submissions. As part of my assessment of student understanding in my university class I offered my teacher candidates the opportunity to write poems in lieu of reflections and response to learning. Initially few students chose this option. As I shared my poetry and used poetry as part of my teaching practice, students began to submit poetry in addition to the assigned reflection or response to learning.

Data analysis. Data analysis began by re-reading the poems that I had written and that my students had allowed me to keep. As I was reading, I reconsidered experiences from my coursework for this program as well as the other

certification programs that I instructed. I then looked at my log of internship reflections and the curriculum outline for the sections I instructed in order to pair a timeline of experiences. I matched these experiences to the poems and determined which themes emerged from doing this cross analysis. Thus, data were obtained by using documents to promote reflectivity (Zeichner & Liston, 1996) as both a student and teacher educator.

OutcomesThe outcomes of this study address how epistome,

phronesis, and aesthetic merged for me and how that entanglement matters for teacher education. The following is an excerpt from one of the poems that I wrote.

Forcing us to rewrite experienceThat it may better serve the massesInfected by an alternate opiateDrowning in existential angst“The affect of experience,” according to Dewey, “is

not borne on its face” (Dewey, 1998 p. 27). This quotation captures my thinking during this study as I held the epistome of my professors against my own phronesis and even my own epistome. As I composed the lines of this poem about “rewriting experience,” I was wondering whether I was abandoning my journey as a teacher in order to become an administrator. Initially, I conceptualized a leadership degree as part of a path that would allow me to better serve the children in the educational system I thought were largely underserved. However, given that my professors in educational leadership lack experience in teaching and my coursework has mostly focused on circumventing the phronesis and the will of teachers in order to accomplish student learning, I no longer feel that is the case. The “existential angst” to which I refer is one born out of the fact that I am not supposed to trust the people who I would be responsible to supervise as a school leader.

According to the definitions I have been given in my coursework, effective school leaders make teachers aware of the existence of English learners and students with disabilities and then foist the responsibility for their success onto them with little or no practical or formal support. The schools, according to my leadership training, are “infected with an alternate opiate” of special population students. While I think it is necessary to acknowledge the presence of these students, I am concerned about the deficit orientation taken to them and I wonder how school leaders could enculturate teachers into anything other than the deficit model. My leadership courses have focused on the monetary cost of educating these populations and the low scores that they often receive on tests.

The poetry my pre-service teachers provided was more euphemistic, focusing on ways the concept presented in class would be implemented in their future classrooms. The tone of the poetry was positive. This is to be expected. What the poetry allowed me to do as a teacher educator was ground their understanding of the strategies and understandings I was trying to teach, ways they could implement the strategies and understandings as they transitioned from pre-service teachers to novice teachers and then to experienced teachers, and how to negotiate successful teacher-student interaction.

This study revealed tensions between teaching, teacher educating, and school leadership that will need to be unpacked further in order to link the epistemological and phronetic knowledge of educating all learners (Van Manen, 1977) more than financial and testing conundrums.

There have been many times when I found myself disengaged with the lecture at hand and compensated for this lack of interest through poetry. I feel this is common among students, to lack interest in the lecture, topic, or its means of communication. Students seek remedy through distractive devices such as doodling, sudoku, Internet surfing, or in my case poetry. These activities are conducted “while the conscious mind is concerned with matters wholly unrelated” (qtd. in Battles, 2004). Often the activity is unrelated to the topic of instruction.

It was not until one of my professors shared his poetry that I made the connection between my poetry, the topic, and the teacher educator’s ability to unpack its value and meaning. As a result, I find myself looking for poetic themes within lectures, readings, class discussions, and my own self. Class appears to come alive as new and personal meanings appear and connections are made where earlier classes lacked the same ability or enthusiasm for similar connections.

The poetry from these class experiences is personal to me in a way earlier classes failed to be. I find myself rereading the poems I read during class, reflecting, and even sharing them with students and peers, something I had never done with previous class notes. This endeavor opened a dialogue of alternative assessments and led to the professor accepting, as a final project, submissions other than research papers and to me as a teacher educator accepting alternative student products as proof of understanding.

Extrapolating meaning is part of communication. Because of this poet George Wallace asserts that poetry frees people to be expressive (Wagner, 2012). The poet as creator instills this new entity with a portion of the personal. The teacher educator, who contributes through instruction, assumes the position of co-creator, inspiration, and muse. This is one of the many archetypal roles the instructor assumes within the context of the classroom instructor. The teacher interacts with the poem and the poet—the product and the student differently since the teacher did not create either. Instead of a creator, the teacher is a read of both student and poem. The teacher feels little connection with the poem, possibly because its dominant reflection is of the poet and the material and not the instructional content or the teacher himself. The teacher does not have any ownership over the assessment after it has been given. The process of creation in this instance is muted and one sided. This is evident when the teacher takes the role of evaluator and looks within the poem only to find the poet and a muted form of the instructional material.

This is not to say that the teacher cannot evaluate poetry, but as Frost (1930) indicated, many institutions have abandoned the practice of studying and teaching poetry as a primary part of the educational process. Without the “proper poetical education in the [poem], you are not safe anywhere” (Frost, 1930). This is what is needed when the poet attempts to connect meaning between the self and what the teacher presents as new knowledge incorporated as learning. The ability of the teacher to interpret meaning from the poet’s product and in turn reconnect it back to the presented knowledge is where the true poetry emerges and mutual understanding occurs.

As Huber, Murphy, and Clandinin (2011) indicate, Loyla’s teacher was willing to change her ranking based on the sharing of the home report card. The poem cited is enlightening as to all the things Loyla wants others to know she is capable of doing, things outside the classroom but within the self.

I love booksAnd I have been reading with my mommy for a long timeI am a song singerAnd a Mandarin speaker since birth (p. 127)

This stanza communicates much of who Loyla is and from where she has come. The teacher misses an opportunity to help Loyla connect with what is presented as classroom learning and what is learned within the home and where overlap occurs and what kind and ways of learning can support each setting.

DiscussionToday’s educational clime aspires to support multiple

literacies, but there is a subtext that multiple literacies must be technologically-grounded. The Homeric poetry that Frost (1930) lamented was disappearing from American education even at the college level has slipped further into oblivion. In Rice’s (2011) analysis of Brandon’s poem, she identifies poetic elements such as couplets, meter, and rhyme in its connection to Dante’s work. The teacher must have some measure of experience with poetry for the student’s product to take up meaning within the academic realm as a class assignment, as an extension of the student, and as art. Without the proper poetic education, it is difficult to create poetry and in turn adequately assess the poetry produced by students.

As a teacher educator, I learned two things. The first is that if poetry is such a helpful thing for me to use as a student, I ought to explore diverse ways of assessing teaching educators. Often, teacher candidates are assessed though writing papers, written tests, and teaching simulations. I began to wonder if there are other ways that I could incorporate assessments that would be as personal to them as my poetry is to me. The second idea is that these teacher candidates are going to assess children when they leave the university and secure teaching positions. What changes will I need to make as a teacher educator that will enable them to help children find ways of being assessed in school that will make them feel like knowers and will also satisfy the demands of other stakeholders in education?

As a poet, I learned my notes could serve as material for creativity. I also learned that by writing my notes as poetry, I was more inclined to invest in note taking, which meant that I listened more carefully to what the professors were saying and I thought more deeply about my reflections because I wanted them to be inspiring to me from an aesthetic perspective. I found out that instead of having to put my poetry on hold while I was in graduate school, I could find inspiration in my coursework.

ReferencesBarone, T. (2000). Aesthetics, politics, and educational

inquiry: Essays and examples. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Battles, M. (2004). In praise of doodling. American Scholar, 73(4), 105–108.

Butler-Kisber, L. (2010). Qualitative inquiry: Thematic, narrative, and arts-informed perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, Publications.

Clandinin, D. J., Huber, J., Huber, M., Murphy, M. S., Murray-Orr, A., Pearce, M., & Steeves, P. (2006). Composing diverse identities: Narrative inquiries into the interwoven lives of children and teachers. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Cooper, K. C. (2012). Writing poems about grandparents. In C. Smallwood & S. Holland (Eds.), Women writing on family: Tips on writing, teaching, and publishing (pp. 194–203). Toronto, Canada: The Key Publishing House.

Dewey, J. (1998). Experience and education: The 60th anniversary edition. West Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi.

Eisner, E. (1997). The enlightened eye: Qualitative inquiry and the enhancement of educational practice. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.

Fenstermacher, G. D. (1994). The knower and the known: The nature of knowledge in research on teaching. Review of Research in Education, 20, 3–56.

Frost, R. (1931). Education by poetry. Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly, 20, 75.

Huber, J., Murphy, M. S., & Clandinin, D. J. (2011). Places of curriculum making: Narrative inquiries into children’s lives in motion. Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Press.

Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: ACSD Publications.

Moeller, R. (2012). Poetry makes an honest woman of you. In C. Smallwood & S. Holland (Eds.), Women writing on family: Tips on writing, teaching, and publishing (pp. 191–193). Toronto, Canada: The Key Publishing House.

Rice, M. (2011). Adolescent boys’ literate identity. Bingley, United Kingdom: Emerald Press.

Van Manen, M. (1977). Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry, 6, 205–228.

Wagner, L. (2012). An interview with George Wallace, first poet laureate of Suffolk County. Long Island Poetry Examiner. Available at http://www.examiner.com/article/an-interview-with-george-wallace-first-poet-laureate-for-suffolk-county.

MARY RICE, & STEFINEE PINNEGAR M. SHAUN MURPHYBrigham Young University University of Saskatchewan

BRIAN J. RICE MARY LYNN HAMILTONBrigham Young University University of Kansas

International Teacher Educators Learning About Reflection From the Process

We are five teacher educators from three universities in two countries. Over the course of a year, we collaborated on this self-study of storied reflection using Dewey’s (1998) work Experience and Education. By storied reflection, we mean that we read the chapters of this selected book and generated stories from our own experience as teachers and teacher educators that would converse with the ideas in the text. We selected Experience in Education because a respected Dewey scholar who served as our critical friend recommended it.

Each of us taught children in schools for at least five years before becoming teacher educators. Our experience as teacher educators ranges from two years to several decades. We formed the group that came together to conduct this reading of Dewey around a shared interest in learning more about Dewey’s notion of reflection. It was important to all of us to look at reflection from Dewey’s perspective more critically for several reasons. The first reason was that we often found ourselves in conversation with one another holding our storied experiences as teachers up against the experiences we were having with the teachers and teacher candidates in our classes. Our storytelling sparked wonderings about the nature of the relationship between our particular stories of teaching in relationship to what we were seeing while we sought to teach beginning and experienced teachers at our respective universities. Conducting a collaborative reading of Dewey to build storied knowledge seemed appropriate given Dewey’s emphasis on experience as a starting point for education.

A second source of motivation emerged as we realized that we had all previously read other work written by Dewey and tried to incorporate his philosophies into our own teacher education practices. We had all read about reflective processes and required students in our university classes to complete reflection assignments. Our experiences with these assignments vacillated on a continuum from elation to frustration in designing and implementing these types of assignments in our teaching. In short, we were interested in the process of reflection as we might experience it both as former schoolteachers and as current university teacher educators.

In addition to our own teaching experience and our own teacher educator practice, we also had experienced the use of Dewey’s ideas at conferences and in published work within our discipline. We noted in some of our early conversations how reflection assignments were particularly popular fodder for research among teacher educators, especially teacher educators who engaged in self-study. It seemed to us that embarking on an inquiry where we digested one of Dewey’s works collaboratively would allow us to be more precise in our work preparing and developing teachers and would also position us to participate more fully in the conversation surrounding Dewey in the academe.

From these three sources, the purposes of this study shifted, waxed, and waned across the several months we

spent reading the book. Initially, we were most interested in determining the nature of our storied knowledge about teacher candidates when held up against Dewey’s ideas about experience-based knowledge. However, we were surprised by how much we learned about the process of collaborative reflective activity in teacher education. Therefore, the focus of this particular paper is to explore that collaborative reflectivity as it unfolded during the course of the study.

Review of LiteratureAs intimated above, self-study literature boasts a wealth

of understandings about the process of reflection and about how to assist teacher candidates in performing reflection (see Lyons, 2010). There is also much work about reflection conducted in other areas of education as well as in disciplines such as law, medicine, and business. The literature that we review here for this study conceptualizes teacher knowledge from a reflective standpoint, defines reflective teaching, and proposes the value of reflective processes despite the difficulties in doing so for teacher candidates. Some of the research reviewed is specific to the self-study methodology and some is based in other methodologies.

Conceptualizing teacher knowledge. Fenstermacher (1994) used the Aristotelian constructs of phronesis (practical knowledge gained through reflection and action) and epistome (formal knowledge) when he discussed teacher knowledge. Practical knowledge is about promoting action, whereas formal knowledge is about predicting action. Clandinin’s (1990) conception of personal practical knowledge for teaching conceptualizes the ways in which experience as a teacher, autobiography, and formal knowledge integrate and serve as a source for teacher or teacher educator action for practice. Bullough (1997) argued that teacher identity is the basis of decision-making and causes teachers to engage in actions. The results of those actions contribute to the formation of identity. In summary, formal knowledge, practical knowledge, experience, action, and identity are tightly woven strands of the fabric of teacher knowledge (Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, Lagerwerf, & Wubbels, 2001).

Defining reflective teaching. Much of the work in teacher knowledge posits that teachers can uncover their own knowledge through reflective processes (Moon, 2004). The basis of reflection, whether it is autobiographical (Bullough, 1991) or critical (Gitlin, 1992), is often experience.

Some scholars have suggested that reflection is an interrogation of belief, as Dewey (1933) did, while others have suggested that reflection is an interrogation of action. Van Manen (1977) stated that teachers should be able to explain their teaching actions and that reflection would allow them to do this. Later, Valverde (1982) defined reflectivity in education as a process by which teachers examine their

situations, behaviors, practices, and effectiveness, and Schön (1983) proposed reflection in three frames: reflection in action, reflection through action, and reflection on action. Finally, Reiman (1999) proposed that reflective practitioners are able to analyze what they are doing as they are doing it and make modifications to meet the needs of their students.

Problematizing reflection for teacher candidates. Teacher reflectivity has become common practice within current teacher education programs (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Richardson & Placier, 2001; Zeichner & Conklin, 2005). Davis (2006), Lee (2005), and Moon (2004) have all argued that teacher education programs must provide opportunities to develop reflectivity skills. According to Calderhead (1987) and Galvez-Martin (1997), teacher educators should assign specially designed tasks to develop reflection, such as reflective journals and autobiographical narratives. Inculcating teacher reflection in teacher candidates, however, is difficult because of their dispositions, the time necessary for reflection to produce learning, and the design of many reflective assignments.

Dispositional difficulties. LaBoskey (1995) used empirical studies to demonstrate that when inexperienced teachers are asked to reflect on classrooms they may not possess the skills needed to do so, which are cognitive ability and conducive beliefs, values, attitudes, and emotions. Therefore, their writings about their experiences are superficial in nature and are often categorized as off-topic or non-reflective (Ostorga, 2006). In addition, Hatton and Smith (1995) concluded that written and oral reflections do not always reveal the true thoughts of the teacher candidates because of their feelings of vulnerability or the need for self-protection.

Time constraints. Another barrier to reflection, according to Pultorak (1993), Zeichner and Liston (1996), and Hatton and Smith (1995), is a lack of time. All these researchers found that when students were given more time to engage in reflection, they demonstrated higher levels of reflectivity. Indeed, Ballard and McBride (2010) found themselves without enough time to interview their teacher candidates in ways that elicited the kind of reflection that Dewey (1933) recommended.

Assignment design. Another barrier to reflection revolves around the instruction and reflective protocol. Ross (1989) found that the directions given affected the ability of those writing reflections. Fontana and Frey (2000) discovered that participants wanted to please the interviewer, so the reflections were inauthentic. Finally, Ballard and McBride (2010) determined that written reflection assignments given to students were very specific, and instructions required students to provide particular examples, which in turn affected the quality of the reflections.

MethodsThe methodology for this research was self-study. By

this we mean that it was self-initiated, aimed at improving our teacher education practice, and used exemplar-based validation born out of multiple methods that were mostly qualitative (LaBoskey, 2004). Within this framework, we engaged in specific methods to collect electronic data and analyze it.

Forms of data. The forms of data collected include a blog (Murphy, Pinnegar, & Pinnegar, 2011) that was set up to capture our reflections for each chapter. This blog was very simple in design. Each entry had the chapter title at the top. One member of the research group provided key ideas under the chapter title. Our responses follow the key ideas.

The follow-up responses to our initial ones are also in the chain of communication. We committed to read and respond to one chapter every other week. On the weeks where we were not reading and writing responses to the chapters, we were supposed to read and respond to group members’ initial responses. E-mails circulating among the members of the group served as an additional source of data. These e-mails emerged naturally as we had questions and deigned to initiate communication with one another outside the space of the blog.

Electronic correspondences as we used them had several affordances as well as limitations. The blog was helpful because it provided a record that we all had access to and that we could all use simultaneously if we wanted. The blog enabled us to contribute when we were able to, meaning that it was not always incumbent on one person to post a response before another could. The e-mail provided an easy record of correspondence that was more private for exploring ideas before bringing them to the group. However, e-mail also enabled us to copy messages to the whole group simultaneously. The e-mail and the blog also worked together; whenever one of us posted something to the blog, the others received an e-mail of the post, reminding us to read the chapter at hand, post a response, or respond to another group member’s response.

One major limitation of the blog/e-mail system is that it depended on someone framing a response in order to remind the others. This system also did not illustrate visually our responses when a group member wanted to engage directly with just one post. Since our blog commentary was organized into a line, most of the responses to responses tried to address what every other person had written. Because of this limitation, e-mails were necessary for on-going conversations between two individuals about ideas that emerged during the study, which then had to be shared with the rest of the members of the group. When ideas were discussed via telephone or face-to-face communication, there was no record to share with the other members of the group. In order to ameliorate this limitation, we incorporated what we talked about with other group members in our blog responses, but this was obviously not as completely recorded as the responding that occurred just on the blog.

Data analysis. Data analysis began with three of us constructing a process timeline of our experience in completing this reflection project, using the blog and e-mail record as a guide. The timeline was then negotiated with the other two researchers, and their feedback was incorporated. Next, two of us reviewed the research on issues of reflection with teacher candidates and practicing teachers. We constructed a list of key issues and then re-categorized the process timeline using those key issues to code the data. Finally, we reviewed our coding together in person when possible and via e-mail or phone when direct face-to-face communication was not possible.

Trustworthiness of this data and our analysis emerged on several fronts. The first front is the blog where members of the research group not only framed responses to the chapters but also responded to each other’s responses. This fostered trustworthiness because response to the responses required all of the members to read every response and be called to account for that responsibility. Another front was the member-checking process described above, where researchers formed pairs to perform analytical tasks and then shared the results with the other members of the research group while inviting feedback. The negotiation and feedback processes helped to ensure that the data being analyzed represented the work that we did as a team and as individuals. It also lent credibility to

the outcomes since all the data and all of the findings were reviewed by all members of the group.

OutcomesWe found tensions of disposition, time, and design as we

strove to sustain reflective conversation. Interestingly, these are the same tensions reported among teacher candidates’ reflective work.

Disposition. We were all scholars who were oriented towards reflection, and we chose to complete this task. Yet, each of us displayed resistance or actions that could be interpreted as resistance by observers if we had been students in a class at some point. In one such incident, one of us ended up with the wrong book by Dewey. This member of the research group went on vacation to a location without Internet access, but with the book that we had originally agreed to read. When this member returned to discover that the rest of us had taken the advice of our critical friend and switched books to Experience and Education, confusion and even mild irritation resulted. In the classes that we teach at our universities, we had all experienced incidences where our own students did not have the right materials for a variety of reasons and therefore were late getting started with the assignment and were sometimes even hesitant to begin the assignment once they had the correct materials.

In another incident that affected the dispositions of the members of the research group to conduct the study, our critical friend made commentary on our blog that suggested we were doing the assignment that we had designed incorrectly. Her critique was not about the substance of our reflections, but about the form of them. Even so, we all were much more hesitant to write afterward. We also later learned that each one of us had contacted at least one other member of our research group in order to regain confidence in our ability to continue the project. Although we all resumed posting, our reflections were much more carefully self-censored than they had been previously. Both of these incidents taught us that having access to the materials, in addition to confidence that we understood the assignment, were critical components for managing our dispositions and maintaining the motivation to complete the project. We marveled at how easy it was for critique of form to obliterate our disposition to compose the substance of reflection.

Time. This study was designed in May and mostly executed June through August. We structured the timeline in such a way that we thought would ensure that we would all have time to do it. Yet we did not adhere to our original schedule. Some of us read ahead. Some of us posted weeks after others. Some of us read together while driving. Others of us read alone. When it came to considering issues of time, each of us had experienced teacher candidates who did not complete reflection assignments on time. We all agreed that when our university students miss reflection entries or omit them entirely, we are irritated as teachers, yet we found it very difficult or even impossible to reflect under what we thought initially was a very generous and completely possible timeline.

Design. We discovered that the interlocking design strategy of reflecting on each other’s reflections hindered the progress of the project. Since we did not all read on schedule, responding to responses was sometimes difficult or even impossible. The premise behind the interlocking design was to enrich the discussion. In fact, it made the fact that our responses were completed at different rate more public then it would have been under other circumstances. Potentially, this caused more anxiety in our disposition to continue to work on

the project. We learned that the elements of disposition, time, and design were entangled during this study. As soon as we received critique about the form of our reflections, we began to question the understandings from which we designed the study. We thought we were going to build storied knowledge. Our critical friend thought we were conducting a deep reading of Dewey. When we incepted the design of the study, we believed that storied knowledge was part of the frame that Dewey referred to as experience. As we continued to read, and when we received critique from our critical friend, we started to doubt that. When we no longer believed our design was representative of Dewey’s ideas, it was much more difficult to continue to write reflections in this way. The critique of our form caused us to question the substance, and we began to question our notions of the quality of reflection necessary to complete the study.

Final thoughts. In conducting this study, we learned that the tensions already identified in the research literature about teacher candidates’ reflective capabilities also applied to us as experienced teacher educators when we engaged in a reflection assignment. Interestingly, even as we struggled to find the disposition and time to execute the original design of our study, we did continue to read Experience and Education and to talk to one another about it outside the arena of the blog. As we analyzed our data and composed this report of our research, we wondered what kinds of conversations our students may have about the content of our classes that never make it onto the official landscape of our classroom spaces during the semesters when we write reflection assignments. In moving forward from this study, it is important to consider ways to maximize reflection in our teacher candidates through the reflective assignments we give them, rather than assume that when reflections are less than what we expect it is due to resistance or incompetence. Examining our process raised questions about how well we attend to Dewey’s philosophy of experience when we engage students in reflection.

ReferencesBallard, K. K., & McBride, R. (2010). Promoting preservice

teacher reflectivity: Van Manen may represent a viable model. Physical Educator, 67(2), 58–73.

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Bullough, R. V. (1997). Practicing theory and theorizing practice in teacher education. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Teaching about teaching: Purpose, passion and pedagogy in teacher education (pp. 13–31). Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

Calderhead, J. (1987). The quality of reflection in student teachers’ professional learning. European Journal of Teacher Education, 10(3), 269–78.

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Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1993). Inside/outside: Teacher research and knowledge. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Davis, E. A. (2006). Characterizing productive reflection among preservice elementary teachers: Seeing what matters. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 281–301.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. New York, NY: D. C. Heath.

Dewey, J. (1998). Experience and education: The 60th anniversary edition. West Lafayette, IN: Kappa Delta Pi.

Fenstermacher, G. D. (1994). The knower and the known: The nature of knowledge in research on teaching. Review of Research in Education, 20, 3–56.

Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.; pp. 645–672). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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Korthagen, F. A. J., Kessels, J., Koster, B., Lagerwerf, B., & Wubbels, T. (2001). Linking practice and theory: The pedagogy of realistic teacher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

LaBoskey, V. K. (1995). A conceptual framework for reflection in preservice teacher education. In J. Calderhead & P. Gates (Eds.), Conceptualizing reflection in teacher education (pp. 23–38). Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

Lee, H. J. (2005). Understanding and assessing preservice teachers’ reflective thinking. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 699–715.

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ANITA ROYCHOUDHURY & SIGNE KASTBERGPurdue University

Teaching a Marginalized Subject

Context of the studyThis study is situated in a science methods course in

an undergraduate program for preservice teachers of the elementary (K-5) grades in a midwestern state in the United States of America. Students in this program have taken courses in five domains of science in addition to courses in other content areas and in educational theories. My role as a teacher educator is comprised of teaching science methods and supervising the science field experiences of the preservice teachers (teacher-learners). As a supervisor, I interact with the cooperating teachers in large groups and in individual meetings with the goal of making field experience productive for both teacher-learners and their students and to incorporate the teachers’ input into the field experiences of the teacher-learners. During these meetings and through feedback to my students, teachers often indicate that science is an unimportant subject and science instruction is an imposition on the daily routines for their classrooms.

I need to describe the broader cultural milieu (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) in which my teaching is situated. Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) by the federal government, testing in reading/language arts and mathematics has been mandated by many states. Science is tested in my state, but student performance in the domain is not necessarily considered as an indicator of academic progress. This has had a negative impact on the position of the subject in schools in recent years (Judson, 2010). Interestingly, the state has standards for teaching science in K through 12 grades, and therefore science is an integral part of school curricula in all districts. Furthermore, in the United States, education in science along with technology, engineering, and mathematics is a top national priority (White House, 2011, July). The importance of science at the national level notwithstanding, the enacted curriculum in the school where my students are placed tells a different story, one that sidelines science in the daily routine of classrooms. By excluding science, schools limit children’s access to a certain kind of knowledge that might be essential for them to effectively function in a technological society.

Aims/ObjectivesBecause science had a marginalized role in the field

placement school, I as a science educator often felt like an outsider intruding into an established community of practitioners (Wenger, 1998). My feelings about my position were important in this context only because they conflicted with my core teacher educator values. I believe that teaching has a moral underpinning and one of my moral responsibilities is to educate teachers to prepare informed citizens for future society. However, I wondered what I, as an outsider, could contribute to my students’ learning from the field. My

objective became understanding my teacher educator role in the field. Who was I as a teacher educator in the domain of the practice of teaching? What access did I have to teacher-learners’ knowledge construction based on their practice? In the university setting, I had the role of educating my students and helping them plan the ways to put theory into practice, but when they arrived in the field they hardly had any scope of practice. This created a tension between what I considered essential for teacher-learners and what they got to teach in the field. This led me to question how this shaped my teacher educator identity so that I could consider my subsequent actions.

In the following section, I describe how other teacher educators have studied their identities, how feminist standpoint theories inform understanding of power and agency and hence shaping of identities and how Gee’s (2000-2001) analysis of identity helped me put it all together.

Relevant studies of teacher educator identities. Researchers have been studying identity of teachers and teacher educators for quite some time now (Bullough, 2005; Pinnegar, 2005; Rice, 2011). In August, 2011, a special issue of the journal Studying Teacher Education was devoted to studies on teacher and teacher educator identities. Becoming a teacher at any level involves a continuous practice of meeting a new challenge or solving a new problem. As Young and Erickson (2011) point out, we are not done with growing as a teacher at any point; by analyzing our identities as teacher educators we continue to develop and find ways to connect with teacher practitioners.

Like Young and Erickson’s story, McNeil’s (2011) analysis of her experience resonated with my thoughts in many ways. By examining her position as an African-American teacher educator in a predominantly white institution using critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and post-structural theory, she was able to take a reflective turn. McNeil was able to consider the discourse with her students from multiple perspectives and reposition herself in the context of her role as a professor.

These studies showed how we attend to students, individually and collectively, and to their personal needs and learning needs during the process of becoming a teacher or a teacher educator (Erickson, Young, & Pinnegar, 2007). Teacher educators’ personal histories and teaching experiences shape their identities. Encouraged and guided by the ways these teacher educators learned from their own practice, I embarked on the study of my experience as a teacher educator.

Theoretical framework. I found feminist standpoint theory (Harding, 1986, 2004; Hartsock, 1983; Intemann, 2010; Wylie, 2003) to be an appropriate lens to view my dilemmas, tensions (Loughran & Northfeld, 1998), and my lived experience as a teacher educator. Feminist researchers theorize that identity development is not entirely intentional.

Non-intentional forces such as one’s position, agency, social status and power, culture, and social grouping shape experiences and identities. There are inherent hegemonic differences between those who have the agency of knowledge generation in a particular social environment and those who do not. The membership in a certain group is relevant to the kind of experiences one has (Intemann, 2010). Thus individuals with the agency of making decisions within a community belong to a different social group than those who lack such agency. A standpoint is achieved through a critical reflection on one’s experiences and the ways power structures influence one’s knowledge construction (Harding, 2004; Wylie, 2003). This means the position and role one holds in the discourse practices of a social group influence one’s identity. Gee (2000-2001) argues that analyses of the positions we are “authorized by” (p.100) various institutions in which we function and the discourse in which we engage can help us understand our identities. Such analyses may, in turn, help us chart our future course in the various social and cultural milieu in which we work (Young & Erickson, 2011). The role a field placement school allows me to occupy shapes my I-identity with regard to that institution and the agency I have in the discourse within a school shapes my D-identity. These two constitute who I am and what I do when I supervise my students.

MethodsIn order to understand my role in the field, I analyzed

my students’ reflections, cooperating teachers’ feedback, my reflexive journal, and my previous research publications. This data corpus was complemented by my personal history of becoming a teacher and then a teacher educator. I used the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1994) and read the data iteratively to look for emerging themes that helped in understanding my role in the field. Once I identified some themes, I used them in subsequent readings to check if they were supported or contradicted by the data. I present the themes that were supported by the entire data corpus in the findings section of this paper.

I conducted this self-study with SK, a colleague and a critical friend who questioned my assumptions underlying the themes that I found. She also helped me examine my experiences—sometimes from convergent and other times from divergent viewpoints. Prolonged engagement in schools over three semesters, triangulation of data from multiple sources, and peer debriefing with the coauthor allowed us to establish the trustworthiness of the findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

FindingsDuring one of our weekly meetings early in the study,

I shared with SK my perception of being an outsider in the community of practice (Wenger, 1998) of the teachers. SK suggested that I reflect on my feelings and the power structure within which we work when we are in the field with our students. This provided a lens through which I examined my position in the school community and my identity as a science educator. From the analysis of the data I noticed three distinct phases in my teacher and teacher educator identity. These were serendipitous beginning, transformative science, and marginalized being.

Beginning to teach: A serendipity. I happened to become a teacher by a sheer stroke of “luck” (in my case). During graduate school I had the opportunity to be a substitute teacher of physics in a high school, and it turned out to be a very rewarding experience. During that brief exposure to

teaching I learned about helping young minds and experienced the tremendous joy of seeing the glow of “Aha!” moments on students’ faces. Seeing myself as someone who helped students with their difficulties constituted the core of my teacher identity.

Transforming teaching by putting self in relation to science. My thinking about teaching science went through a major transformation when I became a science educator for teachers of the elementary grades. I quickly discovered that many of my students not only had no interest in science but, in many cases, actually disliked the subject (Roth et al., 2011; Roychoudhury, Tippins, & Nichols, 1995). In order to help my students, I had to know them and more closely understand their feelings. I focused on systematically exploring the ways to connect to my students. I had to generate discourse that transformed science as a part of their daily lives. I also learned to explicate the hierarchical nature of science concepts and the specifics of the discourse of science (NRC, 2012; Duschl, Schweingruber, & Shouse, 2007). I attempted to illustrate how Vygotsky’s theory (1978, 1987) could help teachers adjust teaching according to children’s zone of proximal development and also to the various demands of classroom environments. Needless to say, teacher-learners have to learn to meet the demands of practical and procedural facets of classroom teaching when they begin to put their theoretical learning from methods courses into practice. I found that in this phase I had to work with classroom teachers so that we could work together to help my students – the preservice teachers - grow as teachers.

Teaching science is being in the margin of a community of practice. In my previous experiences as a teacher and a teacher educator I did not perceive any tension between my identities in various contexts of my practice. I viewed myself as someone who was useful and able to contribute to teacher learning, but that was not the case in my experience as a supervisor of field experience. The tension between what I taught about science teaching and its position in the school curriculum led me to actively examine my identity in the field of practice. My students began with an inclination to make science enjoyable for their students, but their views changed after they found out that science was practically non-existent in the field placement schools. The following excerpt from my journal shows how the school included the preservice teachers and me in a cursory manner.

Today Maria told me at our meeting that she might not be able to teach any science because her cooperating teacher told her that there would be no time for that. Maria was disappointed because she had planned lessons that she believed would be interesting to her students. She also believed that science is “so much around us and because kids are always curious about things around them” it would be easy to interest them. (My journal, fall field experience)The message I received from my interaction with

teachers corroborated Maria’s impression of the value of science in this school. Science was fitted into the last half hour or twenty minutes of a school day, if there was time. This decision of the teachers or the power differential between the university group (my students and I) could not be challenged because of the dependence of the education program on the schools for field experiences. We were outsiders to the community of practice comprised of the teachers and the school personnel, and these roles had to be considered in shaping our experiences.

Thus one fundamental aspect of learning to teach science became non-existent in the field. I found out that guiding

Maria and other students to reflect on the challenges of helping children to construct science concepts from observations remained a theoretical idea. We had discussed the discourse of meaning making, participated in simulated lessons for elementary grades, observed, and discussed video-recorded classroom conversations in the methods course. But it remained theoretical knowledge for the teacher-learners. Their first real attempt to put theory into practice would have been in this school. For me, the teacher educator, the challenge then became to find possible solutions to this problem.

In addition to receiving the message that science is a marginal subject, the preservice teachers perceived the school as a real field of practice and the methods course as a field of theory. The community of practice of the school and university also clashed in their pedagogical choices. What teacher-learners saw practiced in school was what they felt was necessary and appropriate and what works, whereas what was taught about children’s conceptual development in the methods course was merely a theoretical idea and not necessary in classroom teaching. The commendations from cooperating teachers of vocabulary- and fact-focused teaching were in conflict with my critiques of the same pedagogy. For example, I commented on a lack of opportunity for children to think and to construct meaning from their experiences in Becky’s lesson and suggested that she reflect on this. However, she undervalued the importance of thinking and expressed satisfaction in her pedagogy because of the cooperating teacher’s praise of the “activities” and her focus on the “right vocabulary.”

I think my lesson went very well because my students learned all the new words that I taught in the lesson on life cycle. They were able to answer the questions I asked them at the end of the lesson. They identified the pictures correctly and used correct words to describe them. (Becky’s reflection on lesson 2)

Other teacher-learners also showed a similar penchant because the comments came from real practitioners. Teacher educators (Moore, 2003) who studied field experiences noted similar preferences among preservice teachers as well.

My students’ experiences showed that science was unimportant and what they learned in the methods course was irrelevant. Because of the marginalized role of science in the school, whenever the teachers allowed my students to teach science lessons, I felt gratitude for the favor they were bestowing on my students. Instead of being able to work with the cooperating teachers, I was merely a recipient of their favors. My discourse with the teachers was shaped by these giver and taker roles. This in turn shaped my D-identity and my I-identity (Gee, 2000-2001). In the interactions with the teachers and the principal, I was walking on a tightrope as I attempted to find a place for science in the school and avoid implicitly challenging the underpinnings of the practices in schools.

Future Course of StudyWhat do these experiences mean for my practice? How

could I improve my practice? What does this mean for teacher education? The implication of the marginalization of science extends beyond a teacher educator’s identity. I engaged my students in discussions about what it means for future students in the elementary grades, the moral implications of excluding science from school curriculum, and the likelihood of children to be unprepared to have access to science at the secondary level. This in turn would deny them access to a privileged

subject such as science (Schoenfeld, 2002) and also influence their decision making in everyday situations.

McNeil’s (2011) self-study on charting a new path in her discourse with her students guided me to rethink my identity in the context of my students’ field experience. Like McNeil, I turned to theory to find a lens to look at my experiences. Using feminist theories (Harding, 2004; Intemann, 2010), access to power, and its relationship to identity (Gee, 2000-2001) I began thinking in terms of trying to make science useful in some ways to the teachers. While I could not force my entry into the community of practice, I could try to begin a discourse using the few pathways that were open to outsiders like me. In a few cases teachers and I were able to discuss and complement each other’s feedback. A few teachers even allowed students to integrate science with other subjects. For example, one student taught about germs within a social study unit. This allowed me to see where I could guide her to reflect on the opportunities that she utilized for concept building and the ones she missed. Finding similar ways may open up channels for further dialog and allow me to have a voice in the school community and contribute to the teacher-learners’ education from the field. With this goal in mind, I continue my journey as a teacher educator.

ReferencesBullough, R. V., Jr. (2005). Quest for identity in teaching and

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Duschl, R. A., Schweingruber, H. A., & Shouse, A. W. (Eds.). (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Erickson, L. B., Young, J. R., & Pinnegar, S. (2011). Teacher educator identity: Emerging understandings of person, positioning, roles, and collaborations. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 105–108.

Gee, J. P. (2000-2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. In W. G. Sacada (Ed.), Review of Research in Education 25 (pp. 99-125). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Hartsock, N. (1983). The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically historical materialism. In S. Harding & H. M. Hintikka (Eds.), Discovering reality (pp. 283–312). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel.

Intemann, K. (2010). Twenty-five years of feminist empiricism and standpoint theory: Where are we now? Hypatia, 25(4), 778–796.

Judson, E. (2010). Science education as a contributor to Adequate Yearly Progress and accountability programs. Science Education, 94, 888–902.

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Loughran, J., & Northfeld, J. (1998). A framework of self-study practice. In M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice: Self-study in teacher education (pp. 7–18). London, United Kingdom: Falmer.

McNeil, B. (2011). Charting a way forward: Intersection of race and space in establishing identity as an African-Canadian teacher educator. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 133–144.

Moore, R. (2003). Reexamining the field experiences of preservice teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 31–42.

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ANASTASIA P. SAMARAS George Mason University with:LESLEY SMITH, LAURIE HARMON, ILHAM NASSER, TONI SMITH, KIRK BORNE, SETH PARSONS, LOUISA WOODVILLE, LYNNE CONSTANTINE, ESPERANZA ROMAN MENDOZA, JENNIFER SUH, RYAN SWANSON, & DIANA KARCZMARCZYKGeorge Mason University

Reforming in the First Person Plural: Explorations of a Faculty Self-Study Collaborative

Context of the StudyIn August 2010, 11 members from George Mason

University were competitively selected to participate in Scholars of Studying Teaching Collaborative (SoSTC), a multi-semester research initiative sponsored by the university’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). We engaged in a university-wide faculty self-study collaborative facilitated by a self-study scholar. The selected faculty came from various specializations and colleges within one large public university. Each of us, including the facilitator, developed a research question grounded in practice. With the aid of our colleagues, we designed and enacted a self-study project. In addition to our work on individual self-studies, we engaged in a meta-study that set out to document our participation in our faculty self-study collaborative. This report focused on this meta-study.

Conceptual and Theoretical Framework

Sociocultural praxis. Our study was guided by Lave and Wenger’s (1991) premise that individual cognition exchanged within a community of scholarship leads to a more informed collective cognition. The community extends and transforms individuals’ understanding while the individual internalizes cognition, i.e., from intersubjectivity to intrasubjectivity (Dixon-Krauss, 1996). Furthermore, the very nature of dialogue in collective inquiry raises new thought, which, in turn, influences the community itself (Vygotsky, 1978). Self-study research entails such critical collaborative inquiries (LaBoskey, 2004; Samaras, 2011) where personal insights and the research process are documented and presented for critique—a process that validates researchers’ interpretations (Bodone, Guðjónsdóttir, & Dalmau, 2004).

Whereas faculty members historically work in an individualistic and segregated fashion, dialogue across specializations was a requisite for this project, grounded in notions of Vygotksy’s (1981) sociocultural theory. Gathering as a whole group and in critical friend groups, we supported and challenged each other’s understanding of self-study and the methodological soundness of our projects. These organic and diverse communities allowed us to co-mediate, negotiate, and socially construct an understanding of enacting self-study.

Faculty learning communities. Learning communities certainly exist in various educational settings (Lassonde & Israel, 2010; Samaras, Freese, Kosnik, & Beck, 2008) and in university centers committed to supporting faculty teaching (Cox, 2003). However, many university cultures do not offer those supports, forcing faculty to rely on their own resources. Levin and Greenwood (2001) asserted that “universities are mainly devoted to their own, often autopoetic knowledge production processes, to insider academic career struggles,

and, increasingly, to making a profit” (p. 103). Faculty members have generally been taught to research people but not research with people (Heron & Reason, 2001, p. 179), and certainly not to research themselves (Whitehead, 1989). One forum for challenging that tradition has been faculty learning communities, which “provide an excellent structure to help faculty members develop scholarly teaching” (Richlin & Cox, 2004, p. 128). The goal and value of a university collaborative is to solve practical problems while generating knowledge that is negotiated, tested, and peer assessed.

A faculty self-study group is another forum for supporting faculty teaching. Teacher educators have typically been the participants in self-study groups (Gierson et al., 2010; Hoban, 2007; Lunenberg, Zwart, & Korthagen, 2010; Samaras, Kayler, Rigsby, Weller, & Wilcox, 2006). Self-study necessitates a focus on and interplay of personal and collective inquiry, the personal and the interpersonal, and the private and the public (Samaras & Freese, 2006). Latta and Buck (2007) documented this interplay in their self-study and note,

Self-study demands that all of us attend to the experiences and understandings of others, bringing this thinking back to ourselves, inciting an individual-collective movement that is always in the making, forming and reforming, transforming self and others. In this way, turning back on self is a process experienced as interdependent with others. (pp. 191–192)Kitchen, Ciuffetelli Parker, and Gallagher (2009)

noted that “authentic conversations about practice encourage education professors to remain committed to teacher education while fulfilling their scholarly responsibilities” (p. 169). In our faculty self-study collaborative, the majority of participants were not teacher educators.

Method: Self-Study MethodologyThis study employs self-study methodology, a genre

of qualitative research (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) where educators undertake a pedagogical inquiry with the critical support of colleagues to improve teaching and professional practice (Louie, Drevdahl, Purdy, & Stackman, 2003). Self-study scholars critically examine their teaching to develop more consciously driven modes of pedagogical activity, as opposed to relying on habit, tradition, or impulse (Samaras, 2002). Faculty come to unpack their teaching beliefs with “deeper understandings and relationship with others” (Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009, p. 14) by studying their own situated dilemmas for improvement-aimed purposes beyond the self (Loughran & Northfield, 1998). Moreover, self-study scholars embrace teaching “not just as a pedagogical task, but also a ‘social-pedagogical task’” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 830) prompted with moral, ethical, and political aims (Brown, 2004; Zeichner, 1995). They employ various methods (LaBoskey,

2004) while relying upon the self-study methodology as a frame (Samaras, 2011).

Aim/ObjectivesThe aim of this study was the exploration of a self-study

collaborative. It was a meta-study of what we collectively learned about our teaching and ourselves as we enacted individual self-studies within the context of the collaborative. We asked,

1. What is the nature of our progress and development as a faculty self-study of teaching collaborative invested in studying professional practice?

2. What key nodal or critical incidents had an impact on how our community and individual projects evolved?

3. How do we as faculty assess our personal and professional development within the collaborative and with the critical friend network?

Participants and ContextOur group is diverse by culture, discipline, and

experience and included nine females and three males. We came from departments of humanities, social sciences, recreation, education, languages, and the sciences. We met monthly over a 16-month period as a whole group in 90-minute face-to-face meetings. At our first meeting, we shared research interests through artifacts and then chose critical friends groups. Three groups resulted, two with four participants and the other with three. The facilitator also worked with two critical friends: an instructor who had facilitated a faculty self-study group and the Director of CTE. During our whole group meetings, we presented individual self-studies, discussed methodology, and analyzed data. Members volunteered to lead writing and perceptual activities to challenge our notions about research. As critical friends, we met during and outside of the whole-group gatherings. We wrote letters to each other about the design and progress of our individual studies and shared details of research instrument design, data collection, and analysis including preconceptions, assumptions, and misinterpretations. Topics of self-studies included, for example,

• exploring challenges and supports associated with implementation of inquiry-based instruction in a pre-service secondary mathematics methods course• probing how classroom discussion in critical arts courses can be re-imagined as a more powerful tool for learning• investigating how students perceive a faculty member’s values and goals in regards to their own learning and how to support new interventions designed to align those perceptions more fully with her intentions• analyzing whether textbooks are obsolete in first-year history surveys, conducting thorough investigations of how students use texts and the extent to which the faculty member teaching and evaluating fully utilizes assigned readings.Data sources. Blackboard Scholar®, a web-based

community site, supported and extended our large-group and smaller critical-friend discussions. It also served to catalogue data which were open for all members to view and post comments. Each member could contribute materials and postings, such as draft research questions, conference presentations, human subjects review board proposals, suggested publication and presentation outlets, resources, and pedagogical tools shared during our whole-group gatherings.

Primary data sources included (1) narrative mid-project

exit slips assessing the work of the collaborative (collected November 2010); (2) narrative end-of-project exit slips assessing the work of the collaborative (collected April 2011); (3) individual exit interviews with questions designed by the collaborative (conducted by a graduate research assistant with member checks, March through April 2011), and (4) individual narratives on the impact of the collaborative (written August 2011). The prompt for writing the narratives included integrating thinking about our individual self-studies, our individual interview transcript, and activities experienced in the whole-group and critical-friend exchanges (e.g., sharing research artifacts and essays, quick sketches we drew with reflections of our collaborative experience, and letters about our research that we wrote and received from our critical friends). Follow-up studies will focus on individual exit interviews and individual self-study projects. Data were posted on the Blackboard site, as a community artifact and trail for a transparent and systematic group documentation of data collected.

Data analysis. We created teams for data analysis based on our interest: seven members analyzed the narratives and five members analyzed the narrative mid-project and narrative end-of-project exit slips. Using constant comparative analysis (Creswell, 2007), the team analyzing exit slips began by identifying segments of participant responses that addressed the research questions resulting in the following themes: 1) improvement of teaching and attitudes toward students, 2) learning about self-study and research design, 3) group and critical friend meetings for structure, feedback, and motivation, 4) resources and examples provided, 5) new ways to assess our practice/study teaching, and 6) improvement in instruction. A quantitative analysis of the exit slips was also conducted based on the depth of our reflective self-assessment with regard to each research question, using a coding scale from 1 (very weak) to 5 (strongly positive).

The narrative analysis team designed what they coined “a nested waterfall approach,” whereby each of the twelve narratives was read and coded independently with an overlap of at least two readers for each narrative. We identified segments of participant narratives that addressed the research questions and then negotiated preliminary and overlapping categories using the constant comparison method (Creswell, 2007) through open, axial, and selective coding (Patton, 2002). For our second level of analysis, meaning was drawn from the text in a holistic fashion, examining connections and relationships between the categories (Maxwell & Miller, 2008). Detailed analyses of narratives expanded our understandings from the exit slips analysis which resulted in the following themes: 1) individual professional growth, 2) transformative power of working with critical friends, and 3) impact on pedagogical approach and interactions with students. Finally, eight of us agreed to work as a writing team to draw meaning across the full data set and identified the following themes: 1) researching in interdisciplinary partnership, 2) immediate connections and impact, 3) challenges faced, and 4) transformative synergy for personal and professional practice. We address outcomes for each of these themes below.

OutcomesResearching in interdisciplinary partnership. Data

analysis revealed that we found the different levels of groups beneficial. Moving from the large group to small groups and back to the large group provided opportunities for us to rearticulate, document, and access our understandings.

We particularly appreciated being able to learn from each other and discover unexpected zones of connection and relationship across fields. The multiple audiences served to de-center us through awareness of our individual fallibilities. We re-designed questions and instruments, we rethought data analysis and interpretative frameworks, and we made linkages to relevant existing literatures and practices across disciplines. The process rendered our inquiries more dynamic and complex by heightening awareness of blind spots and individuals’ unknown strengths. As a result, an increasing awareness of vulnerability as source of authority, in relation to teaching and learning, liberated us to discard old notions in order to re-center and more authentically ground our practice. We honored each other’s inquiries, probed for clarity and articulation, and assisted with demystifying the self-study methodology.

Immediate connections and impact. There was applicability of our collective work to students’ learning. We gleaned pedagogical ideas from fellow participants’ presentations, which we, in turn, shared with colleagues in our home departments. Connections with heightened reflection were forged from activities enacted with the whole group directly to our pedagogies and research, as this participant describes:

Lesley’s creative writing activity, Lynne’s presentation about the way you see things, and Kirk’s presentation about citizen scientists were all useful in helping me to continue looking for new ways to see things and allow myself to come out of my “comfort zone” and learn new things, too.A quantitative analysis of the mid-project and end-of-

project exit slips also illustrated a rise in positive reflective self-assessment, from 2.67 to 4.10 from mid-project to end-of-project exit slips, in response to question three (how do we as faculty assess our personal professional development within the collaborative and within the critical friend work?). Responses to questions one and two in the end-of-project exit slips also indicated enhanced positive reflective self-assessment.

Presentations of research artifacts were noted as key critical incidents in the development of individual projects. Artifacts and member presentations invited viewing pedagogies in ways wholly alien prior to participants’ involvement in the group, as this participant shared:

I learned more from them about teaching, and about self-transformation, than I have ever learned. I was especially helped by everyone’s reception of my demonstration on the perceptual information. I now see that it is central to what I teach. Challenges faced. We documented challenges faced

in mid-project and end-of-project exit slips, including understanding the complexity of the self-study methodology. As one explained, “I used to think self-study was synonymous to reflective practice but it’s more than that.” One participant realized, “As I read more about the goals of the self-study group, I began to see that the real object of the study was going to be me, not my students and not my course(s)—that was a scary proposition.” Other challenges included accessing technology in the web community, lack of time, scheduling conflicts, unfamiliar language and jargon, and language differences. One participant wrote,

I had a lot of commitments as an administrator at my department, but more importantly, the fact that I was going to be asked to communicate with colleagues from different units—who could be less familiar with the struggles a non-native speaker has to navigate in a foreign culture/language.

Critical friend groups worked with varying degrees of consistency, accountability, and vulnerability. One respondent indicated challenges of meeting obligations with her critical friends group by sharing, “I really adhere when I have this once a month meeting with SOSTC… But with the critical friends’ piece, we are kind of doing it on our own and everybody’s got their own thing to do, myself included.”

Transformative synergy for personal and professional practice. Participants reported the value and multitude of cognitive and emotional support (Day & Leitch, 2001) gained in working with colleagues from diverse disciplines, which facilitated personal to professional connections. Trying to understand and enact the methodology together gave us a common language. Increased awareness of potential transformative synergy emerged as each of us reported transformative action—as a teacher, of our ideas of teaching, of the very nature of pedagogy, and of our teaching purpose. We saw our teaching in new light with the support of the whole group. There were notations of connection, emotion, and revelations of self-assessment and what could be learned through interdisciplinary group perspectives.

Without the year-long experiences with SoSTC and the discussions I would not have had the courage or credibility to include my students in my schooling story and my experiences as an immigrant to this country and the lessons I learned that can apply to their young students.

Several noted an enhanced comfort with “not knowing”—of moving forward within chaos and a lack of certainty about future direction—a significant precondition for creative innovation (Joyce, 1995). One participant wrote in her narrative, “I left that early gathering feeling like I had no control of what would come next for us and I confessed that I loved not knowing.” A second, months later, reflected back, “I spent the first semester not really sure exactly where I was going or what I was doing…I’m pretty tolerant of my own intellectual chaos, as I was taught when young that unlearning is often the most critical part of learning but in our case the chaos phase lasted longer than usual.”

The group became a “sphere of influence” where transformations precipitated sharing of work, which is now having ripple effects beyond our classrooms. For example, one multilingual member of the group who blogs and tweets on teaching and learning has received enthusiastic queries about self-study of teaching from colleagues in Spain, while other participants have presented their research at conferences on Mediaeval History and at the National Art Education Association annual conference and introduced the methodology of self-study of teaching at the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning annual conference. We entered SoSTC as individuals with preconceived notions about what the group would be, what it might do for us, and what we might bring to the table. We leave the group with newly constructed meanings, perceptions, and ideas mediated by this group experience.

Scholarly SignificanceThis meta-study allowed us to explore the nature,

benefits, and challenges of an interdisciplinary faculty self-study collaborative. Enacting the self-study methodology reaffirmed our commitment to improving our teaching in a transparent and documented process with peer review. It restored our humanity and fallibility as teachers because we openly acknowledged the messiness, uncertainties, and complexities of research into teaching and learning (Bass,

1999). Our interactions highlighted teaching as an art as well as a craft (Silva, 1999). SoSTC promoted an integration and wholeness through collaboration and offered preconditions for productive action and change in our work with students. It heightened our awareness of limitations with the rigor of critical friends’ collaboration, extending research challenges to self, colleagues, and students as learning collaborators.

Creativity researchers suggest that learning to appreciate others’ domains, to transfer insights from other domains to one’s own, and to combine concepts drawn from a range of domains enhances the possibility of genuine creative insight through a creative synergy between divergent and convergent thinking (Sawyer, 2006). The cross-disciplinary partnerships expanded these preconditions for us. Working in the first person and with critical friends, we de-institutionalized our questions to find the core of our inquiries within the parameters and support of a learning community.

Our work holds much potential for other faculty learning communities considering forums to think deeply about their practice and the importance of universities to provide a collective space for them to do so. It is also worth noting the value of conveying the effects of engaging in this kind of collaborative on faculty assessment by the administration, i.e., ensuring this kind of engagement is valued quantitatively as well as conceptually via annual evaluations.

ValedictionSelf-study critically examines one’s own beliefs and

actions, focusing “on the space between the self and the practice engaged in…between self in relation to practice and the others who share the practice setting” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p. 15).

AcknowledgmentsWe wish to thank the Center for Teaching Excellence

at George Mason University for sponsoring this initiative and especially its director, Kim Eby, for her strong support and Ashleen Gayda for her administrative contributions. Gratitude is extended to Mieke Lunenberg from Vrije University for being a critical friend to the facilitator. Special thanks to our students who remain at the center of our ongoing explorations to improve our professional practice.

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WENDY SANCHEZKennesaw State University

Extending My Community—Co-Teaching a Methods Course In a PDS Setting With a High School Teacher: Whose Knowledge Counts?

SettingAs part of an Urban Education emphasis program in a

Professional Development School (PDS) funded by a United States Department of Education Teacher Quality Program grant, I co-taught a secondary mathematics methods course in the fall of 2011 with a high school mathematics teacher, Natalie, at the school site. This was the first time the course was taught in the program. As a result of a strange turn of events involving recruiting and financial aid issues, there was only a single student, David, in the course. There was also a doctoral student, Andrea, who attended the course as a participant observer, to collect data for her dissertation. Prior to co-teaching the course, Natalie and I had worked together in one other context. She had served as the collaborating teacher for a student teacher I supervised two years prior. The summer before the course, Natalie and I worked together on a committee with other content faculty to plan the structure of the methods courses. Natalie was chosen by the leadership team of the PDS to serve as my co-teacher. Because Andrea was collecting dissertation data, we audio-taped and transcribed each meeting of the methods course. I saw this as an excellent opportunity for self-study. I wondered how co-teaching with a high-school teacher would affect my teaching of methods.

Aim/ObjectivesMy research questions emerged from my reflection in

my journal that I kept during the methods course. In particular, I wrote in my journal,

This distance between “university knowledge” and “practical knowledge” exists in my mind. I would like to pretend that I think we are coming to the table 100% equal but I don’t. I believe I have knowledge that she doesn’t have…I absolutely think she has knowledge…I don’t have. I guess the question I need to ask myself is do I privilege the knowledge… I have over the knowledge that she has? I wanted to know the nature of the knowledge I valued

from Natalie in practice. My purpose for wanting to know this information was that I would be teaching the course with her again a year later, and I wanted to ensure that I knew the nature of the knowledge and expertise Natalie brought to the class and any patterns that existed in how I valued her knowledge the first time we taught the course so I could use that information to improve my own orientations with respect to knowledge and position in future iterations of the course. In order to investigate these issues, I analyzed the methods course transcripts to answer the following research questions:

1. During the methods course, what was the nature of the knowledge and expertise which I explicitly solicited from Natalie?

2. What was the nature of the knowledge and expertise that Natalie volunteered?3. Were there patterns evident across the solicited and unsolicited domains of knowledge, and, if so, what do those patterns suggest about how I value Natalie’s knowledge and expertise across the domains?

Literature ReviewZeichner (1995) said, “many teachers can readily point

to instances where they have felt excluded from the dialogue by the language of university researchers” (p. 155) and also that teachers “feel that academic researchers are largely insensitive to the complex circumstances with which they are faced in their work and frequently feel exploited by university researchers” (p. 155). He also explained that many academic researchers dismiss teacher research on their practice as trivial or atheoretical. He gave some examples of work at the time that was bridging the divide between teacher research and academic research. In his later work, Zeichner (2010), uses the notion of third space, which comes from hybridity theory and Bhabba’s work. Zeichner explained,

Third spaces involve a rejection of binaries such as practitioner and academic knowledge and theory and practice and involve the integration of what are often seen as competing discourses in new ways—an either/or perspective is transformed into a both/also point of view. (p. 61)

Zeichner (2010) cited examples of what he considered third space models, for example, a teacher-in-residence program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In this program, highly competent teachers spent a two-year residency at the university working in all aspects of their teacher education program. He also cited Professional Development School Models, one in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin–Madison where methods courses were taught at the school and “there is a deliberate effort to connect academic and practitioner knowledge in support of student teachers’ learning how to enact specific teaching practices advocated in methods courses” (p. 61). Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1990) argued that teachers have a uniquely emic perspective and offer knowledge about teaching that university faculty do not have.

Coulter and Wiens (2002), in a beautiful article on the divide between teachers and researchers, characterized the differences using an analogy of actors and spectators. The authors used the philosophies of Holocaust scholar Hannah Arendt (1958), Plato, Kant, and Aristotle to discuss the underlying problems behind the divide. They lamented:

Teachers are often encouraged to be compliant laborers, delivering curriculum using best practice strategies and having their work checked by quality control testing tied

to objective standards…Teachers generally have few public or private spaces for dialogues with others or with themselves and few opportunities to use either visiting or critical imagination. Indeed, the environment seems designed to promote Eichmannism. At the same time, university researchers are often rewarded by tenure, promotion, and grant committees for withdrawing from the world of action and generating knowledge measured by the number of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals-that might (or might not) be used to prescribe for other people’s practices. The Platonic withdrawal from the world of action to create the division between “those who know and do not act and those who act and do not know” (Arendt, 1958, p. 223) seems almost complete. (p. 23)

Coulter and Wiens (2002) concluded their article with a call for researchers and teachers, actors and spectators, to work together to develop knowledge, but more importantly, to act together on that knowledge. In the face of the systems in place for both groups, the action portion of the call is a daunting challenge indeed.

MethodsBerry (2007) explained that research investigating

teacher educators’ practice is limited and rarely done by teacher educators themselves. She further noted that teacher educators are often accused of contradicting their own instruction. Self-study is a way of investigating one’s own practice to discover what Whitehead (1989) called the “living contradictions” in practice, for the purpose of improving practice.

The study was a qualitative case study because the unit of analysis was clearly bounded by the methods course (Merriam, 2009). I was the participant; however, data were collected from Natalie, David, and Andrea in order to situate my practice. Analysis of the data included standard qualitative analysis methods (Merriam, 2009) of open-coding and the organization of codes into categories. I then sought to link the findings together in meaningful ways in an effort to explain them (Merriam, 2009). More specifically, each of the 14 three-hour methods classes was audio-recorded and transcribed. Using the qualitative analysis software Atlas ti, I coded each instance of dialogue when I invited Natalie to speak. For example, on October 11, 2011, David asked our philosophy on homework, and I explicitly asked, “What’s your philosophy, Natalie?” I also coded each instance of dialogue when Natalie spoke without solicitation. On September 20, 2011, the following dialogue occurred:

WENDY: We tend to think as teachers that word problems means higher order. NATALIE: Yes, because I just realized something that I am doing wrong. In my classroom these past months a lot of times I [realize my students don’t have the] background knowledge so I know that they need to complete the task or at least take it to that next level without a lot of [time left in class] which might filter down to the lower level. …WENDY: I think I might need to bring in that chapter from the purple book because it talks about that very thing….about factors that cause teachers to maintain cognitive demand and factors that caused teachers to decline. I don’t think it’s in this book. But it is in the other one. I’ll bring that. Once I coded all the transcripts, I formed networks to

sort the data into categories and collapsed categories when possible.

With respect to trustworthiness, I used LaBoskey’s (2004) description in which trustworthiness is ultimately assessed by the reader. To provide evidence for the trustworthiness of the study for the reader, I situated the findings within a literature base in teacher education. I have provided a clear description of my analysis procedures.

Outcomes and FindingsWhen networks were formed, I created Table 1,

matching like categories. On the left are categories of Natalie’s input in response to my request for input. In the top half of the table, I matched the similar categories that emerged from the two networks—that is, the categories that were similar when Natalie was invited to participate and when she chose to participate. At the bottom of the table is where the difference emerged. The bottom right of the table is the most revealing quadrant, particularly when viewed in the context of the course goals and objectives taken directly from the course syllabus. The phrases in the bottom right quadrant of Table 1 correspond to the bolded phrases in the course goals and objectives. It should be noted that Table 1 was generated from the data and was only compared to the syllabus after data analysis. The numbers in parentheses in the table represent the frequency of occurrence of that type of input.

Course Goals and Objectives Upon successful completion of this course the candidate

will1. learn and be able to use a variety of research-based instructional strategies that focus beyond the procedural aspects of mathematics to include the conceptual aspects of mathematics.2. develop an awareness and sensitivity to students from different backgrounds as related to the concepts of race, socioeconomic status, eth nicity, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, and exceptionalities, and use this awareness to develop instruction and assessments for all learners, particularly learners in an urban environment.3. integrate content and pedagogical knowledge to design engaging instruction that incorporates technology, hands-on-learning, and inquiry-based learning experiences that facilitate urban students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics.4. learn and be able to use management and instructional strategies for motivating and engaging all students in meaningful mathematical tasks that require students to engage in problem-solving and reasoning.5. connect mathematical concepts with one another and to applications in other disciplines.6. learn and be able to use assessment strategies that require higher-order thinking on the part of students for a variety of purposes, including directing instruction and evaluation.7. develop a reflective approach to the profession of teaching mathematics and a commitment to life-long learning through participation in professional organizations (particularly the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) and professional development opportunities. 8. demonstrate professional behavior (e.g., be on time, dress professionally, demonstrate positive attitude, behave collegially).

DiscussionWith respect to my first research question, the left side of

Table 1 demonstrates that, for the most part, I turned to Natalie for her knowledge and expertise on practical, school-based issues. I asked her how she made instructional decisions and about her instructional challenges, and how course readings resonated with her practice. I asked her about special issues with urban environments and other environmental factors in her school. With respect to the second research question, she volunteered her knowledge and expertise in these same areas as well. But more interestingly, she also volunteered her knowledge and expertise in areas that were much more global, aligned with course readings and the mathematics education reform literature in general, and aligned with the broad goals of the course. In fact, the two areas in which she volunteered her knowledge and expertise the most were strategies for keeping cognitive demand high and in pressing David to reflect, which are undoubtedly two of my core goals for the course. Hence, as I answer my third research question, I unfortunately think there are patterns revealed in the findings that suggest that I valued Natalie’s knowledge and expertise in practical, school-based matters, but I did not turn to her for her knowledge and expertise in broader goals of the course. She did share her knowledge and expertise during the course in these areas. I did not, for this study, explicitly analyze how I reacted when she volunteered her knowledge. I see this as a next step in the analysis. That is, I would code my reaction to her volunteered statements as, for example, cut off, probe, or re-direct. I can offer an excerpt from the data that shows an example of a class interaction during which Natalie shared her views about mathematics and I reacted:

WENDY: Don’t expect them to have them memorized…we give them too many sets and they’ve got to develop the kind of understanding that will allow them to flexibly problem solve when they don’t have a set of steps memorized, because they’re going to forget them. NATALIE: I always think of it as you have to go somewhere for the first time and sometimes you have map and sometimes you have directions and then you start trying to find different ways to get to that place. I always think of math in that way. DAVID: That’s cool.NATALIE: Did you ever think about that? Some teachers [say] “I taught that. I went through this.” But when I had to from my house to school, I used a navigation system. And the next time I went I couldn’t do it even though I went to it before.WENDY: That’s great.NATALIE: I said even though you taught it to them once doesn’t mean they get it. Just like me getting directions for the first time. I’m awful at it—from home to here I was awful. It took me using the navigation a couple of times and I had to try different ways. I always think of math in that way. WENDY: I’m going to use that. (October 11, 2011)As I reflect on the findings of the study, the literature,

and what happens next, I have learned much and have many new directions to consider as a result of the study. I have shared the findings of the study with Natalie. The first thing we have discussed is that she will be taking the lead in the course when we teach it in fall 2012 in the following four areas.

1. Keeping a high level of cognitive demand for students2. Becoming a reflective, life-long learner3. Developing engagement strategies4. Developing nurturing and caring environments for students

I have thought about the exchange that is quoted in the methods section of this paper when Natalie said, “Yes, because I just realized something that I am doing wrong…” (September 20, 2011). I followed her statement by taking about research and saying I would bring in a book that discussed the very thing she was talking about. I remember when I said that, my intention was to show her that she was not alone—that what she was describing was common. Then I think back to Zeichner’s (1995, 2010) work, which tells us teachers can feel excluded from the dialogue by the language of researchers and that researchers are insensitive to the teachers’complex circumstances. Did I reduce Natalie’s feelings about the complexity of her situation to a chapter in a book filled with language by which she would feel excluded? I will be much more careful now in the way I use research language and in the ways I honor the complexities of teaching.

Another important adjustment we have made in the course is that the first hour will happen during a time when Natalie is teaching high school students. Then the high school students will leave and Natalie and I will have our students alone. In order to capitalize on this situation, we will have to find time for common planning, which we did not do well the first time we co-taught. We know from the co-teaching literature (Scruggs, Mastorpieri, & McDuffie, 2007) that planning is necessary for an effective co-teaching partnership, and we did not have this criterion in place the first time. Our goal is to plan our lessons so that we read about a strategy in methods, then Natalie and I co-teach the high school students with the prospective teachers observing us, then we discuss the implementation of the strategy after the high school students leave. In some cases, our prospective teachers may try the strategy with our support. We would have Natalie’s class as a “lab class” for our methods students. I see this arrangement as a manifestation of Zeichner’s (2010) description of a third space and as an answer to Coulter and Wiens (2002) call to think, act, know, and judge together.

ReferencesArendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago, IL: The

University of Chicago Press.Berry, A. (2007). Self-study in teaching about teaching. In

J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 1295–1331). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Bhabba, H. (1990). The third space. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity, community, culture and difference (pp. 207-221). London, United Kingdom: Lawrence and Wishart.

Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1990). Research on teaching and teacher research: The issues that divide. Educational Researcher, 19(2), 2–11

Coulter, D., & Wiens, J. R. (2002). Educational judgment: Linking the actor and the spectator. Educational Researcher, 31(4), 15–25.

Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Scruggs, T. E., Mastropieri, M. A., & McDuffie, K. A. (2007). Co-teaching in inclusive classrooms: A metasynthesis of qualitative research. Exceptional Children, 73(4), 392–416.

Whitehead, J. (1989). Creating a living educational theory from questions of the kind, “How do I improve my practice?” Cambridge Journal of Education, 19, 41–52.

Zeichner, K. M. (1995). Beyond the divide of teacher research and academic research. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 1(2), 153–172.

Zeichner, K. M. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 89–99.

JOSEPH C. SENESENorthwestern University

Incorporating Explicit Reflective Practices That Develop Reflective Teachers

Context/PurposeIt is common for teachers of any grade level (including

teacher educators) to dwell on problems they encounter in teaching, but rarely do teachers spend time considering their successes (Korthagen & Verkuyl, 2007). Loughran (2006a) pointed out that the practice of analyzing successes might simply be another way of reframing a “problem,” which he defined as anything that attracts attention.

This self-study began as a reflection on the perceived success of a graduate-level elective course that analyzed student and teacher work to inform teaching practice. I have taught this course for four years, but during winter term 2011, the dynamics were such that both the 20 students and instructor felt that the learning environment was optimal. I wanted to find out what elements made the class “work” to achieve its goal of producing reflective practice and especially to investigate my role as the instructor of the course.

A logical theoretical framework in which to place this study centered on teaching reflective practice to teachers (Pollard, 2002; Pultorak, 1993; Schön, 1987; Seban, 2009; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). Ultimately, I ended up testing my own belief system about teaching and learning (Senese, 2002) against what occurred in the course.

Each week’s lesson required students to share a piece of their student or teacher work. In groups of four or five, they followed strict guidelines of a protocol provided by the National School Reform Faculty (2012), “a professional development initiative that focuses on increasing student achievement through professional learning communities…. [which] use protocols and activities that result in meaningful and efficient communication, problem solving and learning” (homepage). I sat in on discussions of each group. Once in a while, I interrupted to make a point (e.g., “When you give too much information at the start, you have already biased the group’s response. Let the work speak for itself.”), but mostly I listened. By the end of the course, each student created an original protocol. The class culminated in students sharing their learning and submitting a portfolio of their work.

ObjectivesThe objectives of this study evolved throughout the

process. The initial goal was to discover the elements of a course that, according to evaluations, caused deep learning for the graduate students enrolled in it. Ultimately I hoped to duplicate those elements in other courses. From that origin, the question evolved to include investigating my role as the instructor of this course in the course’s success. I compared my behaviors in the course with my stated beliefs (Senese, 2002) and the declared objective of the course to encourage reflective practice as a critical component of teaching (Dalmau

& Gudjonsdottir, 2002; Russell, 2007). I wanted to know if I was aligning my beliefs with my practice (Loughran, 2007).

Because the course emphasized reflective practice, I was naturally drawn to review Loughran’s (2006b) six assumptions about effective reflective practice. I have previously responded to these assumptions and have offered my views on their importance (Senese, 2008). Using these assumptions as a retrospective framework, I sought to find if and how students became reflective about their own teaching practices and what things resonated with them to cause growth. These assumptions provided the most illuminating framework in which to consider the success of this course and to situate reflective practices more purposefully in other courses that I teach. It also afforded a context in which to analyze my own role in the success of the course.

In this study I sought examples of how Loughran’s (2006b) six assumptions were reflected in my work and affected student perceptions and practice. Given that I had claimed that these assumptions and their resolutions were paramount to providing “necessary luxuries” to teacher reflection (Senese, 2008), I wondered how closely I had addressed them in designing and teaching this course. Could my understanding of Loughran’s assumptions have influenced me and contributed to the students’ increased ability to reflect on their own practice and have helped them to at least consider if not enact improvements in their practice?

MethodsData consisted of teacher reflections in weekly online

discussion boards over the ten weeks of the course from January to March 2011, multiple informal conversations with students during and after the course, researcher recollections and journals, and ratings and comments from the generic university course evaluations.

Analyzing data included coding 95 pages of student online discussions written over the ten-week course. Emerging themes were verified by comparing them to the comments of three enthusiastic students. The constant comparative method of data analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was used to construct categories and themes that captured the recurring patterns that emerged from the data.

Data also included an audit trail of researcher field notes and recollections dating from the time of the course until the present, noting the emergence of patterns of behaviors and consistency of comments. I combined this with analyzing the graduate student work and my own journaling to establish a degree of validation. The data are articulated around major themes focusing on the students’ and my own perceptions and experiences in light of Loughran’s (2006b) assumptions about reflection and my stated beliefs about teaching (Senese, 2002).

OutcomesBeginning with the simplest of inquiries (What

element(s) caused the “success” of this course?), I looked at the simplest of measurements. Anonymous student evaluations of the course (60% return /12 of 20 students) rated 16 of 17 statements about the course “very high” (above 5.0 out of 6); one of 17 statements was rated “high.” Written comments mentioned my passion, the practicality of what was being learned, and the immediate applications to classroom practice. Students appreciated the opportunity to have structured conversations with peers about issues that they were interested in.

Although Loughran (2006b) did not intend the six assumptions to be a sequential recipe for creating conditions for reflection, the data from this study supports the notion that by consciously considering these assumptions, teachers learn effective ways to reflect on their practice.

The analysis of student reflections on the discussion board suggested that Loughran’s (2006b) six assumptions about effective reflection were borne out in the design and execution of the course. Student posts over the ten-week course provided data to support the influence of the six assumptions and how students addressed them.

The following student posts from the weekly discussion board and my analysis of them illustrated how the class activities underscored each of Loughran’s (2006b) assumptions:

A problem is unlikely to be acted on if it is not viewed as a problem. Students learned that analyzing one issue might uncover many other issues.

• This protocol/process opened my eyes to how important small changes can be. A member of my group mentioned moving my name line from the center of the page to the top left hand corner for organizational purposes. It was like a light bulb turned on for me! • Too many times I have entered grades for a test or any other assignment and not really analyzed what is staring right at me. Using data analysis, following the example in class, can shed light on trends that are not visible to the naked eye.• It was interesting to hear responses from multiple perspectives, often ones I would not necessarily think to seek out myself. • After this exercise, I created a math worksheet for my field site for when my supervisor visited. I was able to use many of the lessons learned from my group, catching and being aware of many things I was previously oblivious to.Rationalization may masquerade as reflection.

Students learned that listening might be more important than explaining or justifying.

• The biggest lesson I learned from this protocol besides learning to evaluate work in a non-judgmental way is that I am extremely hard headed. It is going to be an eye opening experience in future protocols to try to step back from my own work and separate when my assessments are really effective or when I am just being hard headed.• My guiding question was based on certain biases about what we would find in the student work, and while my group members did find evidence to support what I assumed we would find, I wish now that I had spoken less. I am curious if they would have agreed so strongly on the same conclusion if I had influenced them less

with what I was looking for and my biases about what they would find.• At one point the group discussed ways to help a struggling student of mine, and rather than letting the discussion flow freely, I responded to each suggestion, letting them know in what way I had already tried that. I think if I had just kept my mouth closed, I would have been able to get more from the protocol.• Instead of defending my assessment I should have listened to what you had to say. What I thought was a good assessment proved to be much more difficult for my students. You predicted that right away!Experience alone does not lead to learning—

reflection on experience is essential. Students learned to take time to reflect on what they were learning and to remain open to new possibilities.

• Listening to the analysis of my peers confirmed my own confusion with my student’s work. Through their questions and time I was given the opportunity to look deeper at some of the patterns of my student’s work. They noticed inconsistencies in spacing and letter formations that I hadn’t noticed, but once they pointed them out I agreed.• Just that process encouraged me to be more empathetic to views that are divergent from my own, and with that caused me to reflect on my own beliefs and opinions.• As a final step in my protocol, I included a reflection on the use of the protocol for all the participants. This was very eye-opening and allowed me to see what I myself would improve, as well as to solicit suggestions from group members.Other ways of seeing problems must be developed.

Students learned to reframe problems and explore solutions.• I don’t mean to be cheesy but the journey of the protocols in this class is a sort of perfect metaphor for the journey of teaching. You have to try out a bunch of different ways of doing things to get better until you find what best suits you...and even then, you still have to try new things because you find that some colleague is doing something really cool that would be great for you!• As I listened to my peers describe my student’s work, including various grammatical/spelling errors, I was able to begin thinking about strategies to help that student. I found their descriptions to be more valuable than their actual questions and speculations.• I found it extremely valuable that we were able to say things we wouldn’t normally be able to. I noticed that my classmates and I were able to bring up points of view that would otherwise be considered narrow-minded or ignorant, but this protocol provided a safe space within which we could dialogue, back and forth, about important issues.Articulation matters. Students learned the value of

explaining and writing about their own and others’ learning.• I didn’t realize how many details have become almost second nature to us teachers until I was asked to explain my thought process in writing the assessment.• The general theme that comes to my mind about protocols is creating the time and space to talk about teaching/learning issues in a more focused, and probably richer way. Protocols make us stay with the student work and issue at hand longer so we can get more out of them.• I also found that I took a lot away from talking about other classmates’ work and seeing how looking at theirs can inform my own work. I think this really speaks to

the fact that just talking with colleagues in this way—whatever the topic—can help you reflect and re-evaluate your own practice. Developing professional knowledge is an important

outcome of reflection. Students learned to generalize their understandings and to expand applications.

• Through analyzing student work, both my students’ and others, I realized that I should have more confidence in my ability to assess my students’ learning needs and take more action when necessary.• Sometimes it’s not the teacher who is the problem or the students who are the problem but timing and outside circumstances. Flexibility is key.• Most students did well and one or two questions really divided the class. Which prior to the discussion I might have thought that they were deceptive questions, but really those questions were doing what they were supposed to be doing, showing which students had an understanding of the material.• I think this protocol proved in a very concentrated form how challenging decisions can be; there is so rarely one right answer.

My RoleBullock (2009) may have captured the essence of what

occurred in the class this year and illuminated the role I played in the students’ ability to develop a reflective stance:

Productive learning occurs as a result of a shared intellectual commitment to a common learning problem. Intellectual control over the classroom is shared between the teacher and the students, so that students’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions are valid starting points for the group’s learning. (p. 299)Student evaluations of the course pointed to the impact

that protocol-driven small-group discussions with peers and a focus on student or teacher work had on reflection because within those elements lay the encouragement to suspend beliefs about practice. The design of the class indicated my willingness to trust that students could learn the most from their commitment to helping each other reflect. Only in retrospect did I realize that I had enacted my previously stated beliefs to “relinquish control,” “be tight,” and “go slow” (Senese, 2002), all of which provided students with opportunities to reflect on their own and each other’s practice.

Relinquish control in order to gain influence. I, as the teacher of this course, have a tremendous amount of control, yet I freely relinquish that control so that students can learn from each other. I raised questions, probed, and perhaps commented. I shared personal experiences, some of which were problems in my own practice.

That said, students chose the work they brought in each week. Students chose their final portfolio topic and how to address it. Students chose how to share their portfolio with others on the last night of class. Discussions in small groups were student led. Even though I chose the protocols and the order in which we used them, set the parameters of the course, and assigned grades, the protocols controlled how the discussion was to proceed. When I did raise questions, they were often open-ended and multi-faceted, ones for which I did not have clear answers (e.g., Is it preferable that students know something or understand it?), thus encouraging students to formulate their own beliefs and understandings.

Be tight to be loose. The structure of the class was tight but loose. By that I mean that students had very few requirements to complete the class, but the requirements were

strictly adhered to. On the obverse, within that tight structure was a lot of room for individual interests, imagination, creativity, and purposes.

The protocols were a friendly way to create a “tight” structure that allowed students to be “loose.” To me this meant that when using protocols, conversations had a structure and strictures that created a safe environment to share and listen. Each participant knew his or her role because the protocol provided it. Time frames for each step of a protocol were given. Each protocol had a stated purpose. Yet within this construction lay the freedom to present problems of practice, to question (both to inform but more importantly to probe), and to spend the time necessary to delve into issues. The complexity of teaching and learning was made explicit.

Go slow to go fast. Each week of this course took students one step further into experiencing a variety of ways to analyze and interpret student work. The process began slowly with an exercise on how to ask probing questions and gradually led them to create their own protocol. Although they may have experienced only a fraction of the available protocols, each session built on and extended the last one. The experience of the class readied students to incorporate reflection on action (Schön, 1983) into their daily practice, an idea introduced in the first class.

Conclusion and SignificanceReflection, especially self-reflection, does not come

naturally, because learning about teaching is a very personal experience. Helping students of teaching to capitalize on that learning is an essential aspect of teacher education. In so doing, there is a clear need to create conditions for learning through which real possibilities for growth exist, so that development in learning about teaching might be grasped in ways that are both appropriate to individuals and responsive to their needs within their given teaching and learning context (Loughran, 2006a, p. 118).

The “success” of this course can be measured with several rulers. The use of structured protocols to examine student and teacher work provided a safe, even nurturing, environment in which to reflect on and talk about practice, creating the conditions for learning that Loughran (2006a, p. 118) mentions. This iterative process ultimately moved teachers forward because each teacher remained an individual learner about his or her own practice. My role was to be true to my avowed beliefs as a teacher who could respond to my learner’s needs. Based on this experience I have introduced original protocols into three other courses that I teach as I continue to discover the opportunities they provide teachers for reflection.

ReferencesBullock. S. (2009). Learning to think like a teacher educator:

Making the substantive and syntactic structures of teaching explicit through self-study. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 291–304.

Dalmau, M., & Gudjonsdottir, H. (2002). Framing professional discourse with teachers: Professional working theory. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study (pp. 102–129). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Glaser B., & Strauss A. (1999). Discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Press.

Korthagen, F., & Verkuyl, H. (2007). Do you encounter your students or yourself: The search for inspiration as an essential component of teacher education. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships, and practices (pp. 106–123). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Loughran, J. (2006a). A response to ‘Reflecting on the self’. Reflective Practice, 7(1), 43–53.

Loughran, J. (2006b). Developing a pedagogy of teacher education: Understanding teaching and learning about teaching. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

National School Reform Faculty. (2012). Harmony Education Center. Retrieved from http://www.nsrfharmony.org/

Pollard, A. (2002). Reflective teaching: Effective and evidence-informed professional practice. London, United Kingdom: Continuum.

Pultorak, E. G. (1993). Facilitating reflective thought in novice teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 44(4), 288–295.

Russell, T. (2007). How experience changed my values as a teacher educator. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships, and practices (pp. 182–191). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Seban, D. (2009). Researching reflective field practices of elementary pre-service teachers: Two-dimensional analysis of teacher narratives. Reflective Practice, 10(5), 669–681.

Senese, J. (2002). Opposites attract: What I learned about being a classroom teacher by being a teacher educator. In J. Loughran & T. Russell (Eds.), Improving teacher education practices through self-study (pp. 43–55). London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeFalmer.

Senese, J. (2008). Providing the necessary luxuries for teacher reflection. In T. Russell & J. Loughran (Eds.), Enacting a pedagogy of teacher education: Values, relationships, and practices (pp. 45–59). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (1987). Teaching student teachers to reflect. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 23–48.

I believe that reflection is an important aspect of developing as a teacher. I try to impart that to my preservice teachers through our discussions, assignments, and activities. As Russell (2005) notes, “fostering reflective practice requires far more than telling people to reflect and then simply hoping for the best” (p. 203). While I do bring a good deal of hope to my classroom, I also want to bring my students to reflective practice as a way to understand, question, and grow as teachers. I, too, want to develop as a teacher. While my use of reflective practice supports that goal, through self-study, I am able to step back from the classroom, look at my teaching with new eyes, and apply my developed (and developing) understanding to my practice (Dinkelman, 2003; Loughran, 2005).

Study AimsMy interest in this self-study (my first) connects to

my interest in examining the place of the student-teacher relationship in teaching and learning. I agree with Dewey (1960) and Schön (1983) that “interaction with others offers alternative meanings, encourages new understandings and provides support to engage in the often difficult process of reflection” (Shoffner, 2008, p. 129). A meaningful opportunity for research develops when that reflective interaction occurs between preservice teacher and teacher educator.

Therefore, the purpose of this self-study is threefold: (1) to explore the specific ways I interact with my preservice teachers through a reflective assignment, (2) to consider the implications of these interactions for the student-teacher relationship, and (3) to apply what I have learned to improve future interactions. I continue to use this assignment, providing me with the opportunity (and the impetus) to consider my reflective interactions and the implications of those interactions for the student-teacher relationship.

Context of the StudyIn our undergraduate teacher preparation program, I

frequently teach a capstone methods course focused on the teaching and learning of secondary English language arts. A recurring assignment is the ubiquitous reflection journal. To support this assignment, I assign a reading on reflection, such as a chapter from Zeichner and Liston’s (1996) Reflective Teaching: An Introduction, and engage students in a discussion of their experiences with and understandings of reflective practice. I then ground their reflection journal in the framework of informal reflection, which relies on the elements of practical theory, flexible structure, personal expression, and communal interaction (Shoffner, 2008).

This is a relatively unstructured assignment—from a student’s perspective—but one that engages preservice teachers in what I hope is more authentic reflection than they

have previously encountered. In their reflections, students are encouraged to draw on their past experiences and current beliefs to question their future teaching, engaging their practical theory. There are no assigned questions to answer or topics to address, with the intention that this flexibility will encourage them to reflect on ideas and issues of personal interest. Students are free to express themselves as they personally choose; I do not monitor (or mind) their spelling, sentence structure, lack of capitalization, or use of curse words. Lastly, students are encouraged to share their reflections with classmates, although most choose to share their reflections only with me, a potential limitation when it comes to communal interaction.

Students share their journals electronically, choosing weblogs, e-mailed Word attachments, or direct e-mails for their reflections. My requirement of an electronic medium is intended to distance their reflections from the oh-so-familiar formal paper submitted to the professor for feedback and a grade. I do provide feedback in the form of an e-mailed or posted response to each reflection, but, in keeping with informal reflection, my grading of the reflections is based on completion.

Literature ReviewReflection is a common term in teacher preparation,

with a number of definitions, applications, and implications. Despite its open-endedness, however, reflection as an act of conscious consideration and subsequent action is a beneficial practice for teachers at any stage in their development. Through reflection, “teachers become aware of their mental structures, subject them to a critical analysis, and if, necessary, restructure them” (Korthagen, 2001, p. 51). This mental analysis is an opportunity to intentionally examine the beliefs, assumptions, emotions, and actions that inform and influence teachers’ daily practice. Such analysis requires an open mind and a genuine enthusiasm for engaging in the intellectually challenging work of examination and change (Dewey, 1960).

Understandably, reflective practice can be difficult, especially for preservice teachers who are developing as educators while learning content and pedagogy. Their development is precisely why reflection is so important, however, since preservice teachers can use reflective practice to learn by challenging current understandings and considering different perspectives that connect to and influence the many complex elements of teaching and learning (Shoffner, 2009). As Larrivee (2000) explains, “Unless teachers engage in critical reflection and ongoing discovery they stay trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions, and expectations” (p. 294)—and this applies equally to preservice teachers.

MELANIE SHOFFNERPurdue University

Reflection, Responses, and Relationships: Examining My Practice Through Self-Study

Reflection shares its difficult yet beneficial nature with self-study. Loosely defined, self-study is the practice of examining self, teaching, and learning to develop a more informed understanding to guide action and belief in the classroom (Loughran, 2004). Through this “intentional and systematic inquiry into one’s own practice” (Dinkelman, 2003, p. 8), self-study appears to resemble “reflection of a different sort” (p. 9). LaBoskey (2004) cautions that reflection and self-study are not the same but they do support a similar aim: meaningful consideration of one’s practice. By consciously engaging in reflection, the teacher adopts a critical stance towards beliefs and actions in an effort to change aspects of her teaching (Dinkelman, 2003; Freese, 2006; Larrivee, 2000). Likewise, the self-study of practice relies on the teacher’s willingness to closely examine personal experience and “make sense of life as lived” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 78). By studying “one’s own narrative of practice” (Freese, 2006, p. 103), the teacher gains a broader understanding of teaching and the issues surrounding teaching and learning.

MethodsThe data for this self-study is drawn from an exempt

research study examining secondary preservice English teachers’ engagement with reflection. Between fall 2006 and fall 2009, I collected 85 preservice teachers’ reflection journals. Because student reflection was the focus of the research, I did not automatically collect my reflective responses. Therefore, when I returned to the reflections for this self-study, I separated those journals that included my responses from those that did not, identifying 47 journals with responses.

As data, the 47 journals were analyzed using content analysis (Patton, 2002). Through multiple readings, repeating concepts in my responses were identified and grouped into broad categories; using the reflections as context, these categories were then refined through additional readings into focused themes. To support interaction in self-study (Pinnegar, Hamilton, & Fitzgerald, 2010), a graduate student assisted with this analysis. Separately, we completed a first analysis of the data before meeting to discuss our initial understandings and refine our identified categories. When the graduate student was unable to continue with the work, I continued on my own, using our initial categories to guide the creation of specific themes.

DiscussionMuch to my surprise, this self-study revealed that my

reflective responses are extensions of my classroom teaching. The ways I interact with students through my responses clearly identify me as the professor despite the electronic medium, the grounding in informal reflection, and the frequent late-night composing. I simply did not expect my “informal” reflective interactions to so closely mimic my “formal” classroom interactions.

In both contexts, I try to challenge students by asking questions and requiring support, extend their understanding by providing additional information and alternative viewpoints, and offer support by accepting ideas and affirming emotions. Little of the personal is revealed in my responses or my classroom teaching; while my personality is clear, my personal experiences and opinions remain rather hazy.

Challenging current beliefs. My most frequent responses to students were ones that challenged the students in some way. At times, my challenging responses were direct and rather blunt: “You’re making some sweeping assumptions

here.” Often, they were tempered with agreement—“In general, I don’t disagree with your assessment”—but continued with an opposing viewpoint.

Frequently, I challenged the preservice teachers to engage more thoughtfully with their reflections, urging them to avoid “what comes easily” in favor of “taking the time to wrestle with the harder parts.” Even when students demonstrated strong reflection, my responses pushed them to go beyond that: “You use your reflection this week to draw connections and consider applications—nicely done. You also need to push past what you know, however, to consider what you don’t. Consider how people may disagree with you; offer a perspective that disagrees with yours; play your own devil’s advocate.”

However I framed my responses, I tried to contest the preservice teachers’ stated beliefs with a different way of making sense of the given issue. Often, I did so through questions that drew attention to viewpoints or perspectives students might not reach on their own. My responses were intentionally provoking, much like my efforts to serve as devil’s advocate during class discussion:

• “Pick your battles. If the teacher addresses the makeup session, she may engage a student who is willing to fight back—is it worth taking away from instructional time? If the teacher confiscates the cell phone, she may draw attention to a student who isn’t really affecting others—is it worth disrupting class? Perhaps the teacher is willing to overlook mundane matters in order to concentrate on larger issues that create larger problems.”

• “Who decides what sounds ignorant? How do we determine who is speaking properly? Why is regional dialect more acceptable than slang if both are improper uses of grammar? Language is a difficult issue, especially for an English teacher.” Extending understanding. Often, my responses were

attempts to extend preservice teachers’ understanding of their chosen topic. These interactions offered students different viewpoints or alternate explanations through additional information:

• “Good points about group work. Remember, though, that the majority of students aren’t used to group work—it isn’t the norm in schools—so they are naturally resistant to it in the classroom. It takes some work to build a classroom atmosphere where students are willing to engage with their peers. Consider how you can build that atmosphere from the very first day.”

• “Students need the opportunity to see themselves reflected in what they read. If you approach any topic with sensitivity and stress the learning objectives over the moral lesson, you have the ability to bring a wide range of current adolescent issues into your English classroom in responsible and legitimate ways.”In general, my responses to extend understanding were

offered in a less intentionally provoking manner than the previously noted challenging responses. Rather than negate the preservice teacher’s stated understanding, I attempted to expand it, hoping they would integrate the new information into their practical theory. In effect, I was lecturing:

• “ESL students are defined by one feature in our educational system: language. Beyond that, any other needs are classified separately—but often, because of the language barrier, ESL students who would benefit from modifications for attention deficit disorder or for test anxiety, for example, are not identified due to their ‘lack of’ English.”

• “As you point out, the issues addressed in much YA lit are often too real and relevant to students: violence, death, sex, ostracism, identity, homosexuality, gang violence. Canonical texts address these same issues (Hamlet not being the most well-adjusted young man) but they seem safe precisely because they are divorced from student experience. Engagement with the text becomes more objective—academic if you will—than that offered through the ‘realistic’ texts written for young adults today.”Supporting ideas and emotions. My responses also

supported preservice teachers’ ideas and emotions but, admittedly, this type of response was less common than those that challenged or extended. In the classroom, I also tend to offer limited positive reinforcement, preferring a quick “good” over more effusive support.

My supportive responses were typically brief and to the point: “I’m glad things have improved with the girls. You’re certainly seeing the importance of creating connections for students, both with the material and with the teacher.” Sometimes, they were so brief, they weren’t even complete sentences: “Very nice reflection with which to end the semester, asserting your agency as a teacher to respond to change and support student growth.” My responses tended to reiterate important ideas from the preservice teachers’ reflections, supporting their conclusions by restating and reasserting them in my own words: “Congratulations on a successful lesson! You note several elements of ‘good’ teaching in your reflection: staying flexible, connecting the material to student understanding, providing structure within the assignment.” I also offered support for students’ engagement with reflection, identifying and naming their reflective practices: “You’ve picked out some interesting approaches to reading for your secondary classroom. You haven’t accepted them without some thought on your students’ needs and your own teaching, however, which reveals reflection on your part.”

Often, my supportive responses acknowledged the difficulties of teaching and reassured students that their concerns and fears were perfectly acceptable. In these instances, my responses focused on mitigating difficult emotions—much like the tissues and chocolate I keep in my office:

• “Teachers are human; they cry, they bleed, they laugh, they scream in the bathroom after the students leave.”

• “Would it make you feel better to know that fear never really goes away? The good news is that your past, present and future mistakes are necessary, since they allow you to grow into the kind of teacher parents do indeed trust with their children.” Sharing the personal. The least common responses

were those sharing personal experiences and opinions. One could argue that, by providing any response, I was sharing my personal beliefs, but in terms of overtly sharing aspects of my personal life, few responses revealed that type of interaction. In the classroom, as well, I also shy away from such interactions. While I am happy to reference my former classroom teaching, I rarely share information about myself, and when I do, I tend to offer it as a general anecdote rather a personal story. Just like the classroom, my responses frequently addressed the students directly, either by name or the pronoun you, but I rarely used the personal identifiers of I and my, making my sharing of the personal more evident when it did occur:

• “Yes, teaching is discouraging and teachers get discouraged. As someone who has held quite a

number of jobs in her short life, I see some of that discouragement as part of the profession and more as human nature.”

• “It’s quite normal to be more nervous with peers than with students—or even complete strangers. I can present to dozens of people at a conference with few qualms but I hate to speak up at a faculty meeting.”

ConclusionsWhy was I surprised to find that my reflective responses

mimicked my classroom interactions with students? Simply put, I expected my responses to show a more informal side to my teaching. Instead, I found that my responses were an extension of my classroom, even though the reflection journal was intended to counter the formality of a class assignment and provide students with a more flexible and personal approach to reflective practice.

So, what has this self-study provided that my previous reflection has not? Interestingly enough, it has required me to acknowledge my own advice, offered to my students as they struggle to reconcile their emerging identity as teachers: You are who you are, in or out of the classroom. Despite believing I would present a more informal side in my reflective responses, I found that I remained the same teacher in and out of the classroom. This newfound realization of my teacher self requires me to consider the implications for my teaching.

If “teacher education happens in the relationship between individual teacher educators and their students” (Dinkelman, 2003, p. 13)—and I believe that it does—I would do well to consider how that relationship develops through my teaching. I do not form relationships with my students because they come to office hours or seek me out after class; our relationships develop precisely because they are my students. Understanding this seemingly simple concept encourages me to become more conscious of my academic interactions, whether classroom instruction or written response, and consider how they can positively and negatively influence the student-teacher relationship.

Obviously, I want to push my students to think critically about complex issues, but I must temper that pushing with encouragement and support. As applied to their reflection journals, my responses should certainly support learning outside the classroom, but they should also encourage my students to see the benefits of reflection in order to incorporate it into their future practice. As Mueller (2006) found in a study of her written responses to students, “there is a fine balance between responding with sensitivity and responding with a critical edge” (p. 148). Without more support, I fail to articulate and acknowledge that my students are engaged in a complex activity with an extended learning curve —and that is certainly an issue I plan to address in my future interactions with students, whether in written responses or in classroom discussions.

References Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry:

Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Dewey, J. (1960). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Chicago, IL: D.C. Heath. (Original work published 1933)

Freese, A. R. (2006). Reframing one’s teaching: Discovering our teacher selves through reflection and inquiry. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(1), 100–119.

Korthagen, F. A. J. (2001). A reflection on reflection. In Linking practice and theory: The pedagogy of realistic teacher education (pp. 51–68). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Loughran, J. (2005). Researching teaching about teaching: Self-study of teacher education practices. Studying Teaching Education, 1(1), 5–16.

Loughran, J. J. (2004). A history and context of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 7–39). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Mueller, A. (2006). A teacher educator’s fate: Seeking contexts to engage student teachers in thinking about learning to teach. Studying Teaching Education, 2(2), 137-153.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Pinnegar, S., Hamilton, M. L., & Fitzgerald, L. (2010). Guidance in being and becoming self-study of practice researchers. In L. B. Erickson, J. R. Young, & S. Pinnegar (Eds.), Navigating the Public and Private: Negotiating the Diverse Landscape of Teacher Education. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 203–206). Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Russell, T. (2005). Can reflective practice be taught? Reflective Practice, 6(2), 199-204.

Shoffner, M. (2008). Informal reflection in pre-service teacher reflection. Reflective Practice, 9(2), 123–134.

Shoffner, M. (2009). The place of the personal: Exploring the affective domain through reflection in teacher preparation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(6), 783–789.

This self-study involved a collaborative team of researchers, all former K-12 teachers, who used metaphor as a tool for understanding their practice as teacher educators. We looked at both personal and external perceptions of our work in order to better understand its nature and evolution and to help identify factors that may have been most influential in developing effective practice. What characteristics distinguish our current practice? How were these elements manifested in our, and in our students’, perceptions of our work? What did these perceptions tell us about the resources, policies, or practices that have influenced our growth as teacher educators? We used metaphor as a tool for creating personal representations of our progress as teacher educators and for accessing student perceptions of our practice. In this way, our research integrated private and public perceptions of our work to describe patterns of practice across case descriptions. The authors of this study assumed the role of researchers within their professional contexts in order to provide evidence that may help inform policies and practices for developing teacher educators.

FrameworkThis study is supported by scholarship around the

functions of metaphor in the study of teaching and teacher education. A cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff, 1993; McCune, 1985; Ortony, 1993) contends that metaphors “structure our perception, thought, and action” (Saban, 2006, p. 299). In the study of teaching and teacher education, metaphor has been used as a tool to help describe professional understandings (Martinez, Narcis, & Guenter, 2001; Sfard, 1998), as a medium of reflection (Black & Halliwell, 2000; Perry & Cooper, 2001), and as an instrument for evaluation and change (Bullough & Stokes, 1994; Gillis & Johnson, 2002; Kemp, 1999).

Metaphor was chosen as a tool for this study to assess the mental constructs that have shaped the development of the authors’ perceptions and practices as teacher educators (Fenwick, 2000) and to trace the influences affecting this development. Research in this area has studied how metaphors are related to teacher thinking, though not necessarily the thinking of teacher educators. Many of these studies were based on assumptions that metaphors can reveal, to reflective teachers and to researchers, tacit beliefs and mental constructs (Earle, 1995). Other studies suggested that the use of metaphors to represent perceptions of practice can be used to document inconsistencies between teacher beliefs and teacher practice (Briscoe, 1991), and thus become tools for transformative learning (Deshler, 1990).

This study also used the literature on the pedagogy of teacher education to frame its analysis of the data. Our analysis looked for ways in which our findings connected to findings of previous research on learning to teach teachers (e.g., Loughran, 2007; Martin & Lueckenhausen, 2005), especially the literature on using metaphor to assess understanding about teaching and learning (Carter, 1990; Saban, 2006).

MethodsThis study uses a collaborative approach to self-study,

a methodology that has proven to be a valuable research tool (Lighthall, 2004; Louie, Drevdahl, Purdy, & Stackman, 2003). We chose this approach to self-study in order to gain alternate perspectives of our own perceptions and to help us reframe personal conceptions of our practice (Kitchen & Ciuffetelli Parker, 2009). “Thus the value of collaboration and the notion that self-study is enhanced when it is a shared adventure” (Loughran, 2004, p. 21).

Participants. The four university teacher educators involved in this self-study are currently serving as assistant professors at four different institutions of higher learning in three different regions in the United States (Intermountain West, Midwest, and Southeast). This research team first collaborated during our time together as doctoral students, and we continue to work together to study the evolution of our practice as teacher educators in order to better understand the factors contributing to the development of effective practice. We will soon be completing our fourth or fifth years as university-based teacher educators, and each of us came to our work at the university from earlier teaching (ranging from three to thirty years) in K-12 classrooms and adjunct teacher education experiences (ranging from one to ten years).

Additional data about the authors’ practice in university classrooms were collected from one class of students from each of the researchers (n=75). These students were all preparing to be teachers (79%) or were already teachers who were enrolled in a graduate program (21%). The majority of the students were female (96%) and ranged in age from 20 to 55.

Data sources. Data were collected from participants’ metaphors for their own practice and from researchers’ reflections on that data, collected over a period of one year by each instructor and forwarded to the other members of the group. We gathered additional input from students’ descriptions in metaphor of their perceptions of our practice. As instructors, we asked our students to anonymously donate a written metaphor or simile for their perceptions of us as teacher educators, along with a brief explanation of the comparison. These papers were printed and placed in an

“[Dr. N] is like a bra…She is so supportive!” (Student metaphor)

MARY SOWDER THOMAS SMITH TERESA LEAVITT Utah Valley University Northwest Missouri State University Brigham Young University

MADALINA TANASE University of North Florida

Using Metaphor to Assess Practice: Our Journey From K-12 Teachers to Teacher Educators

envelope (or not) that was passed to class members by another student and then given to the instructor. Data collected as part of the tenure process (student and supervisor evaluations) were also examined in order to look for any connections between more formal assessments and the results of our analysis.

Data analysis. The qualitative analysis began with open coding completed by one member of the group, noting emerging categories in the metaphors, reflections, and data from professional evaluations. The data were consistently shared for comments or amendments from the other researchers as we used a constant comparative method (Dey, 1993) to add or relocate data and refine categories as part of the process of cross-case analysis. From this analysis themes were identified to describe how the data represented the collective characteristics of our work and the factors affecting our growth as teacher educators during our induction years in a university setting.

Strategies and techniques for trustworthiness. This study incorporated several strategies for establishing trustworthiness. First among these was the practice of collaboration among researchers. Data collected from each individual participant were scrutinized by three additional researchers, according to perspectives based on individual expertise and experience with teaching and teacher education. When differences in interpretation were discovered, we reconsidered the interpretation until we reached consensus.

The study also sought to inform the perceptions of the authors by including analysis of data collected from those they teach. “Students’ views, understandings and participation…are fundamental to understandings of practice” (Loughran, 2004, p. 22) and are crucial in challenging interpretations of self-study data (Fenstermacher, 1994; Zeichner, 1999). Information gleaned from student input thus became an important element in comparing inside and outside perceptions of our practice.

The design of this study accounted for guidelines for self-study presented in the literature (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001) and promoted insights into our professional understandings through the presentation of convincing evidence and the honest interpretation of personal narratives. Issues of descriptive, interpretive, and theoretical validity were addressed by making sure data from all sources were accurately represented and by using various data sets (metaphors, reflections, data from personnel files) compiled from multiple sources. We also choose a tool for data collection (i.e., metaphors) that revealed multiple levels of understanding about our practice, and we carefully interpreted and re-interpreted the language provided in the data, using a collaborative process of analytic induction to identify the broader themes represented in the data.

Limitations. Even with these elements in place, the practice of using metaphor as a research instrument presented some challenges. Because metaphors are open to multiple interpretations, we do not represent our findings as fixed or absolute. “Metaphors must be interpreted cautiously, and always with careful note of the context and process of metaphoric meaning-making” (Fenwick, 2000).

OutcomesWith these cautions in mind, our analysis of the

data revealed interesting information about our practice as teacher educators. Our coding revealed three major themes that roughly corresponded to those already described in the literature. There was, however, one element in our findings not mentioned in prior research. In contrast to the way in which the authors studied their practice as separate from

their personal identities (as was the case in the literature), our students perceived our work as teacher educators as inseparable from our individual personalities. Moreover, they often described the characteristics of our being and our work with mystical metaphors. We were like fire, wind, rain, and sun; we were identified with Rafiki (from the Lion King), the goddess Athena, and “a carved statue at the entrance of an ancient Mesopotamian city.” For that reason, we chose to identify these themes with mythical archetypes from popular culture: teacher educator as 1) Yoda, the sage on the stage (Jacobsen, Eggen, & Kauchak, 2002); 2) Dumbledore, the “guide on the side” (King, 1993, p. 30); and 3) Mary Poppins, the caring nurturer (Noddings, 1988). As these themes developed, we connected them to findings from our data concerning the kinds of experiences that were influential to our development as effective teacher educators.

Teacher educator as Yoda. We were surprised, and a little chagrined, to discover that a sizeable amount of the data from all sources pointed to our practice as being teacher-directed, if not teacher-centered. Despite our best intentions to establish democratic classroom environments, our metaphors, and those of our students, revealed our reliance on a less egalitarian structure. Like Yoda directing the training of young Skywalkers to become Jedi warriors, we maintained the practice of relying on our own wisdom of practice to focus the development of novice teachers. We reflected that in some instances we consciously chose to use more directed methods of teaching, as we determined they were needed. One researcher noted, “There are times it seems most efficient and beneficial to student progress to be the ‘sage on the stage’ [in order] to later facilitate opportunities as the ‘guide on the side’” (Dr. A). A metaphor from one of her students appeared to confirm this practice: “[Dr. A] is like enamel-strengthening toothpaste… she strengthens us as teachers and cleans up our philosophies on teaching.”

This pattern was also covertly represented in the metaphors we used to describe our practice. In writing about how this practice is like making cookies with children, another researcher commented,

I talk to them about HOW I am doing what I am doing. I explain why I run the measuring cup for shortening under hot water before using it. I explain how to pack the brown sugar into the measuring cup without causing a mess on your hands. (Dr. I)Our reflections on this data indicated a certain

uneasiness with this theme, especially as it included how we modeled methods of instruction. “I think there’s a fine line between modeling effective teaching strategies and enforcing replication” (Dr. W). None of the researchers consciously felt that they were trying to mold their students into standardized versions of an ideal teacher, but many of the students’ metaphors seemed to contradict our beliefs. “[Dr. W] is like Michelangelo attempting to create David out of Play Dough. It may be difficult, but she constantly works to keep the dough warm and pliable” (student metaphor).

It appeared that this particular characteristic of our practice may have sprung from our apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975) as teacher educators. “I had the privilege to learn from expert teacher educators… I thought that to become as good as my former mentors I could just emulate their teaching approaches” (Dr. N). It may be that replicating the practice of our own teachers during our induction years was as true for us, as novice teacher educators, as it is for novice teachers in general.

Teacher educator as Dumbledore. We had anticipated that our students’ metaphors would show that our practice

allowed them latitude in discovering their talents as teachers. Just as Dumbledore allowed Harry Potter and his friends to encounter strange and sometimes dangerous creatures, we imagined ourselves as guides watching our students’ progress from afar, ready to swoop in and rescue or redirect them as needed. In fact, some of our students seemed to support our conceptions (though not as many as saw us as Yoda). “I view you as a water ride. You help carry us to our destination… On the ride I would raise my hands, but still be safe… you were there to help”; “As students take charge of their own learning and instruction, she is there to catch us if we fall. If a student does crash and burn, she is there with a Band-Aid and to offer suggestions for a successful bike ride next time” (student metaphors).

As we might have expected, this theme was also inherent in some of our own metaphors. In comparing her practice to the process of cabin building, one researcher wrote that “I cannot really share the body of my own cabin structure with my students…in the end, they must each build their own cabin” (Dr. W) The perception that our practice as teacher educators should be moving on the continuum from teacher-centered towards more student-directed learning appears to have been influenced both by the literature on teaching and learning we began to investigate as doctoral students and by our own research. “I value highly what we have learned through research…I just think there are people who know better about big picture things so I want to find out what they know and then I can apply it to my context” (Dr. I). “Action research has become a big part of my scholarship. I learn a lot about who I am as a teacher through observing my practice, and asking feedback from my students” (Dr. N).

Teacher educator as Mary Poppins. The largest amount of data in our study was related to the theme of caring and nurturing as part of teaching. While this theme was somewhat apparent in the researchers’ metaphors, a number of student metaphors addressed how our relationships to them were important to their learning. “[Dr. A] is like… the Energizer Bunny. She brings life and energy to the classroom and keeps us going, going, going…she just makes me happy and she’s there when I need her.” While this theme was not as apparent in the researcher metaphors, Dr. I compared teaching to cookie-making and commented, “As my kids and I make cookies we are laughing and joking and growing closer. In a similar fashion, I put a high premium on my relationships with my students… The longer I am around teaching, the more convinced I am that the secret of great teaching is relationships.”

Our reflections indicated that this particular characteristic of practice may have sprung again from our interactions with faculty members during our years as doctoral students. “I would say that one big factor in my work now is that ways in which many of my university professors dealt with me…with patience and respect” (Dr. I). The metaphors of our students made us look back at our relationships with our own teachers and reexamine the importance of this theme in our own teaching.

ImplicationsThis study served to confirm and challenge our

perceptions of our work as teacher educators. While it was gratifying to receive feedback from our students that was thoughtful and reaffirming, it was perhaps more productive to look at those responses that mirrored a different understanding of our practice than our own. Based on our findings and our discussions, we have identified three areas of implications.

These implications cut across our data and evoke larger questions both for us and, we feel, for the field of teacher education.

We were first struck by the degree to which our students collapsed our identities (which we felt to be multi-faceted and fascinating) into simply one of Teacher (or perhaps Teacher Educator). We now have a heightened awareness of what this means for our practice. In our role as teacher educators we constantly model teaching practices for future teachers. In this respect everything we do has the potential to be a measuring stick for our students’ future actions—a conclusion that underscores the moral and ethical dimensions of our work.

Findings from our analysis also point to the importance of considering how the nature of the teacher educators’ own education may affect not only their development, but the development of the students they teach. Because the images of our practice seem to be rooted in our own experiences as students in much the same way that novice teachers’ are (Clandinin, 1986; Cole & Knowles, 1994), attention should be paid to the practices of university faculty members involved in the instruction of future teacher educators. Strategies and methods of teaching supported in the literature should be incorporated into courses in which future teacher educators are prepared. In order to address issues of simple replication of practice during the induction years, critical reflection should also form an integral part of these courses (Hargreaves & Jacka, 1995). Because our findings also indicated the influence of research on our practice, these reflections should examine experience and practice as they are framed by a spectrum of current research on teaching and learning.

In light of the evidence, we again resolved to craft more democratic classroom practices, modeling the kinds of teaching practices that we hope our students will also learn to employ. From our reflections on our own experiences, we now better understand the power of our personal apprenticeships of observation over our teaching practices. We have also come to realize the inseparable nature, at least from our students’ points of view, of our personae and our practices, as evidenced in their metaphors. This has led us to a greater appreciation of the influence of the affective dimensions of our practice. Increased awareness of these findings will serve to influence how we establish relationships with our students as we plan and facilitate learning experiences that will teach them to value content, pedagogy, and personal interaction.

ReferencesBlack, A. L., & Halliwell, G. (2000). Accessing practical

knowledge: How? Why? Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 103–115.

Briscoe, C. (1991). The dynamic interaction among beliefs, role metaphors, and teaching practices: A case study of teacher change. Science Education, 75, 185–199.

Bullough, R., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines for quality in autobiographical forms of self-study research. Educational Researcher, 30, 13–21.

Bullough, R., & Stokes, D. (1994). Analyzing personal teaching metaphors in preservice teacher education as a means for encouraging professional development. American Educational Research Journal, 31, 197–224.

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Cole, A. L., & Knowles, J. G. (1994). We’re just like the beginning teachers we study: Letters and reflections on our first year as beginning professors. Curriculum Inquiry, 24, 27–52.

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Deshler, D. (1990). Metaphor analysis: Exorcising social ghosts. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning (pp. 296–313). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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ContextWe are a community of university faculty and

mentor teachers working in an urban teacher residency (UTR) program who have engaged in a six-month co/autoethnographic self-study to explore how we negotiate and refashion our roles as teacher educators in a third space. Our UTR is a hybrid model that aims to open a “third space” in teacher education (Zeichner, 2010) where the knowledge of community members, university faculty, P-12 teachers and students are equally valued. This third space is continually negotiated yet seems to be the ideal place for faculty and mentor teachers to co-examine their roles as teacher educators. In this space, the roles and responsibilities for all are redefined, and no longer does the university’s knowledge trump that of the school’s nor are the customary boundaries between the obligations of the participants in the teacher preparation process fixed. Rather, there is a “nonhierarchical interplay between academic, practitioner, and community expertise” (Zeichner, 2010, p. 89).

We know, from numerous recent self-studies, that becoming a teacher educator is a challenging and complicated process. New teacher educators often fall into the misconceived path where they attempt to apply their school-based knowledge to their practices in pre-service programs (Berry, 2007; Bullock, 2007, 2009; Kitchen, 2005; Ritter, 2007). As Bullock (2009) writes, “Learning to teach teachers is a complicated process that requires a teacher educator to confront and re-examine his or her prior assumptions about teaching and learning while constructing a pedagogy of teacher education” (p. 292). This process was further complicated by our collaborative roles in a third space UTR. Zeichner (2010) borrows the term “third space” from the fields of geography, urban planning, critical literacy, and cultural studies (Bhabha, 1994; Gutierrez, 2008) to refer to this hybrid space, an and/also rather than an either/or place to share and construct knowledge and which requires that the participants cross the customary boundaries. The “third space” invites the potential to “live theory in the immediate” (Routledge, 1996, p. 401) and “deconstruct the barrier between the academy and the lives of the people it professes to represent” (p. 400). A third-space teacher education reorients learning toward an “and/also” experience, with mentor teachers and university faculty playing key, integrated, and equally valuable roles (Kleine, Taylor, Onore, Strom, & Abrams, 2011), yet we had few roadmaps to help guide us in constructing this new dynamic. A co/autoethnographic self-study is the perfect vehicle to explore these new constructs.

AimsMaking the shift from operating in a conventional

pre-service teacher education structure to a third space is not automatic. Because it is non-hierarchical and requires mentors and faculty to assume roles as co-teacher educators and co-learners, a third-space orientation is suited to a collaborative self-study methodology (Berry, 2004; LaBoskey, 1998; Lighthall, 2004). We asked the following questions:

• How do mentor teachers and university faculty negotiate their new roles as teacher educators in a third-space urban teacher residency?

• How does participation in a co/autoethnographic self-study impact the mentor teachers and university faculty working together in a third space?

MethodWe are a group of three university faculty, one doctoral

graduate assistant, and fourteen mentor teachers who are all at varying stages of our careers. We have expertise in a range of areas including early childhood and elementary education, literacy, math, and science. Our group represents diverse races, classes, genders, and sexualities. We are all committed to urban education and the promotion of social justice.

We selected co/autoethnography (Coia & Taylor, 2009) as our self-study methodology because it incorporates the autobiographical elements of self-narrative and extends its effectiveness by engaging participants in written exchanges and dialogue about and around their individual stories. This methodology honors multiple knowledges of teaching to derive a mutual, living construct of teacher education. Aiming to understand the nature of teacher education that takes place “at the intersection between theory and practice, research and pedagogy” (LaBoskey, 2004, p. 827), a co/autoethnographic (Taylor & Coia, 2009) model of self-study “allows us to be reflective and do self-research in a way that mirrors how we engage with one another as teachers and people. We are always insider/outsiders. . . Thus, while no one can completely understand another, we do not completely understand ourselves. Our understandings of ourselves and others can, however, be enhanced by composing our autoethnographies together” (p. 178).

We primarily collected data through the writing and sharing of personal narrative reflections. Weekly we wrote our reflections, shared them via Dropbox, and then met in person to discuss our perceptions and push deeper into analysis. We took field-notes during our meetings to keep a

MONICA TAYLOR, LINDA ABRAMS, EMILY KLEIN, SUSAN WRAY, & KATHRYN STROMMontclair State University

EMANUEL CORDERO, JANE SILVA, TRACY BLAZQUEZ, MESHELE SCIPIO, KIMBERLY SCOTT, AMY PANITCH, WILLIAM ROMNEY, CHIFFON BROWN, BRYAN BARZAGA, ERIN MOONEY, THERESA ROZEK, LUBA LIDMAN, ISABEL ABREU, ANNA MONTEIRO, & ROSALIS RINCONNewark Public Schools

Shape Shifting or Becoming Third-Space Teacher Educators?: A Co/Autoethnographic Self-Study of Mentors and Faculty

record of the conversations. Mining the narratives, individual burning questions emerged that guided our investigation using multiple forms of data including observational notes, resident reflections, and personal narratives.

Our data analysis was recursive; we analyzed the data by means of constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) as they were collected. Our analysis was collaborative, reflective, and participatory. We looked for emerging patterns and categories across the data (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). This analysis, because it was conducted through varied lenses and across the data of multiple group members, led to trustworthiness.

OutcomesThis co/autoethnographic self-study demonstrates

that participation in a democratic community that respects individual and collaborative meaning making through inquiry facilitates the nurturing of third space mentor and faculty teacher educators. Below we present the themes that emerged from our self-study, using the narratives of the mentor teachers and university faculty to provide detailed illustrations of these emerging patterns.

The third space shifts the roles of mentor teachers and university faculty. By collaboratively focusing the lens on ourselves as mentor teachers and university faculty, we began to realize that in the third space, our roles are not static, fixed, or all knowing. In the third space, a mentor or university faculty does not have to be an expert, with all of the answers. One of the elementary school mentor teachers, Amy, addressed this concern by re-imagining her role as a co-learner with her resident pre-service teacher. She reflected, “Being a mentor teacher doesn’t mean you are perfect or an expert in the field. It doesn’t mean that you have all the answers. I want to be a mentor so that I can continue to grow and learn because I don’t have all the answers.” Mentoring became an opportunity to be a learner, not just a teacher. Another mentor teacher wrote, “I am continuously digging deeper into my reflections to reach the core of what it is I really believe about good teaching and good mentoring.” Other mentor teachers shared that having a resident with them each day encouraged the mentors to take more risks and to innovate their lessons. Amy reported, “I am able to try things in my classroom that I may not have the courage to attempt had I not had an extra and very capable person in the room.” This experience was seconded by Luba, a high school–based mentor teacher: “I myself feel like I’m experimenting more in my classroom and it makes it very exciting! I’m lucky because I have another person with me, and it makes it so much easier and I feel safe when there is someone else in the room.” A third mentor teacher reflected, “We are both committed to working together through the challenges for the success of all the students in our classroom and that the instructional responsibility would be shared by the two of us.” Linda commented that “Being open, honest, and transparent not only encourages residents to think about what you are doing, but it models for them what it takes to be a good teacher.” Positioning mentor teachers and resident pre-service teachers as co-teachers and co-learners created opportunities for mutual growth.

In the third space, roles and responsibilities are defined and redefined. Because the third space involves a constant negotiation of roles and responsibilities, at times this fluidity can result in a lack of clarity or frustration. Isabel, a first year elementary mentor teacher, shared her frustration regarding her work with her resident: “I don’t want to make a mistake or do anything that will not help her become a good

teacher. But I’m struggling with how to do what I need in the classroom and teach her at the same time.” Susan, a university faculty member, echoed these words, stating that “one of our biggest challenges is to find a way, find the space, to allow for the learning to teach process to take place within the day to day realities of an elementary classroom. How do I help both the resident and mentor develop a rhythm of teaching and learning that works for both of them? What is my role in this process?”

Power and authority are continually negotiated in the third space. Our group of mentor teachers and university faculty discovered that breaking down the hierarchies in which we usually exist and negotiating issues of power and authority are complex and often emotional processes. Further complicating our endeavor, we were determined to create a community that was both a safe space where all voices could be heard and also a critical learning environment, where we pushed one another to experience cognitive dissonance. The process of building third-space relationships did not happen automatically. Emily, a university faculty member, was shocked when she learned that one of the resident pre-service teachers described her as “intimidating.” She shared,

I don’t know if anybody has found me intimidating in my entire life! I know I’m struggling to connect with Justine and it impacts my ability to mentor her. I know that you can’t be “close” to all your students and it’s okay if she’s intimidated, but not if it hinders her ability to learn. I don’t want her to be so tense around me we can’t have productive conversations about her work. So what to do? I’m not sure I know the nature of what is keeping us from connecting. It may be a culture piece—as an older white woman she may not see me as somebody that she can connect with.

Emily found support in working through her rocky start with Justine by sharing her feelings with Kim, Justine’s mentor teacher. Together they used co/autoethnography to reflect on their relationships with Justine and to coordinate their support.

Emily: “My sense is that she is feeling safer in her UTR community. It’s clear her mentor plays an enormous role in this—she’s the ‘mama’ figure that ____ has never had.” Kim: “I have thought about the role I play and I am trying to balance that of a ‘mother’ figure with that of a colleague/friend and what it means to be a mentor. I have to know when NOT be a mother figure. Sometimes I have to let ____ make mistakes without offering immediate assistance.”The third space relies on authentic relationships

that blur the professional and the personal. Together, we learned that the university faculty -mentor teacher-resident arrangement is fundamentally a relationship that grows over time. Monica, a university faculty member, and William, a high school earth science mentor teacher, wrote into each other’s narratives as they explored the relationship between university faculty and mentor, and mentor and resident pre-service teacher:

Monica: “We have to get to know our mentees and ourselves before we can truly design a mentor/mentee relationship that is effective. And a trusting relationship can nurture reciprocal authority where we are both mentor/mentee—this to me is the richest of possibilities.” William: “How can I draw upon my own intuition to figure out what a mentee needs and vice versa, what I need as a mentor? Individuals have their own definition of what learning is and what it looks like. No

one person’s truth is better than another’s. My biggest question, and one that I believe I will spend this year figuring out, is how do I as mentor withhold my own judgments and values about what ‘good teaching’ is so that my mentee has the appropriate space to grow and figure out what ‘good teaching’ means to him. How do I make space for this?”While we began to construct relationships with residents

and mentors, we were cautious, considerate, and respectful. Tracy found that she and her resident developed “a working relationship based on mutual respect and understanding which is fostered by open, tactful dialogue.” Meshele, a high school biology teacher, shared,

Being a mentor has taught me that my actions, thoughts, opinions, and experiences play a major role in shaping my mentee’s experience. I have become extremely mindful of how my frame of reference—surfaced from my own experiences—cause me to think about my profession and react to different situations. This awareness allows me to be as transparent as possible in my thought process as I attempt to train my resident.

We came to trust that each of us would do our share of relationship work so that we could fulfill our professional responsibilities. Monica commented,

I also assume that a blending of formal/informal relationships to develop something that is more mutual or reciprocal demands constant attention. My assumption is that this sort of constant attention is difficult for me to maintain on top of my other responsibilities. I would like to think these relationships are developed automatically but I think from experience that I know better.Authentic third-space relationships invite

constructive feedback. Because an important feature of our mentoring responsibility is to provide feedback, our relationships with the resident pre-service teachers were frequently tested. Theresa, a mentor teacher, shared her initial belief that resident pre-service teachers who want to “grow and develop professionally will accept professional criticism,” but we all soon realized that even a constructive critique can hurt unless it is grounded in a resilient relationship. Emily’s experiences with the resident pre-service teacher struck a common chord for the group:

I felt really cautious about offering cool feedback—like I’m still building relationships with them and they’re not quite ready yet. Sara had her first day teaching yesterday and I saw a couple of rough interactions between her and students. So I felt like I wanted to be gentle and talk only about one or two things she could think about differently. My observations are still really informal although we are getting to a more formal interaction. Gradually we realized that the resident pre-service

teachers and mentor teachers were more open to critique when it was supported by a solid relationship that blurred the line between the personal and the professional. Chiffon, an elementary mentor teacher, helped to illustrate this point when talking about having a difficult conversation with her resident: “At first I was uncomfortable giving her this feedback but we worked through what it meant and eventually she saw that I wasn’t telling her she wasn’t doing a good job, but that I was trying to help her learn.” Susan further commented that “the clarity of your intention helped her hear and take in your feedback. Seems that our work and our relationships are strengthened when our actions match our words. Professional trust is the result.”

In the third space, we are all teacher educators. Eventually, we, mentor teachers and university faculty, began

to realize that first naming or re-naming ourselves as teacher educators and later taking action from these new identities were our first steps toward shape-shifting. Linda’s reflection on her work with the mentor teachers captures this finding:

I know that the work of mentors is teacher education. I am amazed by the ability of mentors to do two jobs simultaneously—teach their students and their residents. In both roles, the mentors I work with are experts at listening and pushing thinking while reflecting on their own thinking. I do not think I have taught these mentors anything, but I do think that I have invited them to think publicly about what they do with their residents, how and why it works, and ways to make teaching even better…I find myself listening and asking questions, and learning even more than I imagined…Am I a teacher educator? Only if a teacher educator is the same as being a teacher-learner.

ConclusionsMentoring and teaching in a third space is

transformative. It centers on relationships that are supportive and simultaneously personal and professional. Our experience in the third space has pushed us to blur the borders that distinguish the traditional roles of mentee, mentor, and teacher-educator. In our third space, hierarchical arrangements of responsibilities, knowledge, and relationships were reconsidered and eventually identified as meaningless to our work. We believe that co/autoethnography facilitated this process because by writing into each other’s narratives, we created a space for mutual support and meaning making. We see this process, however, as ongoing because just as we continually need to re-negotiate the third space, so do we need to continuously shape-shift as teacher educators to serve the needs of the residency.

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ContextWhen I was nine I read about becoming a fighter pilot in a magazine. I sort of assumed in a vague way that I could or even would become one. I can still feel the sharp stab of disbelief and shame upon reading I was barred. I was ineligible. I did not count because I was a girl. I did not tell anyone of my dream. It did not make me a feminist. I did not rise up against the injustice. I was ashamed and silent. (June, 2011) We have not always been feminists, but in this gendered

world we have lived a gendered existence for as long as we can remember. As teachers, we have self-identified as feminists for most of our careers almost without thinking. It is an integral aspect of our identity that we do not question. Yet because of our feminist beliefs, we know better. Have we become complacent? Have our pedagogical practices begun to resemble what Lorde (1984) calls “the master’s tools” which “will never dismantle the master’s house” (p. 112)? Here we describe a co/autoethnography in which we explore what it means to be a feminist teacher educator by examining our practice, our history, and our context. Echoing the ways in which co/autoethnography involves “writing into each others’ lives” (Coia & Taylor, 2002), we interweave narratives with academic writing to capture the spirit of our stories.

‘If I have to I can do anything. I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman.’ These Reddy lyrics were the soundtrack of my 70s childhood. My mom raised me at a time when she herself was struggling to find her voice as a woman. She was caught in an oppressive relationship with an abusive man and she was determined to raise a daughter to be free and strong. It was so crystal clear back when I was six. (October, 2011)We are in unique positions as teacher educators. We

work in programs that are alternatives to traditional teacher education. Monica is a “hybrid teacher educator in a third space” (Klein, Taylor, Onore, & Strom, in press) running an urban teacher residency for secondary math and science teachers. Lesley teaches in an educational studies program in a small liberal arts college with students who intend to work in formal and informal educational settings. These spaces provide us with opportunities to be innovative, autonomous, and true to our pedagogical ideals. No more writing syllabi and collecting student work to satisfy an external authority whose understanding of education is standardized and remote. This year was optimal to investigate our teaching because, for the first time in a while, we are teaching in ways that make sense to us.

Additionally, Monica’s complicated personal situation this semester provided an interesting context for reflection. She was forced to explore her past to make sense of her present as a daughter. In early October, her mother entered the hospital with an autoimmune disease that caused a stroke, kidney

failure, and damage to her heart. These events completely transformed Monica’s life personally and professionally: she had to invent new identities as a daughter, mother, sister, wife, professor, and friend. In this study, we could not but be aware that co/autoethnographic work involves exploring the collaborative examination of relationships.

ObjectivesDuring our coming of age as teacher educators,

discussion of feminism and feminist teaching was pervasive. The dialogue has gone quiet. It is hard to find even whispers of the conversation, not withstanding the persuasive talk of social justice in teacher education. We view ourselves as feminist educators without the continued reframing of this identification necessary to keep it alive (Loughran, 2002). In this self-study, we explore what it means to be a feminist teacher educator. How does this identity impact our pedagogy and practices? How do we address authority in the classroom? How do we build community and create productive relationships with our students? These questions led our investigation as we examined our past narratives of becoming feminist educators alongside current teaching reflections. Do the feminist ideals that have shaped who we are today continue to guide us or have they become quieted in this new era of standardization and homogenization?

While there are many definitions of feminist pedagogy (Cohee, 2004), Webb, Allen, and Walker’s (2002) six principles seem to be standard: “Reformation of the relationship between teacher and student, empowerment, building community, privileging voice, respecting the diversity of personal experience, and challenging traditional pedagogical views” (abstract, para. 1). We talk about these pedagogical beliefs with familiarity, but in order to question them, we returned to Ellsworth’s (1989) seminal article that points out how examining feminist struggles helps critique the myths of pedagogical principles like empowerment and voice. We began to ask: Are we the feminist teachers we think we are?

I am struggling to stay true to my ideals as a feminist teacher. I am co-teaching courses with colleagues who have a range of paradigms. I am struggling to work with administrators at the university and in the schools who operate with strict hierarchical concepts of power. I am struggling to support and mentor students and teachers. I am trying to find ways to negotiate power and maintain my vision. I find myself backed into a corner because I am desperate. (November, 2011)The student feedback is very good. I don’t trust it! They think I am a feminist teacher. One notes I sometimes interrupt students and continue the conversation, but she said this was ok. She interpreted my interruptions

MONICA TAYLOR LESLEY COIAMontclair State University Agnes Scott College

What Do You Mean You’re a Feminist?: A Co/Autoethnographic Self-study of Feminist Pedagogy

as me being passionate and a true member of the class. I am not so sure. Passionate I am, but feminist … I am not so sure. These student comments make me think a great deal about how the success of the pedagogical relationship is dependent on the personalities involved. (November, 2011)

MethodologyUsing a self-study methodology for this investigation

seemed obvious. Echoing the work of the Arizona group on epistemology and dialogue (Guilfoyle, Hamilton, Pinnegar, & Placier, 2004), it is important that “we begin with experience and examine the relationship and interplay of theory and practice” (p. 1163). LaBoskey’s (2004) five principles of self-study helped us to situate our methodology because our study was self-initiated and focused, was improvement aimed, was interactive, used multiple methods, and was trustworthy.

More specifically, we used co/autoethnography because it “involves investigating our own selves and engaging in self/other analysis based on the understanding that teaching is a profoundly personal and social activity and cannot be accomplished well without self-awareness in a social context” (Coia & Taylor, 2007, p. 26). We need to acknowledge we bring who we are, as the students bring who they are to each pedagogical encounter. Co/autoethnography takes seriously the idea that we are people in context and in relation. While this is itself an incomplete understanding of ourselves, it is an important relevant starting point for understanding teaching and learning. In co/autoethnography, meaning-making is done in large part by the stories we tell.

Our research does not attempt to look at one moment in time. Rather we strive to examine the complexities and small events of teaching through a variety of lenses including our emotions, theoretical frameworks, histories and experiences, and our past and present as daughters, friends, wives, and mothers. Our research is messy, difficult, and personal. It allows for us as women to live in each other’s memories and experiences and through our ongoing relationship find windows to understand one another. Similar to Middleton (1993), “In our teaching and our writing we collapse—for ourselves as authors/teachers and for our students—the everyday and the theoretical dimensions of experience” (p. 9). Co/autoethnography enables us to take a stance as “teacher as researcher of her own underlying assumptions, as connected to her particular biographical, cultural, and historical situations” (Miller, 1990, p. 17).

We each focused on various pedagogical settings over the course of a year. Monica examined her formal and informal mentoring sessions with teachers and students. Lesley chose a diversity course she teaches. For data, we collected journals, e-mails, digital videos, student interviews, our own autobiographies, and reflections on concurrent events. These were used to produce a co/autoethnographic (Taylor & Coia, 2009) narrative. We looked at current practices through the lens of our past. Thus as we worked we asked ourselves questions, such as “Where did our feminism come from?”, “What were the texts that changed our lives?”, “Were there discrete events that could shed light on our current practice?”, and “What is the story that needs to be told?”

Armed with a more conscious awareness of the issues, we turned our attention to our classrooms, studying them as artifacts. What do our syllabi and assignments reveal? Are they feminist? What does the classroom look like? How are the roles of teacher and student enacted and negotiated?

Our data were co-analyzed as they were collected, using a reflective, participatory, and collaborative stance. We attempted to examine the data through “a blurred lens of a researcher/participant, a subject/object, or an insider/outsider” (Taylor & Coia, 2009, p. 177) to “lead to trustworthiness” (Coia & Taylor, 2009, p. 15). The data were analyzed inductively by means of constant comparison (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and we looked for categories and patterns to emerge from the data.

OutcomesWe began this co/autoethnography committed to better

understanding who we are as feminist teacher educators. We wondered if we were living our ideals (Whitehead, 1989) of “voice,” “community,” and “empowerment” while recognizing as Ellsworth (1989) notes that these principles are challenging to actualize. Our research focus seemed clear and straightforward and yet the process slowly revealed how truly complicated these questions were. Below we share our outcomes in dialogue, attempting to represent both the individual and collaborative voice of the co/autoethnography.

Lesley: I knew this self-study would be useful, but I am really surprised that what I thought I did well has been thrown into question. I thought I was very explicit and even repetitive about building community and challenging traditional pedagogical relationships, but what we found from analyzing the videos and student feedback is that my behavior in the classroom—interrupting students, misinterpreting them so I can make the point I want to—are hardly feminist.

Monica: I think you are being a little hard on yourself. Naming ourselves as feminist teachers and actually practicing feminist pedagogy differ. I find myself saying “I am a feminist teacher because I create safe spaces for my students/mentors, I invite all voices to be heard, and I value the personal in my practice,” but the true practice of being a feminist involves rigorous, ongoing self-reflection that captures the subtle nuances and informal interactions among and between teacher educators, students, and school faculty. As Guilfoyle, Hamilton, Pinnegar, and Placier (2004) point out, “recognizing that professional practice is always about growth and development and never about arrival means that research in this area must always exist in a zone of inconclusivity” (p. 1163). Embracing inconclusivity and ambiguity perpetuates our quest for feminist pedagogical “enlightenment,” but we have to acknowledge that we are never fully actualized. Picking apart and analyzing in abstraction is, in a way, a very masculinist stance. Maybe we need to look at it more holistically. Your students are interpreting what is happening in the classroom through their own lens of what feminist teaching means, and indeed what it means to communicate with a teacher about her teaching.

Lesley: This is so important. It is so easy to forget that being a feminist teacher is always a process of becoming. There is such a pull to be finished. The teacher education context is very hierarchical and structured. It militates against the idea of constantly becoming. With its accountability and external measures of control, it wants you to be finished: the structures ask us to complete.

Monica: We have to remember this ourselves. Declaring one’s feminism like my example above feels one-sided and trite. It captures only the intentions of the teacher without bringing to light the multi-faceted complexities of these practices. It omits the perspectives of others who are involved in the interactions. As feminist teachers we value reflective

listening: a type of listening that is prolonged and involves truly considering another perspective.

Lesley: Yes. Once again we have seen that we need to focus and work on the complexity of the relationship, in the dance between self and other in a relationship that is of necessity unequal, that is threaded through and through with issues of power, privilege, and the special problems of teacher education.

Monica: That reminds me of our paper on power and authority (Taylor & Coia, 2006).

Lesley: I don’t think it is an accident that we keep coming back to these issues. As feminist educators we are very aware of issues of power and authority, but working out what this means for us in our very different teaching contexts, with our long history of working together, our similar backgrounds, and our shared intellectual history is where it needs to be played out. And, as we have seen over the whole of our careers, but especially since we began self-study using co/autoethnography, it is not going to be settled. We do, I hope, come to a better understanding of how it works and how we work with it. Power and authority will always be issues for us because of our intersecting identities as feminists and as teacher educators, and because of our personal and professional histories, including our privilege as white heterosexual tenured professors (Guidroz & Berger, 2009).

Monica: I am starting to think about power, authority, and feminism in different ways because of my recent experiences with my mother. I am beginning to think that being vulnerable involves giving up power. We bring our whole selves to the classroom, which often results in sharing vulnerabilities. This is uncomfortable but necessary. I wrote: “Because of my mom’s illness, I have felt overwhelmed, emotional, and exhausted. I find myself revealing personal parts of myself and my experiences to my mentors and students. Sharing insights into the difficult endeavor of caring for an ailing parent and healing a parent/child relationship has brought me closer to those I am mentoring. They have comforted me and our relationships have been strengthened because of this authenticity” (January, 2012). It has led to more trusting, honest, and critical conversations. This belief was reinforced when one of the school mentors described our relationship: “I remember one day last year you shared something personal with me about your sister and how you’ve looked for her before and then she ended up finding you. I think that after that moment I felt very comfortable and safe sharing with you” (November, 2011).

Lesley: But does this mean we have to share intimacies in order to have a relationship? Obviously not, but we do have to share and be generous with ourselves. This reminds me of my early days of teaching when I thought it was just a role that could be donned at the beginning of the school day and put in the closet at night. As feminists have noted this separation between self and role is a discursive strategy that, as Davies (1992) says, makes it possible “to act in contradictory ways without the coherence of oneself or one’s rationality being called in question” (p. 56), and a strategy explicitly rejected in second wave feminism. It is one we also reject in our feminist pedagogy. But, similar to others, we also understand that there is an important distinction between positioning and role, and that we can potentially occupy different positions with each speaking moment as positions are, as Davies goes on to say, “discursively and interactively constituted” (p. 57).

Monica: I think we are not alone in experiencing the idea of playing being a teacher early in our careers. But the idea of positionality points to the importance of paying attention to our discursive interactions with others. We have learned

it is important to focus on the small events, the seemingly inconsequential interchanges between and among students and teachers. This really manifested itself in the context of caring for my mom in the hospital. I think I have always tried to go the extra mile to be kind to others, but it was really when I was on the receiving end that I noticed how much it makes a difference. In my journal I shared, “I am continually amazed and touched by the many small acts of kindness of strangers. The little gestures are so important and they so greatly contribute to the well being of others. So many of the nurses modeled this for me by bringing us breakfast at 4:00 am after we slept by my mother’s bedside, sharing their praise for the heart surgeon who successfully operated on one of their husbands, acknowledging the sister dream team, pushing the doctor to test for a possible infection, and remembering that my mom preferred apple juice to grape juice. Those strangers made our lives a little better and treated my mom with dignity and care. I want to make sure to do the same for others” (December, 2011).

Lesley: As teacher educators it is often difficult to know if you are making a difference. What we have seen is that it is often in the unplanned interchanges that positive changes come about. I think that is what the reflection you just shared shows. It is in the subtleties of paying attention in a caring way that we see change. This seems to me to be a very important feminist point. We started this paper wondering about the relation between our beliefs and our practice. We shall continue wondering, but I also know we have changed subtly in the process of our co/autoethnography. Our self-study has brought our feminism into our present. We have dusted it off, admired the faded weave, and re-framed it for our new feminist educator identities.

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Context of the StudyThis project follows up on an initial collaborative self-

study where the researchers examined the effects of sharing an open reflective journal on our teaching with our students, inspired by the work of Amanda Berry (2007). We are both teacher educators in institutions on different continents and we share an interest in examining the role we as teacher educators play in the process our students go through in becoming teachers. One of us works in a French language institution and prepares teachers of English as an additional language in a four-year undergraduate pre-service teacher education programme in Quebec, Canada. The students enter teacher education directly from a junior college which is the equivalent of grade 13 in high school. The average age of the students in this programme is about 19 to 23 years, although there are a few older students. The other researcher teaches a one-year methodology course for students with a master’s degree in a foreign language who are preparing to become language teachers in Dutch secondary schools. This person also teaches a general course in curriculum design. The students in this programme are generally older, in their mid-twenties to early fifties, and quite a few have teaching experience.

In our initial study we each wrote a reflective journal entry on our teaching after each class and sent it to our students. Our original purpose was to make reflection on practice explicit to our students (Loughran, 2006; Loughran & Russell, 2002), and we hypothesized that our students would not only learn about our intentions for our pedagogical choices and about how to write reflectively, but that they would find a space to safely engage in exchanges with us about learning to teach as they could privately respond to the journal entries with questions and comments. The findings of that study were mixed (Thomas & Geursen2010). In end-of-semester questionnaires, many students indicated that they liked to read the journal entries and those who read them felt that the journals made the professors’ intentions explicit, which helped them to reflect on the sessions themselves. However, although pre-service teachers were able to recognize the writing as reflective, for the most part, they did not believe that reading our journals helped them become better reflective writers about teaching practice. We came to realize that we should perhaps have taken into consideration that their reflective writing does not mirror ours, as they do not share their reflections with their pupils but with their cooperating teachers, who will eventually evaluate their performance. Few students saw the open journal project as a potentially safe place for conversations about learning to teach because we remained their professors, even if they were invited to question our pedagogical choices. We now also know that reading reflective writing does not automatically result in changed

behavior, that is, better writing on their part, as the literature on transfer problems suggests (Korthagen & Kessels, 1999).

The findings from our initial study led us to reconsider our research and its purpose. We remain convinced that keeping the open journals and sharing them with our students is a worthwhile activity that can lead to profound learning for ourselves about our own teaching practices, as well as learning on the part of our students. Moreover, we felt encouraged by the fact that all students who completed the questionnaire suggested we should continue writing and sharing the journal: “I have never seen this in a university course and I love it! I think it clearly shows that the teacher wants to learn and it encourages us to do the same” (Canadian student response).

This current study focuses on our learning about ourselves as teacher educators and reflective practitioners as we deconstruct the ways we reflect on our teaching with our students (Brandenberg, 2008). Our research questions include the following: What is good reflective writing? What can I reflect on during my teaching, and what types of things need more distance? What can we learn as a self-study team that will help us to enable our students to better understand the purposes of reflection and how to become a reflective practitioner?

The works of Schön (1983), Korthagen (2001), Korthagen & Vasalos (2005), and Zeichner & Liston (1996) provided the basis of our understanding of reflective practice and its importance to effective teaching. Ghaye & Ghaye (1998) give a clear explanation of the difference between reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action, and Trumbull (2006) describes the ways in which reflection both influences and reveals notions of teaching and learning. Brandenberg (2008) Senese, (2007), Harrison & Yaffe (2009), and Williams & Power (2010), among others, explore the importance of reflection for teacher educators.

ObjectivesThe aims of this study are to explore more deeply and

make explicit what we as teacher educators learn from keeping an open reflective journal on our teaching and sharing it with the students we teach. In targeting our own learning in this study, we believe that we will be better equipped to re-consider what our students learn about reflective practice from us and how we can enhance that learning, whether it is through direct teaching, modeling, or another approach.

MethodsData collection. We began the study by completing an

exercise wherein we each defined reflection and reflective practice. Some of the main concepts we came up with were “becoming aware,” “rationalizing on-the-spot-decisions,” and “making sense of immediate, intuitive behavior.” In

LYNN THOMAS JANNEKE GEURSENUniversité de Sherbrooke Vrije Universiteit

Sharing Reflections on Our Teaching With Pre-service Teachers to Learn More About Ourselves: Collaborative Self-Study Across Languages and Continents

the end, we agreed to use Korthagen’s (2001) definition of reflection, which is “the mental process of trying to structure or restructure an experience, a problem, or existing knowledge or insights” (p. 58). Taking the time to define reflection and reflective practice for ourselves was an important step in clarifying what we wanted our students to learn from us in terms of both the components of the programmes that require them to reflect and our own modeling as reflective teacher educators. We then spent some time comparing reflection-on-action to reflection-in-action and considered the similarities and differences between these two approaches. Several discussions and e-mail exchanges helped us to distinguish between these two approaches to reflective practice, how each of them can inform one’s practice, and what each might actually consist of in terms of actual practice. We continued to reflect on our teaching (reflection-on-action) and share these reflections in an open journal sent to our students as an e-mail attachment, but we also attempted to reflect while teaching (reflection-in-action) and immediately share these thoughts with students during our classes. In order to examine the two approaches more closely, we began to film ourselves, which allowed for a meta-reflection on the reflection-in-action moments. Comparing the videotaped sessions with the journals we wrote afterwards enabled us to pinpoint the differences.

This study gave us the impetus to reconsider the formats we were using to write our reflections and what we were including in these reflective pieces that we shared with students. For example, one of us described the class chronologically and then commented on various exchanges and events that had occurred. The other focused on listing objectives for the class and then exploring whether or not they had been met and to what extent. Neither of us spontaneously used the format that our students are taught to use, which eventually led us to closely examine and question the purpose we had in writing the way we did and the purpose of our student reflective writing assignments, and to make these distinctions explicit.

The data, including the definitions of reflection, the open journals along with any student responses, and the reflections on reflection-in-action, were shared between the researchers using e-mail. Regular monthly discussions of the data took place through Skype. On one occasion, we met up at one researcher’s university, and one of us was able to observe the other’s practice in person and then follow up with an immediate discussion. The data sources (the written journals and videotapes) provide a level of objectivity in our exchanges as we focus on these artifacts, rather than on memories or beliefs about our teaching.

Data analysis. We each carried out an analysis of our data individually, before sharing both the data and the analysis for a further meta-analysis of the combined data, while still keeping in mind the different contexts. For example, we each reread our journal entries and compared them with our videotapes to look for connections between reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action as revealed in the tapes. We also considered the student responses in relation to our journals. Once a month we shared this analysis with each other and discussed what we were learning about becoming a reflective practitioner and what our students were learning about reflective teaching from us. At the end of each semester we both collected questionnaires from our students about the impact the journals had had on their learning, and the analysis of these questionnaires was also shared.

It is important to include the following precisions on language, as they became an important constraint in the analysis of the data. We do not share the same first language,

so finding the time to translate our findings was sometimes was a problem. One of us wrote her journal entries in Dutch because her classes included future language teachers of many languages, not just English. Thus her students had the advantage of reading and responding to reflections in their mother tongue. She could not find the time to translate every single journal entry, all responses to the journal, or the questionnaire and the videotapes sessions, so she herself selected worthwhile items to translate and share with her research partner. As this might result in bias, she shared part of the raw data with a researcher from her institute who thus acted as a critical friend. We feel this made the analysis more trustworthy. The other researcher, however, wrote all of her reflections in English, even though it is not the first language of her students, because her students are studying to become English teachers. This fact may have made it more challenging for them to respond and likely affected the depth and complexity of their responses.

OutcomesThe findings of this study concur with the literature that

reflection-on-action is a highly complex, multifaceted activity that is not simply a matter of thinking about what happened in class. We become aware of the fact that it is not only a difficult internal cognitive process but also involves rephrasing if we want to articulate it and share it with others. We experienced that the process of making our own reflections understandable and subject of discussion both for each other and for our students was key to our research project. This experience was in line with both Schön’s (1983) view that reflective practice has an individual and a social component and Parsons and Stephenson’s (2005) conclusion that social interaction with colleagues and peers can stimulate the individual reflection process.

Reflecting on one’s practice is not always pleasant or easy. The personal, cultural, and contextual aspects of one’s classroom actions and interactions are revealed, which can lead to greater uncertainty, lowered self-confidence, and even negativism. We became aware of the fact that the openness and transparency we strived for could also make us vulnerable. We ourselves were not worried about that as we knew that “a phase of unsettling is a precondition for reflection” (Loughran, 1995, p. 432). However, we were concerned about the effect of this vulnerability on our students. For the most part, students were positive about our sharing our questioning and uncertainties with them: “Great to get a glimpse behind the scenes of a professional teacher. Useful to notice that not everything goes according to plan and that that does not matter” (Dutch student response); “I could relate to it; you are living the same things in your classroom that we will” (Canadian student response). However, one student did express some apprehension about the level of vulnerability that we displayed:

On the one hand I learn a lot from your public reflections. On the other hand I find it hard to have a teacher who makes herself vulnerable/adopts a vulnerable position…It gives me a feeling I can’t handle really well (Dutch student response).

At the same time, this was also considered an asset by other students: “It makes you more human. It is a good example of the ‘Practice what you preach’ principle” (Dutch student response); “It provides a way for your students to relate with you. Since those are your personal thoughts, it allows us to see you as part of our team” (Canadian student response).

We also discovered that there are many different ways to write reflectively on one’s practice, and not all of them are effective for better understanding practice in order to improve it .We came to realize that the format we chose for our reflections mattered. At the start of our project we had not determined how we would write. During our discussions we discovered that if we did not use set questions, we tended to focus on the negative, which we know is not conducive to optimal functioning (Fredrickson, 1998). One of us tried different formats, finally deciding on listing the objectives for the class, followed by a discussion of whether or not, and in what way, she felt the objectives had been met.

The other researcher used her curriculum design class as the subject for her reflections. In that course the following questions are used as a frame of reference: What are the objectives of this lesson? What have you planned to achieve these objectives? Were you successful? How do you know? She decided to use these same questions to reflect on her sessions with the students, thus modelling what a reflection on a lesson plan might look like and at the same time taking a rather neutral perspective, one that does not involve personal judgement. Her students seemed to recognize this: “Your way of reflecting on the session results in a well-founded analysis. This instead of ‘it went well, it did not go well’” (Dutch student response).

We discovered that reflection-in-action is even more complex than reflection-on-action, requiring very high-level cognitive functioning and intense concentration. Still, when analyzing a few videotaped sessions, we discovered that the “with-it-ness” required comes naturally to us, focused as we are on being Model Teachers. Besides planned reflections, such as “What struck you in the set-up of this session?” and “Why do you think I ask this particular question?”, there are a number of unplanned reflections in response to what happens at that particular moment. Both types of reflections-in-action are clearly related to the overall aim of the courses, curriculum design and teaching methods, and our interest in making our teaching explicit. One of us noted that several times during the sessions she explicitly points at the idea behind the lesson plan: “This is something I think about when preparing” (excerpt from videotaped class, 15 May 2011).

Interestingly enough, closer analysis of the accompanying journal yields another result. In the journal we tend to focus on what was left out in the session. One of us wrote, “I wonder why I want to cover so much in one session, whereas I do not notice any stress or hurry when watching the tape” (journal entry, 15 May 2011). We also seem to use the journal to ponder about bigger things than the one class, such as,

Am I explicit enough about the modeling I do? Is it possible to watch a professor teach a class of university students and incorporate some of those techniques when teaching high school? Or is that too much to expect? I know that building good relationships with students is important, but do students realise that it is a priority for me, and one that I believe they should also have? How do I get that message across? (journal entry, 7 January 2011)Even the journal itself becomes subject of reflection: “It

strikes me that I have changed my sessions considerably since keeping this journal. Apparently sharing the insights with your audience means you can no longer afford to keep things as they are” (journal entry, 15 May 2011)

Another important outcome of this study has been the impact it has had on the way we now introduce students to reflective writing within the teacher education programme.

We now break down the steps in very explicit ways, attending to the differences between reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action and focusing on the importance of using the writing as an artifact to gain some distance in order to analyze one’s practice objectively.

ConclusionWe believe that this collaborative self-study in which we

publicly reflect on our own teaching provides both us and our students with a rich and inspiring learning environment. This study has opened our eyes to the complexities of reflecting on one’s practice and attempting to learn from that reflection in a public sphere. Every teacher education programme includes this component, yet few teacher educators have attempted to put into practice themselves what they ask their students, who are beginners in the profession, to do on a regular basis, and in a very public way, often for grades. Taking part in this study has been a humbling experience, not only in that we have learned a great deal about how we actually reflect (or not) on our teaching, but also how we have been holding very high expectations of our students in terms of requiring them to reflect on their practice in written form. It is our belief that the combination of this step-by-step approach, along with a continued modeling of reflective writing, will have a significant impact on the students’ understanding of the importance of keeping records of their reflections and on their abilities to demonstrate their capacities as reflective practitioners. In addition, we know that it has also helped us to improve our own practice as reflective teacher educators.

Brandenberg, R. (2008). Powerful pedagogy: Self-study of a teacher educator’s practice. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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Context of the StudyI am a teacher-educator. I have worked to achieve this position all of my professional life. I love what I do. Yet, I find myself plagued by this question: Do I know that I hold the self-efficacy to be a successful teacher-educator? How can I explore this question? Who can assist me in that process of understanding? (July 2008)Though the teacher-research movement has been

successful in influencing educational research and theory development, especially as it pertains to the improvement of classroom practice, for those of us sanctioned as academic experts, we take a vow of silence concerning our perceived imperfections. As academic experts, there is little opportunity to openly examine our self-efficacy and its impact on student learning. It is no surprise that there is very little research on teacher-educator self-efficacy. Pinnegar and Erickson (2009) remind us that although current teacher education programs go through institutional accreditation review, much of what is learned is not included in the final accreditation report.

This self-study suggests that there is an alternative to traditional review of Institutes of Higher Education (IHE) teacher-educators’ performance. This work both informs my practice as the teacher-educator and contributes to the understanding of accountability in the teacher education community. Cole and Knowles (1996) asked the question,

What would happen, then, if researchers in IHEs were sanctioned by their institutions and the broader academic community to throw off their ‘expert’ mantles and act like ordinary, curious people with practically oriented questions, including questions that might challenge ‘the system?’ How then could universities hold onto their status as elite societal institutions? The conceptual framework for this self-study was

situated among the works of Baird (2004), Bandura (1977, 1986), and Whitehead (1989, 1993). Baird’s (2004) definition of “self as a teacher” and “self in teaching” informed this self-study research as “I” am exploring my “self” as a teacher-educator. To complete an exploration of a teacher-educator’s self-efficacy, I began by considering the word “self.” Bandura (1997) suggests that “a person’s future behavior is a function of three interrelated forces: environmental influences, their own behavior, and internal personal factors such as cognitive, affective, and biological processes” (p. 2). Whitehead’s (1989) Living Education Theory (LET) was the theoretical foundation influencing my thought process about my own practice. This exploration sought to find valid explanations about my LET (Whitehead, 1989, 1993).

PurposeLaBoskey (2004) states that often policymakers,

community members, and educators want to know more about the knowledge base for teaching.

An assumption is made that we have the foundation for successful programs of teacher education and professional development. A central challenge in this thinking is that there are differences in what people mean when they talk about knowledge. A distinction between producing knowledge and becoming knowledgeable is the difference between research and practice. (p. 821) The purpose of this research was to explore my beliefs

about my teacher-educator self-efficacy using a virtual critical friend network (CFN) (Tobery-Nystrom, 2011). The virtual CFN (all data sources were analyzed online in wiki-pages) contributes to the knowledge base of how a validation group drawn from my professional circle could meet and listen to progress reports and scrutinize data (McNiff, 2002; Whitehead & McNiff, 2006). This work both informs my practice as a teacher-educator who conducted it and contributes to the understanding of teacher-educator self-efficacy for the larger education community.

QuestionsThe questions for this self-study evolved throughout

fourteen weeks. This was necessary to the work as each phase of the self-study impacted the findings and led to new thinking. It was through the CFN and responses and my own reflection that one primary question and two sub-questions developed throughout the self-study. The primary question was: What are my beliefs about my self-efficacy as a teacher-educator?

The sub-questions were: How do I know I have a strong sense of self-efficacy as a teacher-educator? and What are the factors that influence my beliefs about my teaching self-efficacy?

Literature Self-efficacy beliefs are characterized as the major

mediators for our behavior and, importantly, behavioral change. Nonetheless, self-efficacy is impacted by how others perceive our actions (Bandura, 1977). Numerous studies have demonstrated a link between a teacher’s sense of self-efficacy and student achievement (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Moore & Esselman, 1992; Ross, 1992). In addition, research on school effectiveness designated efficacy as one of five school conditions related to improved student learning (Fullan, 1982). Rosenholtz (1989) also found that teacher self-efficacy influenced students’ basic skills and mastery. In research on school effectiveness, Berman and McLaughlin (1977) found that a teacher’s sense of self-

JAMELYN TOBERY-NYSTROM ANASTASIA SAMARASFrostburg State University George Mason University

Self-Study of a Teacher Educator’s Self-Efficacy Using a Critical Friend Network

efficacy was the single most consistent variable related to school success.

There is a body of research that suggests that teachers themselves are their best resource for ascertaining and implementing knowledge (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 1999; Laidlaw, 2004; McNiff, 1993; McNiff, Lomax, & Whitehead, 1996; McNiff & Whitehead, 2005; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Loughran (2004) notes, “it is clear that the ‘one true way,’ the template for a self-study method has not emerged....the question/issue/concern under consideration…invokes the use of a method(s) that is most appropriate for uncovering evidence” (p. 29). Regardless of method, public scrutiny and critical friend review is an integral requirement of this self-study research (LaBoskey, 2004; McNiff & Whitehead, 2005; Pinnegar & Russell, 1995; Tobery-Nystrom, 2011). This self-study used a critical perspective offered virtually by a large and diverse group: 10 CFN members comprised of former graduate students, public-school colleagues, and higher-education faculty who facilitated the analyzing and reframing of my teacher-educator self-efficacy. Samaras (2011) adapted the concept of crystallization (Richardson, 2000) and refined it to the concept of the prism effect, that is, multiple data sources viewed through the lens of the critical friend, allowing the researcher to alter views through a different angle by presenting alternatives sides from merely the researcher’s perspective.

Methods An extension of reflective practice with aspirations

that go beyond professional development, self-study is the generation and communication of new knowledge and understanding that moves to a wider communication and consideration of ideas (Samaras, 2011). This self-study was designed to move through a four-phase recursive process where data was collected and analyzed in three-week spans of time over the course of fourteen weeks. Each phase required me to write a vignette, revise the belief statement, write two reflections (one pre-analysis of the CFN responses and one post-analysis of the CFN responses), and analyze the CFN responses to the belief statement and vignette. The CFN

responded to the belief statement and vignette using the Association of Teacher Educator (ATE) standards (2007) as the framework for writing their responses. I used the ATE standards (2007) to analyze the CFN’s responses looking for themes between the CFN and themes between the CFN responses and my reflections. When this process was complete, I revised the belief statement and wrote the next vignette. Then, the belief statement and the next vignette were posted on each of the individual wiki-pages. This was repeated three times for four phases. Figure 1 is a visual representation of these self-study procedures. This process led to the reframing of my teacher-educator self-efficacy belief statement.

Data sources. Twenty-three artifacts that were referenced in the four vignettes (faculty performance notebook documents including lesson plans, photographs documenting authentic learning experiences, student evaluations of my performance, and syllabi), four vignettes concerning my work as a teacher-educator in a College of Education (Service, Teaching, Professional Development, and Research) written by me during each phase of the research, and five teacher-educator belief statements (revisions were made throughout the data collection phase of the research) led to the development of my LET.

Data collection. Over the course of fourteen weeks, this self-study cycled through a series of four recursive phases using the data sources previously referenced and including shared findings in the public forum of the CFN. I collected the forty responses from the CFN concerning the belief statements and vignettes. I wrote eight reflections (pre- and post-CFN response) and revised the teacher-educator belief statement four times throughout the self-study to develop my LET.

Data analysis. During each of the four phases of this self-study, the CFN, using the ATE standards (2007), responded forty times to the vignettes and my belief statement, identifying areas of strengths and areas for growth in my teacher-educator practice. As this was exploratory research, a manual-context coding system of successive approximations (Silverman, 2005), identifying similar meanings by the CFN was used to describe and interpret CFN responses. Using ATE Standards (2007) as a guidepost, three coding categories emerged from the data: “patterns of thinking,” “word phrases,”

Figure 1.Recursive process of this exploratory research.

and “appear noteworthy to me.” Patterns of thinking were identified when more than 50% of the members of the CFN said the same thing. Word phrases were identified as those times when 50% of the CFN offered similar phrasing. Appears noteworthy was when, perhaps, only one CFN member made a statement, but it was meaningful to me and influenced my reflection or belief statement. This method of manual coding reduced the CFN member responses to a sampling that illustrated the overall perceptions of the CFN members.

Trustworthiness. In order for this research to have meaningful and reliable outcomes, validation through trustworthiness was established through the CFN. Table 1 describes the selection processed used for determining members of the CFN.

The CFN served as a resource in the analysis of the data collected and as the member check, responsible for reviewing each of the vignettes and belief statements and cross-checking documents submitted as artifacts supporting the ATE Standards (2007). Each of the CFN was assigned their own wiki-page to view artifacts, belief statements, and vignettes. For the purposes of this research, the CFN did not interact with each other. Responses by the CFN were analyzed by the researcher for confirmability of events and/or viewpoints in order to strengthen the trustworthiness of the exploration. Multiple sources of data collection—four belief statements, forty CFN responses, eight reflections, and the four vignettes) and shared findings with the revision of the belief statements—enhanced the external reliability and trustworthiness of my analysis and resulted in the discovery of themes concerning my teacher-educator self-efficacy. Essential to the trustworthiness of this exploration was Samaras’ (2011) system for evaluating self-study through the “five foci”: Does the researcher practice personal-situated inquiry? Does the researcher share in a critical collaboration inquiry? Does the researcher improve learning? Does the researcher include transparent and systematic research process? Does the researcher generate knowledge and dissemination of that research? These questions were used to ensure that the self-study procedures throughout the exploration were observed and were used to self-assess the degree to which I, as the researcher, attended to the methodological components of self-study.

Outcomes and DiscussionYou should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following speech, and learn that backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. (Dogen, 1233/1975)My self-study led to the development of my own LET

(Whitehead, 1989, 1993) as a teacher-educator. This began in

the form of an initial reflection and a belief statement. Through the recursive process of analyzing both the responses by the CFN to my five belief statements and the four vignettes and comparing those responses to my own reflections, my LET concerning my teacher-educator self-efficacy was documented. At the beginning of the self-study, I stated in the first reflection that I believed the use of the CFN would provide an opportunity for authentic and candid analysis of my teacher-educator self-efficacy, and this was borne out.

What are the factors that influence my beliefs about my teaching self-efficacy? At the start of this self-study, I identified myself as an effective teacher-educator. However, I could not fully account for the situations and experiences across my teaching career that explained this identification of effectiveness. I found that my teacher-educator self-efficacy is fluid and changes by experience and reflection. I found that my teacher-educator self-efficacy belief statement is a good descriptor during a particular time and space, but with each experience, my self-efficacy will change. Without the CFN, reflections would be limited to my individual musing as a teacher-educator, rather than verified as accurate or in need of further reflection. For example, the CFN challenged my formatting of the belief statement, asking for concrete illustrations. I did not believe the teacher-educator self-efficacy belief statement should indicate specific activities; rather, it should be my vision of my teacher-educator practice. However, I did try to acknowledge this need for explicit description of my teaching practices.

How do I know I have a strong sense of self-efficacy as a teacher-educator? I discovered that “a strong sense” of teacher-educator self-efficacy is subjective to the experience. There are some areas of my teacher-educator practice that are “strong” such as Teaching, Cultural Competency, and Professional Development. There are other areas like Scholarship, Program Development, and Teacher Educator Profession that are areas for further growth. As a junior faculty member, my expertise lies in teaching. This is the area in which I have the most lived experience. I have been able to address these areas of growth by opportunities within my IHE and through national and international presentations and paper publications. I believe the areas of growth findings from my self-study positively impacted my desire to improve my teacher-educator practice.

What are the factors that influence my beliefs about my teaching? In this self-study, I discovered that all the experiences I have as a learner/teacher-educator influence my teacher-educator beliefs. Samaras’s (2011) prism effect allowed me to view my teacher-educator self-efficacy through different perspectives. This gave me an opportunity to consider my teaching in the eyes of students and peers. As each phase

Table 1.

Critical friend network selection

Former graduate students IHE faculty Public school colleagues • have taken a minimum of 2 courses with me as an instructor and graduated by August 2008 • 5 students invited • 3 former student fulfilled minimum (4 participated)

• IHE faculty who have known my work in the last 5 years • 5 IHE faculty invited • 3 IHE faculty fulfilled minimum

• colleagues from 2 public school systems • the teacher-educator co-taught a class and/or presented at a conference or workshop • 5 colleagues invited • 3 colleague fulfilled minimum

of the research progressed, the CFN became nuanced in what they looked for in the vignettes and the belief statement.

In the beginning of the self-study, the CFN focused on the vignette. Then there was a shift, and, the CFN began commenting specifically to the belief statement, and, then, about their teaching practices. I believe this was due to the reframing of the belief statement, and, I am optimistic this means we (the CFN and me) are in agreement as to the content of the belief statement. (Reflection two for Phase three: Professional Development, 2011) It was discovered that the CFN began reflecting on

their individual teaching practice, rather than responding exclusively about my teacher-educator practice. This was a catalyst for new thinking for me. I discovered that self-study is not just about the individual; rather, it is a research method that can be an inclusive experience for all participants. Members of the CFN shared in responses that by participating in this self-study, each was making their own professional growth. I had not anticipated the benefits for the CFN of participating in this research. The CFN cited in their responses that they were considering their own teacher practices based on the vignettes and belief statements. One CFN member wrote,

I know that at times I am guilty of taking the easy way out instead of spending the time reflecting on my own shortcomings and revising my approach to technique and approach with the student’s best interest at heart. This exploration gave me the opportunity to increase my own awareness concerning my own self-efficacy as a teacher. (Tobery-Nystrom, 2011)

Unique to this self-study was the discovery that my dissertation committee began functioning in a role similar to the CFN. I have discovered, post–dissertation defense, that most of my colleagues completing dissertations did not have the same level of relationship with their dissertation committee as I did in the completion of my self-study. My committee was comprised of three members. The first, my dissertation chair, understood the parameters for a successful dissertation at the IHE. The second person from the IHE held expertise in the ATE standards (2007) and teacher supervision. She counseled me in the use of ATE standards (2007) as a framework for examining my teacher-educator self-efficacy. The third member and second author in this paper, the self-study methodologist, was versed in the ATE standards (2007) and provided continual checks concerning my interpretation of the self-study literature and the self-study procedures I was using to research my own teacher-educator self-efficacy. The chair and second member were vested in learning self-study methodology as it was new to their practice. The third member was interested supporting a self-study dissertation outside her home IHE. This created a powerful dissertation committee who became, individually and collectively, invested in the self-study of my teacher-educator self-efficacy. This component adds to the literature on how a dissertation committee can serve as a CFN.

ConclusionsI discovered that without the CFN, my reflections

would be limited to my individual musings as a teacher-educator, rather than validated or found to be in need of further reflection. I discovered that the CFN not only responded to my vignettes and belief statements, but they also started reflecting on their own teaching practices. This was significant as it validated for me that, through my own modeling of reflection to complete this self-study, I was creating a space

of learning and reflection for the CFN. I discovered that the dissertation committee that guides the doctoral study has the capacity to function as a CFN. I believe the tenets of self-study methodology, including reporting on areas of professional growth, ultimately strengthen my accountability and demonstrate the essentialness of critical friends in the self-assessment of teacher-educators. It offers other IHE faculty a tool for self-assessment in the age of accountability.

ReferencesAshton, P., & Webb, K. (1986). Making a difference: Teachers’

sense of efficacy and student achievement. New York, NY: Longman Press.

Association of Teacher Educators. (2007). Standards for teacher educators. Retrieved from http://www.ate1.org/pubs/Standards.cfm

Baird, J. (2004). Interpreting the what, why, and how of self-study in teaching and teacher education. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 1443–1481). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychology Review, 84, 191–215.

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Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. In A. Iran-Nejar & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of research in education (pp. 249–305). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Cole, A., & Knowles, J. (1996, August). The politics of epistemology and self-study of teacher education practices. In J. Richards & T. Russell (Eds.), Empowering Our Future in Teacher Education. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. Kingston, Canada: Queen’s University.

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IntroductionSocial media has captured a spotlight in the new digital

universe, becoming a dominant communication vehicle and part of our daily discourse. Words like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Google, and Wikipedia are part of our daily discourse. New Literacies, the term most commonly used to label digital reading and writing skills, affect how the Net Generation, or Learners of the 21st Century, socialize and connect with their peers (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006; McGonigal, 2011; Turkle, 2011). Educators are starting to employ online social platforms in powerful ways (Leu et al., 2008; Richardson, 2010).

In the era of new literacies we have found ourselves having to “build the airplane as it is flying.” After four years of using wikis in my teacher education courses, I (Lee) wanted to complete a self-study that would help me clarify my understandings of how to create and use wikis in teacher education courses and to continue to improve my practice. Wikis are socially constructed websites being used successfully in educational settings for a variety of purposes (Richardson, 2010; Tarasiuk, 2010).

My critical friend and student (Meleah) has joined me. Together we are seeking answers the following three questions. How we can improve our use of wikis to (1) model the use of this digital resource in K-12 education in teacher education courses, (2) foster rich conversations about literature and/or professional readings and field experiences, and (3) build and manage asynchronous digital work spaces for group projects?

ContextLee has been an educator for 38 years, ten years as

an English teacher or reading specialist working primarily with adolescents but also with second through sixth graders. She has worked in higher education for the last 28 years. Meleah is currently a doctoral candidate researching in the field of digital literacy as it applies to practicing teachers, seeking professional development models that will promote new literacies instruction in K-12 learning communities. She taught in varied K-12 classroom settings for 32 years. We have both been early adopters of technologies and instrumental in introducing a wide range of digital technologies in our schools.

We first connected through a wiki. In the summer of 2010, Meleah was a student in Lee’s summer online course, designed and taught on a wiki. Soon after we began to meet regularly, discussing our mutual interest in designing wikis for various instructional purposes.

Ideas for our self-study formed during these informal conversations about our work with wikis. As we celebrated our technological successes, we also struggled with both faculty and student resistance. We knew that we had successfully used

this somewhat controversial social networking tool for positive student growth, yet our ideas were fuzzy, unfocused, and scattered across the Internet.

Looking for GuidelinesWhen we began our work in 2008, there was little

guidance for designing wikis within teacher education coursework, yet we immediately saw their potential as a way to create collaborative, reflective spaces. The simple design of this digital resource afforded an alternative platform for book discussion groups (Daniels, 2002; Gambrell & Almasi, 1996) and general discussions. We also saw their potential for relieving some of the time demands that our students often faced when scheduling face-to-face team meetings to complete group projects. Because wikis were a relatively new digital resource there had been no time to establish a substantial body of research about the use of wikis in teacher education. Almost all published work looks at wikis at the K-12 level and typically focuses on one wiki (Heafner & Friedman, 2008; Tarasiuk, 2010; Karasavvidis, 2010). The few studies in the area of teacher education often involve English majors or graduate students and are limited to one class (Bowers-Campbell, 2011; Karasavvidis, 2010).

Self-Study MethodologyIn the spring of 2011, we decided to begin a self-study

that would use a systematic analysis of our previous and current wikis to help us develop some guidelines for our ongoing wiki work and to provide critical feedback on our current practices. During this initial review process we read some of each other’s wikis and formulated the three questions that guided this study: how can we improve our use of wikis to (1) model the use of this digital resource in K-12 education in teacher education courses, (2) foster rich conversations about literature and/or professional readings and field experiences, and (3) build and manage asynchronous digital work spaces for group projects?

We narrowed our next round of study to seventeen wikis, collectively representing 239 participants in various literacy courses offered within teacher education. These wikis represented all four years of our work, allowing us the opportunity to search for improvement in our personal designs and instructional practices. The pool of wikis included those guided by each of us individually and together.

We again used open coding methods to carefully detail our analysis of each other’s wikis, writing narratives (Merriam, 2009; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and searching for recurring themes. It should be noted that while exploring the wikis themselves we had the opportunity to also gather information about their effectiveness through listening to the voices of the students who created them. It is important to keep in mind

LEE ANN DUBERT TYSSELING & MELEAH McCULLEYBoise State University

Going Mobile: Reframing Discussion Groups for 21st Century Classrooms

that through the analysis of the wiki we are viewing student work and opinions, not content exclusively created by course instructors.

Because of the digital, nonlinear format of our wikis we developed manageable ways to capture and analyze digital data through several digital tools (i.e., Google Docs, Google Sites, OneNote, and DropBox). We read and copied sections of each wiki into a table created in OneNote. In the second column we wrote narratives and began axial coding. After coding each wiki we individually wrote a narrative of our thoughts and impressions about the wiki. This provided trustworthiness within our study as we read each wiki independently, in many cases not knowing the students or class dynamics. We avoided discussion of our ongoing findings until we were at benchmark spots, usually once a month.

At these benchmark spots we shared our OneNote codings in DropBox. We exchanged narratives and made comments about similarities and differences in our thinking in writing. After reviewing each other’s work, we met to discuss and modify our emerging categories and themes. Finally we met to review all wikis, narratives, and notes to finalize our categories, themes, and findings.

Throughout this analysis process of our past wiki work, we were continuing to teach using wikis. Our analysis of completed course wikis informed our discussions about present practices. The active wikis were part of the self-study, allowing us to try out our thinking as we continued to study our work. Our next step will be to further insure the trusthworthiness of our data by working with a third researcher. We plan to ask one of our colleagues with similar overlapping interests in literacy development and New Literacies to review our self-study findings and participate in a new self-study in the future. The self-study has challenged and illuminated our thinking (Loughran, 2004) about wikis.

FindingsThe self-study has resulted in the following ideas for

using wikis in teacher education. As we enact these ideas in our current teaching, we continue to refine and add to them. As always, our students’ feedback has also provided a helpful third perspective.

Rich Conversations: Using a Light Touch

One of the purposes of our self-study was to test out strategies for encouraging rich and authentic discussions. We began to modify our wikis to encourage student choice and voice. As we analyzed our previous wikis and worked in the active wikis, we came to believe it advisable to stay in the background and encourage students to take the lead. At first we added our encouragements within the wiki pages until we discovered that this was a real conversation stopper. If the teacher voice came in too soon, it appears that students would perceive the wiki as belonging to the instructor. If genuine student conversations and group work were to occur, giving students responsibility and ownership of the wiki seemed essential. This doesn’t suggest that we were unresponsive; we discovered that it was vital to give feedback and guidance during the first few weeks of open discussion, but to stay behind the scenes.

We are currently making it a practice to send reminder e-mails to individuals who haven’t yet engaged in the discussion within the first few days of starting new discussion cycles or activities. We’re also sending individual suggestions

to redirect students whose contributions seemed problematic or off-topic.

Modeling Exemplary Responses Through our self-study we have come to value the

significant time and feedback that encourages authentic conversations and collaboration. Initially we found what we described as “post and run” discussions. In this type of discussion students appear to compose a concise paragraph that adequately demonstrates their surface knowledge of the assigned material and perhaps “tagging” the entry with another student’s name to give a “nod” to any requirement to respond to others. We felt as if they never engaged in authentic conversations with peers. Even though our students enjoy social networking (Facebook, Twitter, and blogs) we found they didn’t necessarily translate these informal communication skills into online academic discourses that require critical thinking and dissonance/assimilation as they construct meaning from new content (Sharpe, Beetham, & de Freitas, 2010). We needed to find ways to move students from being in “compliance” with requirements to looking forward to engaging with each other in conversations about course topics. We tested out two strategies for improving the quality of discussion: the use of carefully designed rubrics for substantive feedback throughout our courses and models of in-depth responsive discussion.

To help move toward richer discussions, Lee began sending individual rubrics to each student at the end of a first discussion cycle. She also explicitly modeled desired discussion responses with individual students, groups, or the course as a whole. For example, in a recent small group discussion of a young adult novel, The Hunger Games, Lee wanted to prompt a group to think beyond the novel itself and make more text-to-text connections. After completing the rubric for each group member, she added the following to the end of each rubric:

I really enjoyed the discussions your group had on this book. I had trouble staying out of the conversation. Kids in elementary and junior high school read this series. I’ve had several 7th grade teachers express some of the same concerns you have about the violence in the book. I think it would be a great alternative/companion book to Lord of the Flies. I think this is a book that could also be read at the high school level for examination of government, consumerism and the effects of media on society. I really think it is also a good parallel read to watching Rollerball. (I think pairing it up with State of Fear by Michael Crichton would be a nice parallel as well.) I’ve read all three books in the Hunger Games series. I agree with 7th grade teacher friend. The last book definitely is for an older group. Perhaps like J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins intends her audience to “grow up” with the books.We continue to work on the right “touch” for modeling

desired discussion responses. If we post samples before the work in the wiki begins, then too often students use them as templates and fail to develop their own voice and exercise choice. If we provide no examples, students can either be confused and frustrated or sometimes fail to authentically engage in the conversation.

Collaborative ProjectsThis is an area that showed great improvement

throughout the series of wikis but still falls somewhat short of our ideal. As we started using Coiro’s (2005) structure

for helping students synthesize information across readings and create original products from research, we noticed fewer instances of “cut and paste” (plagiarism). However, we still wanted to see more actual synthesis of information across all sources. Our current theory is that we need to model more explicitly the process of summary and synthesis. Many of our students resist the rigors of creating an original summarization and statement. They also sometimes still rely on a quilting approach to group work. (Each member takes a piece and adds it.) We are still seeking ways to help them learn skills for collaboration with group members across time and distance.

Structure of the WikiThrough our narrative process, recording changes in

wiki appearance, structure, and student participation, we observed how our designs have evolved over time. This clarified our understanding about key structural components which may guide effective instructional scaffolding for students. We will discuss each of these in turn.

Clean, uncluttered pages. It is possible to create beautiful and complex pages. We found our best results, however, when we purposefully designed clean, uncluttered pages with obvious links compatible with underlying structures.

Internet readers are accustomed to eye-candy: graphics, videos, and sound. Current research findings suggest that motivation and engagement are connected to page appearance (Haskell, 2012). We believe that complexity can be counterproductive when guiding student collaboration. We systematically include at least one image or multi-media object on the “parent” page of each section to improve engagement, but we attempt to keep the rest of the design task-focused. Page appearance seems to create an atmosphere that affects students the same as classroom appearance affects learning in brick-and-mortar contexts.

Text structure. One of the defining differences between digital media and print is the nonlinearity of digital media. As a result of our self-study we have developed a metaphor for the underlying structure of wikis: the structure of a wiki looks more like something from The Matrix than a carefully detailed table of contents. The socially constructed nature of wikis means that students create pages and add sections to the wiki without necessarily following our predetermined “outline.” We wanted to encourage this, but needed to find ways to reflect these additions in the underlying structure. Online text structures require different reading/writing skills from those of print text, and we found ourselves adjusting the structures and content of the wikis to help students navigate through this maze.

One finding of our study is that the inclusion of navigation sidebars or subpage directories is advisable. Not only does this seem to help students, but it can also provide an indicator of possible structural problems in the wiki. If the navigation sidebar looks confusing, it is likely that the underlying structure of the wiki needs attention. Another finding related to structure that we are systematically including in our current work is to include hyperlinks in multiple spots to related pages. This convenient, logical connection and redundancy allows students to easily click and find desired pages. We found that encouraging students to create these hyperlinks gives them more ownership of the site and helps them demonstrate the relationships of their work to the work of others.

A clear, single purpose. As our design skills evolved and we started using wikis for more and more of our

coursework, we discovered a different problem: trying to put too much in a single wiki confused students. We discovered that rather than designing one “mega” wiki, we were designing several smaller wikis, each with a single purpose. For example, in her fall 2011 content literacy courses, Lee used two wikis: one for literature discussion groups and interdisciplinary study related to the book and a second one for instructional strategy learning/practice that came later in the course. Trying to make one wiki serve several purposes complicated the underlying structure and opened the door to confusion.

Posting rubrics in the wiki. Students are focused on grades and how their conversations on the wiki are “going to count.” Lee started adding her grading rubrics to each assignment parent page. This is a delicate balance that we’re continually reviewing and discussing. The rubrics need to be designed with clear expectations but be open-ended enough that students still have voice and choice. The rubrics, when posted in spot that reminds students of their content, seem to help shape the content constructed on the wiki by valuing the behaviors/conversations Lee hopes to achieve. For example, because authentic conversations are one of her desired outcomes, Lee began to include criteria for discussions to be posted over time during the cycle. For example, she offers specific guidance for engagement by valuing the timing of visits to the discussion: “[Students are expected to] spread discussion posts over time. The first response is relatively early in the cycle. Subsequent responses are posted over time.” She also includes specifics about the substance of contributions in her rubrics: “[Students are expected to post] thoughtful, supportive, and ‘additive’ responses to three or more classmates. ‘Additive’ means that responses help move the discussion forward (adds new ideas related to the original contribution).”

Students appreciated this feedback. A recent e-mail in response to the first round of discussions in a young adult literature course provided evidence of student appreciation:

Thank you so much for this feedback! Sometimes professors grade me and not explain how I can improve my efforts. You have given me a direction to follow, and I will definitely take your advise [sic]. Thank you again for the feedback.

ConclusionOur self-study provided increased clarity for the

elements that hold promise for increasingly effective use of wikis in our teaching practice. We have been able to chart the path we took as we developed ways to design effective, collaborative spaces with wikis to reach our instructional goals: modeling the use of a digital resource; fostering open, sustained discussions; and creating convenient, collaborative spaces for group projects. We are also optimistic that our findings will make implementation of wikis in both K-12 and collegiate contexts more effective. We are both continuing to include wikis as part of our teacher education courses. After reviewing our history of wikis and their continued evolution, we remain convinced that they serve a vital role as a digital space for teacher education.

ReferencesBowers-Campbell, J. (2011). Take it out of class: Exploring

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Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Sharpe, R., Beetham, H., & de Freitas, S. (2010). Rethinking learning for a digital age. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Tarasiuk, T. J. (2010). Combining traditional and contemporary texts: Moving my English class to the computer lab. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 543–552.

Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Introduction and ContextIn my role as coordinator of professional experience

units in undergraduate and graduate courses, I work closely with pre-service teachers on campus and in their practicum schools. I am also newly appointed to a leadership position in the faculty, as Director of Partnerships and Professional Placements. Therefore, an important part of my work as a teacher educator is in traversing the “space” between university and schools. Like most other teacher educators, I am also a former classroom teacher, and have mentored many pre-service teachers in my own classroom over a 25-year period.

Becoming a Teacher EducatorMy experience as a teacher educator is a relatively short

six years. In that time, like many others, I have undertaken self-studies that examine my experiences of becoming a teacher educator (e.g., Williams, 2008). A recent review of the becoming a teacher educator literature (Williams, Ritter, & Bullock, in press) found that one of the most crucial aspects of the transition from teacher to teacher educator is managing the tensions between these different professional identities. The review concluded that “th[e] crossing of professional boundaries between school teacher/mentor teacher/teacher educator... represents [one] example of the challenges for beginning teacher educators to...successfully negotiate boundaries between distinct yet related professional communities of practice” (p. 8). It was clear from the literature review that beginning teacher educators’ identities and practice are greatly influenced by their previous identities as school teachers and by their interactions with mentor and pre-service teachers in schools.

Boundary Crossing and Teaching in the “Third Space”

Recent literature has explored the notion of “boundary crossing” (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Hung & Chen, 2007) and the concept of the third space between the professional practice of university-based teacher educators and school-based mentor/supervising teachers (Cuenca, Schmeichel, Butler, Dinkelman, & Nichols, 2011; Martin, Snow, & Franklin, 2011; Tsui & Law, 2007; Zeichner, 2010). Martin et al. (2011) explored the challenges faced by university-based teacher educators working in schools and concluded that working in this third space was essentially about “negotiating a web of relationships” (p. 305). They concluded that “redefining the nature of university-based teacher educators’ work adds further dimension to its complexity as processes of building and negotiating complex relationships are central to the work” (p. 308). Zeichner (2010) argued

that working within the “hybrid” space between schools and universities was an essential dimension of teacher education and “involve[s] a rejection of binaries such as practitioner and academic knowledge and theory and practice, and involve[s] the integration of what are often seen as competing discourses in new ways—an either/or perspective is transformed into a both/also point of view” (p. 92). Korthagen, Loughran, and Russell (2006) suggested that teacher educators working in this third space hold “three different perspectives simultaneously: the perspective of the individual learning to teach, the perspective of the teacher in a school, and the perspective of the teacher educator in the university setting” (p. 1034).

Theoretical FrameworkAkkerman and Bakker (2011) claimed that there were

four “mechanisms” of learning during boundary crossing between different sites of practice. They argued that learning involves “new understandings, identity development, change of practices and institutional development” (p. 142). The four mechanisms of learning are 1) identification, whereby the core identity of each site is questioned, leading to new insights into areas of concern and potential learning. This is a dialogical process that delineates one practice from another and where “a range of personal and cultural identities is contested” (p. 142); 2) coordination, which requires a “communicative connection” (p.143) or dialogue that attempts to overcome the inherent ambiguities in boundary spaces; 3) reflection, which involves “coming to realise and explicate difference between practices and thus to learn something new about their own and others’ practices” (p. 144–5); and 4) transformation, where confrontation necessitates changes in practices and “a new construction of identity that informs future practice” (p. 146).

Aims of the StudyMy research question for this study was “How does

my work in schools contribute to my evolving identity and practice as a teacher educator?” For the purposes of this paper, I use the term “identity” to describe my perception-of-self and authenticity as a teacher educator, in relation to my past professional roles.

MethodThis self-study utilised a qualitative approach, with

two primary sources of data: a personal reflective journal and e-mail correspondence from two pre-service teachers.

Data collection. During one academic year, I kept a personal reflective journal in which I entered my thoughts, feelings, and reactions soon after contact with mentor teachers and pre-service teachers on practicum. This amounted to 18 pages of data. During the year, I also had e-mail

JUDY WILLIAMSMonash University

Exploring the Third Space Between Schools and Universities: Implications for a Teacher Educator’s Identity and Practice

correspondence (approximately 50 e-mails) from mentor teachers and pre-service teachers who were experiencing difficulties whilst on placement. To provide triangulation of data in this paper, I used e-mail correspondence from two pre-service teachers who gave me permission to use their text as data.

Data analysis. First, I read the journal entries several times to re-orient myself to the data. Using a grounded approach, I made colour-coded memos (Punch, 2009) about ideas or patterns that emerged from the data. As a result, five themes were evident: 1) references to my previous work as a teacher in schools; 2) emotional responses; 3) ethical dilemmas; 4) mediating conflicting perspectives; and 5) language/discourse. I then reduced these five categories to three overarching themes for the purpose of this paper: 1) same but different; 2) using teacher talk to develop and maintain relationships; and 3) mediating conflict and balancing different perspectives. These were then analysed in relation to Akkerman and Bakker’s (2011) framework (identification, coordination, reflection and transformation) and with reference to other relevant literature.

FindingsSame but different. I often wrote about the challenges

of reconciling my experience and knowledge as a teacher/mentor teacher with my more recent experience and knowledge as a teacher educator. I was aware that both of these identities were playing out simultaneously and that one body of knowledge and experience informed the other. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) claimed that “the identification processes occur by defining one practice in light of another delineating how it differs from the other practice” (p. 142). In many of my journal entries, I grappled with the differences and similarities between myself and mentor teachers in schools. I was conscious of being a primary teacher, just like them, but I was also aware that I am now different, having experiences and perceptions developed during approximately six years as a teacher educator. For example, after a visit to one school at which I met up with a former teaching colleague, Don, I noted in my journal:

Here, with Don in the school ground, surrounded by kids and noise, so familiar, I felt at home. I want to hold on to that, but to also be someone who has moved beyond that. I was wearing both “hats” and actually felt very comfortable with that...[my teacher friends] don’t seem to understand that I have actually crossed the threshold into academia and that I am not going back. How can I be the “old me” and the “new me,” all at the same time?...I have to harness the knowledge and understanding that I have developed [as a teacher]and use it to frame my own pedagogy in teacher education. (March 18, 2011)

On another occasion, I noted thatI am aware of a gulf between how many mentor teachers think and how I now think. Is this a turning point in my journey of becoming a teacher educator? I know and acknowledge where they are coming from, but I no longer share it...Is becoming a teacher educator about growth of understanding and broadening of horizons, as much as about developing a “pedagogy of teacher education”? Is the broadening of understanding part of the pedagogy? (May 16, 2011) In these and other entries, I was aware of the need to

embrace my former self as a teacher, but I also knew I had to move beyond that to develop new pedagogical practices as a

teacher educator, in relation to my previous experiences. This is what Cuenca (2010) did when he stated that “my previous experiences as a classroom teacher informed my practice of field-based teacher education” (p. 31).

Teacher talk to develop and maintain professional relationships. In many of my journal entries I noted my propensity to consciously engage in “teacher talk” with mentor and pre-service teachers that demonstrated my previous experience as a mentor teacher. I believe it created an opportunity to show that I am not someone from the “ivory tower” but a teacher who understands and empathises with the concerns of classroom and pre-service teachers. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) referred to this as coordination, which establishes a “communicative connection between diverse practices or perspectives” (p. 143) that helps to create permeable boundaries so that “interactions [can] run smoothly” (p. 144). For example, after a potentially difficult visit to a school, in which the coordinator of student teachers, Gill, had rung the university to criticise our program and my handing of an “at risk” situation, I noted in my journal:

When I arrived at the school, I was expecting a very hostile reception. As I was sitting in the staffroom, Gill sat down and asked if it was me she spoke to last Monday. I said no… She looked a bit severe, so I didn’t say anything more, either did she. After a few minutes of non-communication, I broke the ice by … [telling] her that I used to teach in the neighboring school, [then] we talked about the upcoming [school] merger. When we were talking as teachers, she seemed to relax and be less confrontational…I deliberately slipped into “teacher talk” to try to diffuse the tension that appeared to be there when we first spoke. Instead of talking to “the university” over the phone, she was talking to me, a teacher who was familiar with the local area… I really think this ability to slip into the lives and language of a classroom teacher, while maintaining the perspective of a teacher educator, is essential to dealing with these difficult situations when mentor teachers and student teachers are at odds. (November 3, 2011)As Cuenca et al. (2011) suggested, working in the third

space “create[s] conversational spaces that bring competing discourses into dialogue with each other” (p. 1069). By communicating with Gill as an equal and establishing a common base for dialogue about the pre-service teacher I was visiting, I was able to diffuse a potentially unproductive situation and reconstruct our relationship as a supportive space for all concerned.

Mediating conflict and balancing different perspectives. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) stated that reflection on practice in boundary spaces helps participants to see their own practices in new ways. It is essential to “mak[e] explicit one’s understanding and knowledge of a particular issue” and to “tak[e] another perspective...to begin to see things in a different light” (p. 145). During several of my school visits, it was clear that the mentor and pre-service teachers had different views on the pre-service teacher’s competency. In several of my journal entries, I became frustrated by what I believed was the mentor teachers’ narrow focus on the technical aspects of teaching. While I understood their concerns, I felt they placed less value on the complex identity-related learning that was also underway. After a visit to a school in which the mentor teacher, Sue, was very critical of the standard of English of Liang, an international pre-service teacher, I wrote:

I feel very anxious about this issue and find it very confronting to deal with. I can understand Sue’s

concerns...However, I feel it is a much bigger issue than incorrect English—are we being “small minded” in judging [international] students to be unsuccessful as teachers because they do not have perfect English? The teacher educator in me sees this bigger issue, which is really around Liang’s identity as well as competence as a teacher. The teacher in me, however, understands and shares Sue’s perspective that children need to be taught English correctly. This really challenges me to walk that fine line between understanding and empathising with the various perspectives. (June 1, 2011) This is an example of my practice within the third

space when I am required to “legitimate coexistence” and find a way to help people to recognise and accept differences “without necessarily overcoming discontinuities” (Akkerman & Bakker, 2001, p. 143). By the end of the year, Sue still had strong concerns about Liang’s English skills and believed this was a deficiency in her teaching. Liang, however, viewed the concerns as something far greater than her competence in English. In an e-mail to me following the completion of her placement, Liang stated that

While I was doing placement, I tried not to think she treated me unfairly. I myself consider that she is just one of the people who care things a lot and what she thinks is right. But after spending last two placement days, I cannot help but wonder if she would treat me same if I am an Aussie student teacher? Sorry that I keep asking you unpleasant things but I cannot just let it go. (September 24, 2011)

This lament was evidence for me that learning to teach is not just about technical competence; it is also about identity and belonging.

In another case, a cry for help came from Rose, who was feeling very vulnerable in her relationship with her mentor teacher. Rose wrote in an e-mail that

In terms of personality…I would describe the situation as completely mismatched. I would describe my teacher as having body-mind disconnect. This manifests in her not always being aware of her aggressive behaviour—both in speech, and body language (on occasions—slamming the door, looking past me, loudly sighing). I would describe myself as overly sensitive to aggression and negativity. I see this as a learning situation where I have the opportunity to become less affected by (perceived) others’ negative impressions of me…The best thing to come out of this so far is for me, as a beginning teacher, to acutely feel how some students must feel, and vowing never to let this happen to one of my students...knowing what it feels like to be trying to do the right thing, working really, really hard at it, and failing—success perpetually out of reach. And, while there are brief moments of sunshine, more often it’s the dark feeling of the teacher’s wrath. Confidence-sapping. (October 29, 2011) After receiving this e-mail, I visited Rose in her

classroom, and my journal entry illustrated my struggles to bring together two parties who had such different perspectives on teaching and to acknowledge the validity of both. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) cautioned that “legitimating coexistence is often highly political and sensitive to those involved” (p. 143), and I found that I had to be very diplomatic in balancing the conflicting beliefs and needs of mentor and pre-service teacher. I wrote that

When speaking to the mentor teacher, I can understand her frustration with Rose’s apparent lack of organization and being on top of things. The teacher in me sees

this. I struggle, though, as I see much learning in Rose, [although] the teaching is not coming together at the moment. Is that the difference between mentor teachers and teacher educators—we focus on the learning of our students, and they focus on the teaching? Are these different things? It was heart-wrenching to meet with Rose alone after the lesson…and tell her that she is considered at risk of failing this placement. She was in tears, looking so disappointed and defeated. Teaching is so much about the person, and here I was saying she is not “good enough.” I felt a sense of betrayal because I have followed her challenges and personal growth through the year…How can I support Rose to continue on her journey to becoming a teacher, while recognizing that she is not there yet? (November 2, 2011)

In this situation, I realized that my work as a teacher educator in the third space is about acknowledging the mentor teacher’s concerns about performance while at the same time supporting the emotional, pedagogical, and philosophical growth of a struggling pre-service teacher. It was indeed like the “complicated dance” described by Martin et al. (2011, p. 305). It appeared that on this occasion I was successful at least in part in contributing to a positive outcome. After the placement had finished, Rose e-mailed me to say “I just wanted to say a quick ‘thank you’—relationships & guidance have dramatically improved since your visit…your visit marked a turning point in the teacher/student relationship. See you on the other side!” (November 3, 2011, November 23, 2011).

ConclusionsThis study highlighted the challenging nature of

working in the third space, and how learning in that space is as much about personal and professional identities as it is about teaching practice. Akkerman and Bakker (2011) stated that “transformation leads to profound changes in practices, potentially even the creation of new, in-between practice, sometimes called a boundary practice” (p.146). I believe that working in schools constitutes one such boundary practice. As such, it involves my using knowledge and experiences gained as both teacher and teacher educator to mediate the different perspectives on learning that inhabit this third space. This requires a delicate balancing act of acknowledging and respecting the personal and professional identities of all involved. Before undertaking this self-study, I tended to assume that by showing mentor teachers that I was “just like them,” I was in some way establishing credibility in their eyes. After all, this is consistent with other literature that has suggested “teacher educators [see] the need to hold onto their teacher identities while establishing credibility in the dual roles of ‘former-teacher’ and teacher educator” (Williams et al., in press). However, this self-study has enabled me to see that my past work as a classroom teacher is about more than credibility—it is, in fact, an important basis on which I establish professional dialogue and forge mutually respectful working relationships with mentor teachers to support the learning of pre-service teachers, often in emotionally challenging situations. The challenge to establish such relationships is therefore an important part of my evolving identity and pedagogy as a teacher educator, as I understand that I “belong to both one world and another” (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011, p. 141).

ReferencesAkkerman, S., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and

boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132–169.

Cuenca, A. (2010). In loco pedagogus: The pedagogy of a novice university supervisor. Studying Teacher Education, 6(1), 29–43.

Cuenca, A., Schmeichel, M., Butler, B., Dinkelman, T., & Nichols, J. (2011). Creating a “third space” in student teaching: Implications for the university supervisor’s status as outsider. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 1068–1077.

Hung, D., & Chen, D-T.V. (2007). Context-process authenticity in learning: Implications for identity enculturation and boundary crossing. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(2), 147–167.

Korthagen, F., Loughran, J., & Russell, T. (2006). Developing fundamental principles for teacher education programs and practices. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 1020–1041.

Martin, S., Snow, J., & Franklin Torrez, C. (2010). Navigating the terrain of third spaces: Tensions with/in relationships in school-university partnerships. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(3), 299–311.

Punch, K. (2009). Introduction to research methods in education. London, United Kingdom: Sage.

Tsui, A. B. M., & Law, D. Y. K. (2007). Learning as boundary-crossing in school-university partnership. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1289–1301.

Williams, J. (2008). Self-study as a means of facilitating a new professional identity: From primary teacher to teacher educator. In M. Heston, D. Tidwell, K. East, & L. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Pathways to Change in Teacher Education: Dialogue, Diversity and Self-Study. Proceedings for the Seventh International Conference on the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (pp. 318–322). Cedar Falls, IA: University of Northern Iowa.

Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 89–99.

ContextIn 2010, our faculty enrolled a cohort of teachers from

a large Australian private school, Glenhope, into a master’s degree by research. Concern about the high attrition rate of part-time master’s students informed the faculty’s thinking. Disconnection from the University, from a community of learners, increases attrition (Snyder & Forgasz, 2008; Manathunga, 2005), so the course was built around developing community (Clarke, Erickson, Collins, & Phelan, 2005; Dinsmore & Wenger, 2006). Previously, the faculty had established cohorts promoting community, but with patchy success. This course would be highly scaffolded, with designated coordination at cohort and small-group level.

Jan, a senior faculty staff member who had a long-term relationship with Glenhope, conceived their specific course delivery and taught the first research training unit. Ros (a research degrees adviser) was asked to form small research groups, find suitable group and individual supervisors, and try to ensure compatible relationships. Julie (a lecturer) had taught the second research unit in 2010 at Glenhope. By the beginning of 2011, we (Ros and Julie) found ourselves overseeing the cohort. The structural metaphor underpinning the cohort model, as described by Jan, was a school community. Year Level Coordinators (Ros and Julie) would take responsibility for the cohort. Home Group Teachers, experienced thesis supervisors, would support small groups of teacher-students doing similar research and mentor less experienced or inexperienced individual thesis supervisors.

As 2011 progressed, we became aware of tensions arising from uncertainty about our roles (Berry, 2004) and dilemmas around our roles vis-à-vis the roles of the supervisors (Wisker, Robinson & Shacham, 2007). Concurrently, we noticed that Glenhope’s demands of the teachers often inhibited progress and participation in the monthly seminars at the University, devised to engender a research community. Mindful of the emotional dimensions of teachers’ work (Kelchtermans & Hamilton, 2004) and influenced by the effects of the “rhythms of...personal lives and developmental needs” (Bullough, Clark, Wentworth & Hansen, 2001, p. 100) of beginning researchers, we examine how we support a cohort of teachers embarking on research. In questioning our own emerging identities we use narrative inquiry to try to make sense of the events which shape our understanding of who we are and what we should do (Watson, 2006).

After the end of this first year, we ask ourselves how we have constructed our roles, and in response to what factors; how we, as cohort coordinators, related to the students and the extent to which we were responsible for monitoring their progress; how this highly scaffolded and resourced research master’s cohort model has been enacted; and what we have learned about ourselves that will inform future practice.

MethodologyOur self-study centres on interactions with 24

supervisors, 31 students, and Jan. Datasets were numerous and included notes of conversations and meetings; journal entries; e-mails to and from supervisors and students; telephone logs; and audio recordings of supervisors’ meetings and some of our conversations. Each of us documented issues derived from e-mails, telephone calls, and corridor conversations. At our regular meetings we updated each other about our observations. We debriefed after the monthly workshops, noting attendance, participation, and student comments. Major themes emerged from the datasets (Richards, 2005): different layers of administration; conflicting agenda of the University, faculty, staff, and students; interventions needed to clarify different rhythms of coursework and research; and advising students in trouble. We also looked for patterns in common with studies showing affective, logistical, and academic aspects of cohorts (Lamb & Jacobs, 2009) or concern about attrition from higher degrees (Benson, Hewitt, Devos, Crosling & Heagney, 2009) to see how our experience might contribute to thinking about delivering research degrees for cohorts.

Cognizant of the understanding afforded through sharing practice (Loughran, 2010), we explore these experiences to make meaning of the processes involved in the program. We analysed critical incidents (Tripp, 1993) to see how they illuminated the issues identified and constructed narratives to encapsulate them succinctly. Discussing our work with a critical friend, the political agenda underlying course delivery were forefronted: university funding relies on enrolment numbers, and faculties worry about attrition. We have tried to represent the complex layers of processes involved in course delivery by interweaving the students’ stories through the administrative background.

FindingsA good school uniform that doesn’t quite fit:

Discomfort as the catalyst for this self-study. Jan’s school metaphor was useful for working with a cohort of schoolteachers. Organisational and scaffolding roles seemed relatively obvious and clarified, to some extent, how a new approach to group supervision might work. However, positioning the teacher-students as a year-level cohort necessitated their moving through parallel experiences simultaneously and implied their readiness to progress from one year level to the next. This metaphor was appropriate during the coursework phase, but at the research phase, the important guiding principle of considering individual differences had been overlooked.

Close discussions between Jan and Glenhope resulted in an innovative approach to the ethics application process. The principal would join the University committee meeting

ROSAMUND WINTER & JULIE HARRINGTONMonash University

Who do We Think We Are? Finding Our Roots and Finding Our Roles in a Postgraduate Research Cohort

considering multiple applications for research in one site. All the applications were to be prepared for submission early in 2011. However, supervisor-supervisee relationships were not firmly established until 2011; only then was it apparent that some students were much further ahead than others. Uniformity was now problematic, and we started to feel uncomfortable.

What we did evolved alongside the course delivery; like Clift (2011), moving into an unfamiliar position “[we] had not rehearsed [our] role” ( p. 162). Year-level coordination is a concept we understood as former schoolteachers, but its meaning was uncertain in this context, without a job description. Initially we responded by organising: we timetabled monthly workshops at the University, developed online support materials, recorded attendance and completion of milestones, answered administrative/regulatory questions, and arranged supervisors’ meetings. But year-level coordination is not just about administration. Both students and teachers behave in unforeseen and sometimes awkward ways. We hadn’t expected to be involved in individual counselling, and we felt uncomfortable entangled in relationships between the supervisors and their students and ill-at-ease with our presumed “expert” status regarding University regulations and unclear agreements between Jan and the Glenhope administration. We were concerned, with the supervisors, about the teacher-students’ transition from coursework to research, and their unrealistic expectations.

Reading on the bus. Five months into the research phase, the supervisors were concerned. The teacher-students were back at school, and work was taking over, even during holidays. Some students appeared to want the qualification but didn’t understand what it meant to be researchers— and maybe Glenhope also wanted the kudos without supporting the research through realistic understanding of the time commitment involved.

As well, because they had completed a small literature review in their coursework, many students thought they had “done” their reading, had their projects ironed out, and all they needed to do was fill in the ethics form. Supervisors shared several anecdontes. One supervisor confirmed the common actions of all in suggesting lots of readings to students, e-mailing articles and internet links in an effort to move them forward, because “the literature review assignment wasn’t it. ” His student had e-mailed him the night before a school trip with two other Glenhope teachers to assure him that everything was fine— s/he and the others had their readings with them and were doing all their reading “overnight on the bus while the kids were asleep” (Ros’s meeting notes).

What are the conflicting agenda at play here? The politics of attrition and retention matter. The University has a priority to enrol students at master’s level in higher degrees by research (HDR); federal funding depends on meeting enrolment targets. Wanting to retain students, the faculty’s HDR course design for Glenhope provides scaffolding in research training units, specifically supporting the proposal and ethics application process; common goals and deadlines are established to expedite this. Glenhope appears to want enhancement of the school’s prestige through more highly qualified staff and so has provided financial incentives to students to complete a higher degree. The students seemed, in too many cases, to be extrinsically motivated by the school’s wishes; few really understood what it means to have a researchable project, and particularly, what the process entails. Supervisors were troubled by common problems faced by “spare-time” students, who were busy, often senior, working people, frequently putting their study last. Even given his work

commitments, one student took timelines very seriously, and illustrates a problem with the lock-step approach.

Champing at the bit. Chris is an energetic and confident young man. He forges ahead with things, often hearing only what he wants to hear. Responding to the timeline set, he worked on his ethics application over the Australian summer break, and was raring to go at the start of the year, well ahead of schedule. He became very frustrated with waiting for others to be at the same stage and wrote a number of e-mails, increasingly terse.

While we were a little surprised at his tone and mildly annoyed at the way he had managed to ignore information already given to everyone, he had a point. He was really only expressing concerns that others felt, and this spurred us on to have Jan reconsider the group ethics application arrangements.

The University needs timely research degree completions; the Glenhope model was designed to respond to this. The faculty set out to create a research community, supported through frequent contact; Chris saw this engagement as largely irrelevant. Glenhope needed to ensure minimal disruption to classes, given the number of projects being conducted there— hence the ethics timeline. The students, like all students, work at their own pace— they’re ready when they’re ready.

The close relationship with Glenhope matters; however....

The meat in the sandwich? One of the supervisors, Ben, stopped for a quick chat while I was finishing a late lunch in the staff room. I could sense that he was more than a bit frustrated. His student, Nick, had recently had the final approval for his ethics application from the University Ethics Committee, but Nick couldn’t start to collect data without a letter of permission to do research at Glenhope from Gary, the Vice Principal. Gary, in turn, wanted authorisation from the University in order to write the letter. “I suppose he’s expecting the V-C to phone him,” muttered Ben. This delay seemed unfair, both to Nick and to Ben, who was feeling powerless in his role as supervisor. In a normal thesis supervision arrangement, Ben would communicate directly with the school for a straightforward matter like this. Here was an urgent matter to discuss with Ros (Julie’s journal).

This episode intensified the unease we felt about the many layers between the top and the bottom echelons of power in the cohort arrangement. I was to phone Nina, Gary’s assistant, to expedite the permission letter. Nina was waiting for Jan, on leave overseas, to confirm the ethics permission. However, the school would be happy for me to act in Jan’s place while she was away. Immediate problem solved, but a further indication of the largely unspoken hierarchy.

Glenhope sees Jan as “the University”; she is the tailor who has fashioned the degree to suit them. The students just want to move ahead. Supervisors are frustrated that their normal supervisory practices are constrained by well-meaning but counterproductive procedures. We are caught in the middle, largely not knowing what the state of play is, and plugging holes.

Nearly falling by the wayside.Nathan. Frank came to my office to discuss his ethics

application. He hadn’t made much progress, he said; a lot of side issues were preventing him from concentrating on his research. He had, as always, pressures at work and more at home— the master’s study usually came last. He was, in fact, thinking of giving it away. He added that he was not alone in feeling swamped by competing demands of work, home, and study.

Recently he had heard that another cohort member, Nathan, had left the school, but Frank didn’t know why. I asked Frank if he was a friend of Nathan— he was, but he hadn’t had any contact lately. I was worried that I hadn’t heard from Nathan either, not since he had promised to hand in an overdue assignment a few weeks previously. Maybe this was why I hadn’t heard (Julie’s journal).

I decided to find out if admin had any record of correspondence with Nathan. Yes, they had. Nathan had been advised to withdraw from the course. When I went to check on his standing, he had a good grade in his first research unit and a fail in the second that I had taught. But oddly, I hadn’t failed him; he had been granted Special Consideration and I was awaiting his final assignment. Feeling rather upset about Nathan, who had been hospitalised during my unit, I e-mailed him and asked him to phone me. He seemed surprised— and pleased. Gaunt and still clearly unwell, he came to see me, very eager to finish the assignment and gain credit for the unit.

Discussing Nathan’s near dismissal from the cohort, we thought about the number of students and supervisors who consulted us. Should we be involved in this type of rescue mission? We felt strongly that some students needed us as advocates to help them navigate complex University processes.

A dilemma for the University lies in the differential federal allocation of HDR and coursework places. The faculty worries about punitive aspects of non-completion; transfer from HDR to coursework is recorded by the University as attrition. Students, unaware of administrative rules and their rights, accept failure, even given adverse circumstances. Supervisors, unacquainted with funding constraints, have concern for their students as people and want them to succeed (whatever the degree). We feel compromised by the conflicting agenda and share their concern for students’ interests over institutional ones.

Sofia. I arrived at Julie’s office to find Sofia very dejected. She explained she had left Glenhope at the end of 2010 in unhappy circumstances and now felt cut off from her research and uncomfortable with the rest of the group. We let her talk through her tale, one of loss of confidence and direction. She was still passionate about her ideas, however, so over the course of the conversation we spoke about different foci and lenses she could use to take her research site outside Glenhope and to look at her own practice in a different context. She went away seeming more positive, and now she is back with the group and happy with her renewed project.

We were hesitant about talking to Sofia about her research so directly. Not for the first time, we were unsure of our role with the students. Some of them clearly see us as people to go to with a problem and seem to find it more comfortable to talk through worries first with someone other than their supervisors. Were we interfering with the supervision process? Or were we offering important pastoral care? Were we stepping over the line to offer quite new directions, different frameworks and methodology?

This final vignette illustrates what we think is one of the strengths of this model— the importance of combined wisdom— of all the staff involved. Sofia needed distance from her supervisor initially to sort out her varied and distressing circumstances. She wasn’t making excuses (which is sometimes how it feels in unequal power relationships) but explaining her situation. That enabled her to have a different kind of conversation with her supervisor.

Two heads. Assigning two people to coordinate a cohort is unusual, but we think working together has contributed significantly to the promise of this HDR model.

Companionship and humour have helped us through many challenging incidents, but equally, exchanging views helps focus on what matters. Providing backup for each other helps ensure that someone who knows both students and supervisors is available to answer questions and respond to problems. It has allowed for considered judgement in rapid response to academic, administrative and emotional situations.

We learned that students need information about different pathways available to complete some kind of qualification successfully. Glenhope gives financial incentives, but no time allowance, limiting academic progress; fear of losing face with Glenhope may have kept some teacher-students enrolled in HDR when exiting to a coursework degree would be a wiser choice. At first we were hesitant to offer advice that would result in HDR attrition, but now we place more emphasis on student entitlements.

Peer support matters; the large group meetings were productive, but our small group model was problematic. Group supervisors seemed unsure of their role and often had conflicting commitments, sometimes resulting in leaderless and unfocused meetings. Because the clusters were artificially (and prematurely) constructed rather than naturally formed, they had no genuine cohesion.

HDR cohorts do allow a big picture of research progress and supervision to emerge. Instinctively tracking milestones, we recorded where people were, providing an overview unusual in research degree administration. As supervision is usually solitary, it has been particularly beneficial to bring supervisors together to talk about common experiences and concerns. We are not aware of other instances where this happens in our faculty (outside committees).

Pastoral care became an unanticipated but important and rewarding consequence of the way our roles as cohort coordinators evolved. Concern for others has been evident across the Glenhope research community: students care about each other; supervisors share experience; and we appreciate feedback about the productive nature of the evening seminars. Intellectual stimulation derived from research conversations has led some students to work towards transfer to doctoral study.

In the end, no matter how supportive we are, life happens. These students are time-poor, their workplace is demanding, they have family responsibilities and sometimes ill-health. Inevitably, there will be attrition from this degree, although at a lesser rate than is usual for students with this profile.

Once were teachers. Our roots are embedded in previous experience performing senior administrative roles in secondary schools; this encompassed the wellbeing of colleagues and students and helped drive our responses to the many situations that have arisen. Perhaps we assumed that coordinating HDR students wouldn’t require a great deal of pastoral support, but we naturally stepped in if needed.

Kelchtermans (2009) speaks of “deeply held beliefs about what constitutes good education, about one’s moral duties and responsibilities in order to do justice to students” (p. 262). Our perception of the task given to us by the University was sometimes in conflict with our self-understanding, but because of “who [we are] in what [we] teach,” we have advised a few students to act in their own best interests, even if this has meant (undesirable) withdrawal from the research degree. Relationship-building—across the complex network of supervisors, students, and coordinators—has been pivotal in making this community work. And central to this is trust; it has engendered openness, allowed vulnerability, and affirmed faith in each other’s judgements.

ReferencesBenson, R., Hewitt, L., Devos, A., Crosling, G., & Heagney,

M. (2009). Experiences of students from diverse backgrounds: The role of academic support. In The Student Experience: Proceedings of the 32nd HERDSA Annual Conference. Retrieved from http://www.herdsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/conference/2009/papers/HERDSA2009_Benson_R.pdf

Berry, A. (2004). Confidence and uncertainty in teaching about teaching. Australian Journal of Education, 48(2), 149–165.

Bullough, R. V., Jr., Clark, D. C., Wentworth, N., & Hansen, J. M. (2001). Student cohorts, school rhythms, and teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28(2), 97–110.

Clarke, A., Erickson, G., Collins, S., & Phelan, A. (2005). Complexity science and cohorts in teacher education. Studying Teacher Education, 1(2), 159–177.

Clift, R. T. (2011). Shifting roles, shifting contexts, maintaining identity. Studying Teacher Education, 7(2), 159–170.

Dinsmore, J. & Wenger, K. (2006). Relationships in preservice teacher preparation: From cohorts to communities. Teacher Education Quarterly, 33(1), 57–74.

Kelchtermans, G. (2009). Who I am in how I teach is the message: Self-understanding, vulnerability and reflection. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 257–272

Kelchtermans, G., & Hamilton, M. L. (2004). The dialectics of passion and theory: Exploring the relation between self-study and emotion. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBosky, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (Vol. 1, pp. 785–810). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.

Lamb, L. C., & Jacobs, V. R. (2009). Establishing and maintaining program coherence in a cohort-based graduate program. Teacher Educator, 44(2), 126–142.

Manathunga, C. (2005). Early warning signs in postgraduate research education: A different approach to ensuring timely completions. Teaching in Higher Education, 10(2), 219–233.

Richards, L. (2005). Handling qualitative data: A practical guide. London, United Kingdom: Sage.

Snyder, I. A., & Forgasz, H. (2008). A study of factors contributing to HDR completion and non-completions at Monash University (Monash Retention Project). Melbourne, Vic: Monash University.

Tripp, D. (1993). Critical incidents in teaching: Developing professional judgement. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Watson, C. (2006). Narratives of practice and the construction of identity in teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(5), 509–526.

Wisker, G., Robinson, G., & Shacham, M. (2007). Postgraduate research success: Communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors, and online communities. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(3), 301–320.

Rabab Abi-Hanna Montclair State University abihannar@mail.montclair.eduLinda Whalen Abrams Montclair State University lwabrams@gmail.comIsabel Abreu Newark Public Schools Lisa Ahlers Kent State University lahlers@kent.eduDonna Allender Mt. Airy Counseling Center an.alleder@verizon.netJerry Allender Temple University, Emeritus an.alleder@verizon.netValerie Allison-Roan Susquehanna University allison-roan@susqu.eduSal Badali Brandon University badalis@brandonu.caLaura Baecher Hunter College lbaecher@hunter.cuny.eduJudith Barak Kaye College of Education dudabarak@gmail.comAndrea Bartlett University of Hawaii bartlett@hawaii.eduBryan Barzaga Newark Public Schools Clive Beck University of Toronto cbeck@oise.utoronto.caMandi Berry Leiden University a.k.berry@iclon.leidenuniv.nlNellista Bess Montclair State University bessn1@mail.montclair.eduForam Bhukhanwala Arcadia University bhukhanf@arcadia.eduTracy Blazquez Newark Public Schools Kirk Borne George Mason University kborne@gmu.eduRobyn Brandenburg University of Ballarat r.brandenburg@ballarat.edu.auChiffon Brown Newark Public Schools Nathan Brubaker Monash University brubaknd@jmu.eduShawn Michael Bullock University of Ontario shawn.bullock@uoit.caBrandon M. Butler Old Dominion University Bmbutler431@gmail.comMieke Lunenberg Cetar VU University Amsterdam m.lunenberg@ond.vu.nlMaggie Chase Boise State University MaggieChase@boisestate.eduRenee T. Clift University of Arizona rtclift@u.arizona.edu Lesley Coia Agnes Scott College lcoia@agnesscott.eduMelissa Collucci Montclair State University mcollucci@verizon.netLynne Constantine George Mason University lconstan@gmu.eduEmanuel Cordero Newark Public Schools Cheryl Craig University of Houston ccraig@uh.eduAlicia R. Crowe Kent State University acrowe@kent.eduAlexander Cuenca Saint Louis University acuenca@slu.eduGayle Curtis University of Houston gayle.curtis@att.netCharity Dacey Montclair State University daceyc1@mail.montclair.eduMary C. Dalmau Victoria University dalmaum@bigpond.comJacqueline Marie Dauplaise Montclair State University dauplaisej1@mail.montclair.eduRonnie Davey University of Canterbury ronnie.davey@canterbury.ac.nz Todd Dinkelman University of Georgia tdink@uga.edu Charles Elfer Clayton State University cjelfer@gmail.comSusan E. Elliott-Johns Nipissing University susanej@nipissingu.caLynnette B. Erickson Brigham Young University lynnette_erickson@byu.eduTim Fletcher Memorial University of Newfoundland tfletcher@mun.caRachel Forgasz Monash University rachel.forgasz@monash.eduCharlotte Frambaugh-Kritzer U Hawaii-Manoa kritzer@hawaii.eduAnne Reilley Freese University of Hawaii freese@hawaii.eduHelen Freidus Bank Street College hfreidus@gmail.comDina Friling Kaye Academic College of Education frilingdin@gmail.comDawn Garbett The University of Auckland d.garbett@auckland.ac.nzAnn Gervasoni Australian Catholic University-Ballarat Campus a.gervasoni@ballarat.edu.auDvora Gesser Kibbutzim College Dvora_ges@smkb.ac.ilJanneke Geursen VU University Amsterdam j.w.geursen@vu.nlAriela Gidron Kaye Academic College of Education Ariela.gidron@gmail.com

List of ContributorsThe Ninth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education PracticesHerstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England, August 15-19, 2012

Brian Girard College of New Jersey girardb@tcnj.eduMari Glamser Aldine ISD mglamser@aldine.k12.tx.us Joanne E. Goodell Cleveland State University j.goodell@csuohio.edu Paul Gray University of Houston pgray73@sbcglobal.net William L. Greene Southern Oregon University greenew@sou.eduArlene Grierson Nipissing University arleneg@nipissingu.caThomas A. Griggs University of Northern Colorado Thomas.griggs@unco.eduHafdís Guðjónsdóttir University of Iceland hafdgud@hi.isCarmel Halton University College Cork chalton@appsocstud.ucc.ieMary Lynn Hamilton University of Kansas hamilton@ku.eduLaura Haniford University of New Mexico haniford@unm.eduLaurie Harmon George Mason University lharmon3@gmu.eduJulie Harrington Monash University julie.harrington@monash.eduTodd S. Hawley Kent State University thawley1@kent.eduMichael Hayes Susquehanna University hayesm@susqu.eduWillem Hoekstra VU University Amsterdam w.s.hoekstra@vu.nlCheryl Hopper Montclair State University hopper@mail.montclair.eduAndrew L. Hostetler Vanderbilt University alhostet@kent.eduAmanda Janosko Cleveland State University ajanosko@kent.eduRodrigo Fuentealba Jara Universidad Autonoma rodrigo.fuentealba@uautonoma.clSvanborg Rannveig Jónsdóttir University of Iceland svanjons@hi.isDiana Karczmarczyk George Mason University diana_karczmarczyk@yahoo.comSigne Kastberg Purdue University skastberg@purdue.eduMichaelann Kelley University of Houston mkelley@aldine.k12.tx.usCristy Kessler U Hawaii-Manoa ckessler@hawaii.eduJacqueline Kirk Brandon University kirkj@brandonu.caYounghee M. Kim Southern Oregon University kimy@sou.eduEmily Klein Montclair State University kleine@mail.montclair.eduLauryn Koppes Kent State University ltrask@kent.eduFred A. J. Korthagen VU University Amsterdam f.korthagen@uu.nlClare Kosnik University of Toronto ckosnik@oise.utoronto.caJeff Kuzmic DePaul University jkuzmic@depaul.eduKelly Ladd Louisville High School ladd@louisville.sparcc.orgTeresa Leavitt Brigham Young University teresa_leavitt@byu.edu Luba Lidman Newark Public Schools Adam Loudin Kent State University aloudin@kent.eduJohn Loughran Monash University john.loughran@monash.eduLouAnn Lovin James Madison University lovinla@jmu.eduNona Lyons University College Cork nonalyons@hotmail.comAmber Strong Makaiau Kailua High School maniniz@yahoo.comRuth Mansur Kaye Academic College of Education ruthmansur@gmail.comAndrea K. Martin Queen’s University martina@queensu.caSusan D. Martin Boise State University smartin@boisestate.eduTim Martindell Fort Bend ISD ptmwriter@aol.comSara Mastellone Montclair State University saram2@comcast.netBede McCormack Hunter College bedemccormack@gmail.comMeleah McCulley Boise State University meleahmcculley@u.boisestate.eduSharon McDonough University of Ballarat s.mcdonough@ballarat.edu.auDavid McLaughlin Susquehanna University mclaughlind@susqu.eduDenise McLurkin City College of New York dmclurkin@ccny.cuny.eduYke Meindersma VU University Amsterdam y.g.meindersma@vu.nlEsperanza Roman Mendoza George Mason University eromanme@gmu.eduLydia Menna University of Toronto lidia.menna@utoronto.caGeoff Mills Southern Oregon University mills@sou.eduEula Ewing Monroe Brigham Young University eula_monroe@byu.eduAnna Monteiro Newark Public Schools Erin Mooney Newark Public Schools Joke Morshuis Utrecht University j.morshuis@hva.nlJim Muchmore Western Michigan University james.muchmore@wmich.eduM. Shaun Murphy University of Saskatchewan shaun.murphy@usask.ca

Michael Nantais Brandon University nantaism@brandonu.caIlham Nasser George Mason University nasser@gmu.eduAlan Ovens University of Auckland a.ovens@auckland.ac.nzAmy Panitch Newark Public Schools Seth Parsons George Mason University sparson5@gmu.eduKami M. Patrizio Virginia Tech KPatrizi@vt.eduStefinee Pinnegar Brigham Young University stefinee@byu.eduTamie Pratt-Fartro University of New Mexico tprattfa@umw.eduLaurie A. Ramirez Appalachian State University ramirezla@appstate.eduDonna Reid University of Houston donna@robreid.comJoke Rentrop Utrecht University j.s.rentrop@uu.nlBrian J. Rice Brigham Young University brian.rice@nebo.eduMary Rice Brigham Young University mary.rice@nebo.eduRosalis Rincon Newark Public Schools Bruce Robbins Boise State University brobbins@boisestate.eduWilliam Romney Newark Public Schools Anita Roychoudhury Purdue University aroychou@purdue.eduTheresa Rozek Newark Public Schools Peter Ruit Driestar University p.ruit@driestar-educatief.nl Tom Russell Queen’s University russellt@queensu.caMichael Ryan Montclair State University Mikekevin@me.comAnastasia P. Samaras George Mason University asamaras@gmu.eduWendy Sanchez Kennesaw State University wsanchez@kennesaw.eduKimberly Scott Newark Public Schools Joseph C. Senese Northwestern University josephcsenese@aol.comKyle Schultz James Madison University schultkt@jmu.eduMeshele Scipio Newark Public Schools Melanie Shoffner Purdue University shoffner@purdue.eduJane Silva Newark Public Schools Erin Smith Kent State University esmith35@kent.eduLesley Smith George Mason University lsmithg@gmu.eduThomas Smith Northwest Missouri State tsmith@nwmissouri.eduToni Smith George Mason University tsmith10@gmu.eduYvonne Smith Kent State University ysmith@kent.eduAngela M. Solar Queen’s University solara@queensu.caMary Sowder Utah Valley University mary.sowder@uvu.eduTrevor Sprague Kent State University tsspragu@kent.eduKathryn Strom Montclair State University kate_strom@yahoo.comJennifer Suh George Mason University jsuh4@gmu.eduRyan Swanson George Mason University rswanso1@gmu.eduMadelina Tanase University of North Florida madalina.tanase@unf.eduMonica Taylor Montclair State University taylorm@mail.montclair.eduNicole Taylor McGill Univeristy nicole.taylor@mail.mcgill.caMary Lynn Tessaro Nipissing University marylynt@nipissingu.caLynn Thomas Université de Sherbrooke Lynn.Thomas@usherbrooke.caDeborah L. Tidwell University of Northern Iowa deborah.tidwell@uni.eduJamelyn Tobery-Nystrom Frostburg State University jctoberynystrom@frostburg.eduBobbie Turniansky Kaye College of Education bturniansky@gmail.comSmadar Tuval Kaye College of Education Smadar.tuval@gmail.comLee Ann (Dubert) Tysseling Boise State University ltysseling@boisestate.eduPaul van den Bos VU University p.j.p.vanden.bos@vu.nlAmanda Paige Vogel University of Hawaii vogela@hawaii.eduJudy Williams Monash University Judy.williams@monash.edu Rosamund Winter Monash University rosamund.winter@monash.eduLouisa Woodville George Mason University lwoodvil@gmu.eduSusan Wray Montclair State University Wrays@mail.montclair.eduJanet Young Brigham Young University janet_young@byu.eduZipi Zelkovitz Kibbutzim College zipzel@gmail.comRosanne Zwart VU University Amsterdam m.l.lunenberg@vu.nl

Conference Planning GuideTime Thursday Friday Saturday

9:00-09:50

10:00-10:50

11:30-12:20

12:30-1:50 Lunch

2:00-2:50

3:00-3:50

4:30-5:20

Stand in the centre of the castle courtyard, facing south with the Dining Hall on your right. The large archway (with glass doors) in front of you leads to the Elizabethan Room (to the left) and the Pub (to the right). Coffee and tea each morning and afternoon are provided in the Elizabethan Room.

Film and Video Room: There is a door just to the right of the archway. Go in and up the stairs.

Conference Room: This is the largest meeting room. It is upstairs and to your left. Take the stairway in the Elizabethan Room and turn left or take the stairs outside the Dacre Room and turn right.

Dacre Room: Previously a chapel, this room is through the door directly to your left on the ground floor. You can also reach this room through the corridor at the back of the Elizabethan Room.

Board Room: Upstairs, again on your left, take the stairway by the Dacre Room and turn left.

Seminar 1: This room is on the ground floor, on your left. When you get to the Dacre Room and stairway, turn left or keep going.

When in doubt, ask someone!

Location of Castle Meeting Rooms

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