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Project
Understanding teacher educators' scholarship. Biography, workplace and pedagogy.
The concern with high quality teacher education as a warrant for good schooling remains very prominent in the media, the educational policy, and research. Yet, in these debates on teachers and their teaching quality, little attention is paid to the ones who actually educate these teachers. Empirical research that explicitly focuses on the professional livesand expertise of teacher educators remains scarce. This puzzling paradox is partly explained by the widespread assumption that a teacher educator is someone who teaches (his/her subject) to students in higher education rather than to students in elementary or secondary education. The question that remains largely unaddressed is that of the nature of teachereducators' professionalism: how do they define their professional tasks?; what is the basis for that definition and its enactment in their pedagogical practice? This dissertation addressed this knowledge gap by putting the following research question at its center: how can we understandand conceptualize the content of teacher educators' professionalism andhow does this professionalism develop throughout their careers. In chapter 1, we situate this research interest in the international literatureand present an overview of the four studies that constitute this dissertation.
Chapter 2 reports the results of a systematic literature review of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices or S-STEP research. The two central questions in the study were: (1) what research questionsare being addressed in self-study research?; and (2) what characterizesself-study as a methodological process? Based on our analysis we described research from the S-STEP-approach as research by teacher educators on their own practice; for this reason it privileges the use of qualitative research methods as well as a collaborative and interactive research process; and trustworthiness is used as the key criterion for its validity. In line with these characteristics, we also identified two essentialtensions that constitute challenges and possible pitfalls for the achievement of the self-study research agenda and which need to be (more) explicitly addressed by self-study researchers: the tension between relevance on the one hand and rigor the tension between effectiveness and understanding on the other hand.
Based on the results of this literature review we designed a project with a self-study research group, which is described in chapter 3. For this project, we collaborated with and supported six teacher educators enacting a self-study of their own practice. Using an ethnographic case-study approach, we simultaneously figured as the subject and the object of this study and analyzed how teacher educators' professional development through self-study can be meaningfully supported by external facilitation. We started by articulating the pedagogical rationale of the facilitation practices in terms of four general principles, grounded in theoretical understandings of professional development. Each principle was formulated as a working hypothesis that explicitly included its pedagogical consequences. The empirical data for this study include the facilitators' and teacher educators' logs, the audiotapesof the research group meetings, and all the written materials produced during the project. Systematic qualitative content analysis resulted in an empirical validation and refinement of the rationale and, as such, contributed to a pedagogy of supporting professional development with, by,and for teacher educators.
The background of chapter 4 was again provided by the self-study research group, but in this study we specifically zoomed in on the professional development of one teacher educator in the collaborative project. Drawing on an analysis of the recordings of the research group meetings, e-mail conversations, and an in-depth interview, we framed this teacher educators' development using the image of theprofessional learning journey. Our analysis indicated that the most meaningful interactions in the project concerned those moments when this teacher educators' sense of self as a teacher educator was at stake. We analyzed how these interactions induced feelings of vulnerability which acted as a trigger to either enable or constrain this teacher educators ability to confront personal assumptions and biases. Therefore, we put forward the argument that vulnerability is an inevitable, and therefore structural, condition of teacher educators' work.
Chapter 5 delved deeper into the question of how we can understand and conceptualize the content of teacher educator professionalism. Drawing on a combined theoretical framework of the personal interpretative framework (Kelchtermans, 1994a, 2009) and positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), this study examined the relationship between teacher educators' positioning of themselves as teacher educators and their teacher education practices. We drew on a cycle of in-depth interviews with twelve experienced teacher educators in two teacher education programs. Our analysis revealedthree forms of positioning as a teacher educator: a teacher educator of 'pedagogues', a teacher educator of reflective teachers, and a teacher educator of subject teachers. Each positioning constitutes a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about good teaching and teacher education, the preferred relationships with student teachers, and valuable teacher education approaches and strategies. We empirically illustrated each positioning and highlighted how teacher educators' positioning of themselves is also consequential for how they define the action agenda in terms of which learning processes the teacher educator accepts as his/her responsibility (or not) and how he/she wants to support these.
We conclude this dissertation with a discussion in chapter 6. We summarize the main results of the four empirical studies and critically look back on the theoretical assumptions we started from, as well as the methodologicalchoices we made and its consequences in terms of the research relationship. We then move on to look what this dissertation adds to our existingunderstanding of teacher educator professionalism and offer implications for future research.
Chapter 2 reports the results of a systematic literature review of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices or S-STEP research. The two central questions in the study were: (1) what research questionsare being addressed in self-study research?; and (2) what characterizesself-study as a methodological process? Based on our analysis we described research from the S-STEP-approach as research by teacher educators on their own practice; for this reason it privileges the use of qualitative research methods as well as a collaborative and interactive research process; and trustworthiness is used as the key criterion for its validity. In line with these characteristics, we also identified two essentialtensions that constitute challenges and possible pitfalls for the achievement of the self-study research agenda and which need to be (more) explicitly addressed by self-study researchers: the tension between relevance on the one hand and rigor the tension between effectiveness and understanding on the other hand.
Based on the results of this literature review we designed a project with a self-study research group, which is described in chapter 3. For this project, we collaborated with and supported six teacher educators enacting a self-study of their own practice. Using an ethnographic case-study approach, we simultaneously figured as the subject and the object of this study and analyzed how teacher educators' professional development through self-study can be meaningfully supported by external facilitation. We started by articulating the pedagogical rationale of the facilitation practices in terms of four general principles, grounded in theoretical understandings of professional development. Each principle was formulated as a working hypothesis that explicitly included its pedagogical consequences. The empirical data for this study include the facilitators' and teacher educators' logs, the audiotapesof the research group meetings, and all the written materials produced during the project. Systematic qualitative content analysis resulted in an empirical validation and refinement of the rationale and, as such, contributed to a pedagogy of supporting professional development with, by,and for teacher educators.
The background of chapter 4 was again provided by the self-study research group, but in this study we specifically zoomed in on the professional development of one teacher educator in the collaborative project. Drawing on an analysis of the recordings of the research group meetings, e-mail conversations, and an in-depth interview, we framed this teacher educators' development using the image of theprofessional learning journey. Our analysis indicated that the most meaningful interactions in the project concerned those moments when this teacher educators' sense of self as a teacher educator was at stake. We analyzed how these interactions induced feelings of vulnerability which acted as a trigger to either enable or constrain this teacher educators ability to confront personal assumptions and biases. Therefore, we put forward the argument that vulnerability is an inevitable, and therefore structural, condition of teacher educators' work.
Chapter 5 delved deeper into the question of how we can understand and conceptualize the content of teacher educator professionalism. Drawing on a combined theoretical framework of the personal interpretative framework (Kelchtermans, 1994a, 2009) and positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), this study examined the relationship between teacher educators' positioning of themselves as teacher educators and their teacher education practices. We drew on a cycle of in-depth interviews with twelve experienced teacher educators in two teacher education programs. Our analysis revealedthree forms of positioning as a teacher educator: a teacher educator of 'pedagogues', a teacher educator of reflective teachers, and a teacher educator of subject teachers. Each positioning constitutes a coherent pattern of normative beliefs about good teaching and teacher education, the preferred relationships with student teachers, and valuable teacher education approaches and strategies. We empirically illustrated each positioning and highlighted how teacher educators' positioning of themselves is also consequential for how they define the action agenda in terms of which learning processes the teacher educator accepts as his/her responsibility (or not) and how he/she wants to support these.
We conclude this dissertation with a discussion in chapter 6. We summarize the main results of the four empirical studies and critically look back on the theoretical assumptions we started from, as well as the methodologicalchoices we made and its consequences in terms of the research relationship. We then move on to look what this dissertation adds to our existingunderstanding of teacher educator professionalism and offer implications for future research.
Date:1 Oct 2010 → 30 Sep 2014
Keywords:Narrative-biographical research, Teacher development, Teacher educator development
Disciplines:Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences, Instructional sciences
Project type:PhD project