Section archive - Teacher Educators

In this article, the authors aimed to explore their pedagogical approaches for engaging teacher candidates in thinking about physical literacy and scientific literacy, respectively. The authors conclude that the collaborative self-study provided support and encouragement from a trusted colleague as well as a safe space to explore and reframe problematic aspects of practice. This self-study helped the authors to understand many conceptual similarities between the constructs of physical literacy and scientific literacy.

The purpose of this study was to understand the process through which a teacher becomes a teacher educator, considering all of the associated variables both personal and professional. The findings reveal that the majority of the participants indicated that they did not receive any kind of support with respect to their professional induction, especially during their early years as teacher educators. Additionally, the findings suggest that the teacher educator’s approach to teaching will be different especially if the teacher educator works simultaneously in a school and in a teacher education program. Hence, teacher educators who work both in a school and teacher education programs teach based on their practical experience as a school teacher.

This article examines how various aspects of the first author's identity, i.e. natural, institutional, discursive, and affinity, intersected during his first semester as teacher educator. The experience of the novice teacher educator revealed that his preoccupation with students’ perceptions of who he was as a teacher and as an individual prevented any substantial consideration of the kind of teacher educator he wanted to be. Given the insecurities often tied to this new professional identity, the authors argue that it is important to consider and negotiate the pedagogical and professional development of first-time teacher educators.The authors believe that an emphasis on community should be promoted in order to enhance the possibilities of teacher education. They say that novice teacher educators should be surrounded by like-minded individuals who function as both critical friends and a supportive community.

As a teacher educator, the author shares her experiences and positioning as an apprentice, academic and administrator. While she refers to each as a ‘phase’, she suggests each overlap at varying times throughout teacher educators' careers/life, particularly if they are lifelong learners and that an element of apprenticeship is present in all that they strive to do, although not everyone perhaps acknowledges and engages with apprenticeship as professional learning and learning about oneself.