Professionally Developing as a Teacher Educator

Abstract

There is growing interest in the professional development of teacher educators as the demands, expectations, and requirements of teacher education increasingly come under scrutiny. The manner in which teacher educators learn to traverse their world of work in the development of their knowledge, skills, and ability is important. This article outlines some of the crucial shaping factors in that development, including the transition associated with becoming a teacher educator, the nature of teacher education itself, and the importance of researching teacher education practices. Through a careful analysis of these features, a framework for better understanding what it might mean to professionally develop as a teacher educator is proposed. The framework is designed to draw serious attention to the major aspects of teaching and learning about teaching that are central to shaping scholarship in teacher education and offer insights into the ways in which teacher educators’ professional development might be better understood and interpreted.

Keywords

professional development professional vision teacher education preparation teacher learning teacher research

Professional development of teacher educators is too important not only to teacher education, but also to the educational system as a whole, to be left in a virginal state regarding research and documentation.

—Smith (2003, pp. 213-214)

The literature is awash with studies about, models of, and approaches to, the professional development of teachers (see, for example, Beijaard, Meijer, Morine-Dershimer, & Tillema, 2005; Borko, 2004; Clarke, 1995; Elmore, 2002; Finegold, 2010; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Lieberman & Miller, 2001; Loughran, 1999; Mitchell & Mitchell, 2005; Webster-Wright, 2009). However, it has only been in recent times that the notion of professional development of teacher educators has begun to emerge as a touchstone for not only what it means to become, but also to learn as, a teacher educator (Bates, Swennen, & Jones, 2011). Smith (2003), like a growing list of others in the last decade, has called for a serious consideration of the professional development of teacher educators and for it to be systematically studied. But what does it really mean to professionally develop as a teacher educator?

It could reasonably be argued that an important difference between the notion of professional development in relation to teachers and teacher educators is enmeshed in the sense of professional autonomy and responsibility attached to the respective roles and their accompanying expectations. Mockler (2005), for example, characterized a common approach to the professional development of teachers as “spray-on” professional development, that is, one-off workshops presented by consultants with little long-term impact or as mandated “upskilling” for policy implementation as a result of a top-down approach to change. Although arguments have been made about the need to differentiate between professional development and professional learning for teachers (Groundwater-Smith & Mockler, 2009; Hardy, 2010), at the heart of the notion of professional development is a concern for the learning about pedagogy and the alignment of teaching intents and learning outcomes as a major driver for growth: “at the core of such endeavours is the understanding that professional development is about teachers learning, learning how to learn, and transforming their knowledge into practice for the benefit of students’ growth” (Avalos, 2011, p. 10).

Despite the fact that, through their rhetoric, education systems might appear to support views such as those espoused by Avalos, a prevailing perception is that professional development too often revolves around doing things to teachers rather than with teachers. The same should not be the case for teacher educators; a professional group that for all intents and purposes has much more autonomy and control over their work than teachers per se. Thus, for teacher educators, Avalos’ view of “professional growth” through professional development offers a way of beginning to think about how to conceptualize teacher educators’ professional development in meaningful ways. This article explores what such a conceptualization might look like and how it might be realized in practice through exploring the framework proposed in Figure 1. The framework is an attempt to illustrate how the development of teacher educators’ knowledge and practice of teaching and learning about teaching is intimately tied to: understandings of identity; the challenges and expectations of the teacher education enterprise; and, the place of scholarship as an important marker of knowledge, skill, and ability in the academy.

Figure 1.

A research journey that shapes a teacher educator’s professional development.

The framework in Figure 1 has been constructed to make clear some of the key learnings inherent in the efforts of those who have chartered a successful path in their professional development as teacher education scholars. By portraying those learnings, the professional development journey to be embarked upon by others might be made more clear, navigable, and inviting. In so doing, the professional development needs and necessary supports for teacher educators might be able to be made much more public, accessible, meaningful, and useful. As such, Figure 1 offers one way of conceptualizing the major landmarks teacher educators face in their professional development journey and is a conceptualization that highlights what needs to be navigated without limiting the journey to one single “true” or correct path. It is a path that carries signposts of what might be encountered through the professional development journey that shapes what it means to become a teacher education scholar.

Becoming a Teacher Educator

It has been well noted that the term teacher educator carries varied meaning. John (2002) offered an overview of the various definitions that illustrated how the term has been applied, and changed, over time and also why, in some instances, the term can be seen as ambiguous. Although at the general level teacher educators can be described as those that educate teachers, for this article, the major intent is to define teacher educators as those who work in tertiary institutions and are largely involved in the teaching of prospective teachers enrolled in a preservice teacher preparation program.

Davey (2013) explained how the “academization” of teacher education has been important in shaping teacher education as a profession. Academization presents as an issue because many teacher educators were once schoolteachers and the shift to being a teacher of teachers carries with it a number of challenges that were not so obvious from the vantage point of the school as a workplace and therefore impact the transition in the nature of work.

Research into the transition from teacher to teacher educator has illustrated how demanding the shift can be for those who embark on the “journey of becoming” a teacher educator. Murray and Male (2005) concluded that it took up to 3 years to establish an identity as a teacher of teachers and that the process was long and sometimes difficult as “feelings of professional unease and discomfort were particularly acute . . . [especially] when the substantial and situational selves of the teacher educators were seen as distinctly out of alignment” (p. 139).

One reason for the difficulty in transition into teacher education and the associated feelings of unease lies with the change in the nature of the teaching role and the expectations of academia—something that may be largely unstated and exist as a form of “secret academic business.” Being a teacher educator involves much more than applying the skills of school teaching in a new (and different) context. Brandenburg (2008) was confronted by that realization and noted, “My professional uneasiness continued. Clearly it became evident that [as a teacher educator] I was required to be more than a classroom teacher, although at that point, I was not quite sure what the more meant” (p. 5).

The more of academia is encapsulated within the expectations surrounding research and the need to develop professional expertise in a field of study. Sadly, in many institutions, it would appear that developing expertise in the field of teacher education is not necessarily highly valued. In fact, as Labaree (2005) so cogently argued, teacher education has a low status because (among a host of reasons he posits) teacher educators are engaged in difficult practice that looks easy. It could well be argued that this perception about the “ease of practice” is what drives many emerging education scholars to develop expertise in fields that eventually take them away from the work of teacher education.

In numerous Faculties of Education, the most senior professors might sometimes be described as having sought to escape teacher education and to seek solace from high teaching loads, insufficient time for research, and the demands of service to a profession that has little direct influence on policy or practice. Not surprisingly, if “escape from teacher education” is the model for success as an academic that beginning teacher educators are confronted by, then the vision for professional development and the perceived nature of the demands of the university system stand in stark contrast to their individual hopes and expectations for making a difference for their students of teaching. Coupled with what many teacher educators perceive as their obligations to unseen children (Guilfoyle, Hamilton, & Pinnegar, 1997), it is not difficult to see why beginning teacher educators might struggle to understand how to develop, or where to seek mentoring in, a field that institutionally may lack leadership in the scholarship of teacher education.

Berry (2013) described the situation teacher educators face in relation to their professional learning as being on their own—by necessity:

Teacher educators are criticised for, and often critical of, being left on their own, but they almost have to be left on their own to construct their own professional knowledge of practice. At the same time, this does not mean that every teacher educator needs to “start from scratch,” but it does require them to transform their perspectives. (p. 19)

If that is the case, then developing professionally carries expectations of a need for teacher educators to be able to conceptualize and enact their own professional learning in ways that require careful planning and thoughtful actions. To do that requires understanding the nature of teacher education in ways that are supported by genuinely reflecting on, and responding to, the needs, demands, and expectations of teaching about teaching within the academy. Therefore, as a starting point, professionally developing as a teacher educator is shaped by the nature of one’s evolving identity as it is buffeted by expectations of knowledge and practice inherent in the enterprise of teacher education itself.

The Nature of Teacher Education

Teacher education is complex work involving curriculum, pedagogy and research, yet most teacher educators are provided with little professional development support or mentoring in most teacher education programs. On the one hand, we are expected to attend to, and experiment with, clinical aspects of practice as teacher educators in order to develop into skilled practitioners . . . At the same time, the academy expects teacher educators to pursue rigorous programs of research . . . While most teacher educators begin with a deep commitment to effective teaching and pedagogical reform, the culture of education colleges and the promotion criteria and other reward systems within universities privileges scholarship over clinical practice . . . Overcoming these barriers is “a constant source of tension, frustration, and challenge” . . . (Gallagher, Griffin, Parker, Kitchen, & Figg, 2011, p. 880)

For a long time now, Lortie’s (1975) Apprenticeship of Observation has been trumpeted as one way of explaining why teaching is simplistically understood by the population at large. In a similar way, it can reasonably be argued that teacher education also suffers from superficial understandings of the nature of its work which has led commentators on teacher education to propose simple solutions to complex problems—such solutions invariably fail to work.

When Futrell (2010) distinguished between reforming and transforming teacher education, she offered a tangible way of grasping the complex nature of the work of teacher education. She argued that reform is about changing procedures and processes to improve the way the existing system works, that is, creating solutions to add-on to a program to address perceived issues, needs, or concerns. In contrast she noted,

Transformation can be challenging and complex and usually results in a dramatically different enterprise . . . [it] is not a once-in-a-lifetime event but an ongoing process . . . [it is] about reinvention, redesigning to be more responsive to and have a broader effect on the challenges of education and the nation. (p. 432)

It is not difficult to see then that the work of teacher education is not about “upskilling” staff to perform in new ways in response to mandated changes in curriculum, policy, or practice, it is about an ongoing process of learning, development, and change driven by the players central to that work—teacher educators.

It stands to reason that transforming teacher education requires an understanding of the nature of the enterprise at both an institutional and personal level for teacher educators to be well-informed participants in, and leaders of, change. Not least among the features of the nature of the work of teacher education at the institutional level is that of the curriculum.

Teacher Education Curriculum

Korthagen (2001) outlined the differences inherent in distinguishing between a “traditional” teacher education program and that of a “realistic” teacher education program. Central to the differentiation is how program structure shapes the curriculum, and in so doing, influences the ways in which teaching and learning is conducted and interpreted. In a traditional program, it is common for teacher educators to be concerned with “their subject” or area of teaching and to be assigned classes based on groupings typically described as Foundation subjects or Method subjects. Not surprisingly, recent school teaching experience tends to be a higher priority for allocation to method subjects (with practice being seen as the dominant determinant), whereas Foundation subjects tend to be viewed as more theoretical and somewhat distant from practice. Hence, the oft-bemoaned theory–practice gap emerges as an issue for the curriculum almost regardless of intention (Chang, Tang, & Chang, 2012). As a consequence, program coherence, although clearly a defining feature in shaping teacher educators’ practice as well as the learning about teaching by students of teaching (Grossman, Hammerness, McDonald, & Ronfeldt, 2008), is impacted in ways that not only creates a challenge to curriculum structure, content, and perceived value but also positions subjects as discrete items of study that stand alone as sentinels of the educational status quo. Unfortunately, from the perspective of students of teaching in particular, the outcome may be a curriculum that is neither applicable to, nor useable in, their practice when at school; further exacerbating the perceptions of a theory–practice divide and teacher educators’ sense of isolation (Hadar & Brody, 2010).

Many scholars have pursued alternative approaches to structuring and enacting the curriculum of teacher education. Bullough and Gitlin (1995; Bullough, Young, & Draper, 2004) explored cohort models and internships in ways that were specifically designed to create curriculum coherence and to ensure that action and intent of teaching and learning were closely aligned. Kroll et al. (2005) collaborated in purposeful ways to ensure coherence through “principled practice” and similarly sought to challenge perceptions of program and curriculum structure as discrete, separate, and isolated. In a similar vein, Hoban (2005) proposed the need for a multi-linked conceptual framework for teacher education to promote coherence in program design and foster quality outcomes. Although not always explicitly stated, what each of these teacher educators did was attempt to respond to the well-recognized, ongoing challenge to “bridge the gap between theory and practice and to solve the problem of curricular fragmentation [in order to create] a more coherent program” (Margolin, 2011, p. 7). This situation is perhaps more acute in teacher education than other fields because of the unusual position teacher education is seen to hold as being both inside and outside the ivory tower (Maguire, 2000) as it straddles schools and academia.

Exacerbating the demands of curricular fragmentation is also the fact that many teacher educators—as noted earlier—are in a “second career after sometimes considerable time working in schools, often reaching high positions” (Griffiths, Thompson, & Hryniewicz, 2014, p. 4). Therefore, although they may well be experienced practitioners, their lack of academic experience (or perhaps more pointedly, their perceived standing) can make it difficult for them to have a “voice” in the academy; especially when it comes to challenging existing curricular conventions. Hence, the ability to negotiate the interplay between the many conflicting, and sometimes contradictory, positions means that educational change can be very difficult indeed.

Korthagen, Loughran, and Russell’s (2006) attempt to confront the issue of coherence led to the articulation of seven fundamental principles they described as needing to be acknowledged and responded to in thoughtful ways by teacher educators within their teacher education programs. The principles were that learning about teaching

involves continuously conflicting and competing demands;

requires a view of knowledge as a subject to be created rather than as a created subject;

requires a shift in focus from the curriculum to the learner;

is enhanced through (student) teacher research;

requires an emphasis on those learning to teach working closely with their peers;

requires meaningful relationships between schools, universities, and student teachers; and

is enhanced when the teaching and learning approaches advocated in the program are modeled by the teacher educators in their own practice.

Clearly, these principles demand a great deal of teacher educators if they are to be embraced in leading in the change process. In addition, understanding such principles, knowing what they mean for practice and using them to inform approaches to teaching and learning about teaching further points to the complex nature of teacher education itself. Although it might not be so cogently understood by those not involved in teacher education, there is little doubt that

change in program structures and practices require a corresponding change in thinking about teacher education, with enormous consequences for the daily work of teacher educators . . . an attitudinal shift is involved. Change is a long-term process of staff development . . . and involves training [professional development] . . . if change is to be more than superficial. (Korthagen et al., 2006, p. 1038)

That means then that the way teaching and learning about teaching is conceptualized and enacted matters and is why developing an understanding of a pedagogy of teacher education is important for shaping the professional development of teacher educators.

Pedagogy of Teacher Education

The notion of a pedagogy of teacher education has been viewed by some as crucial to enhancing scholarship in teacher education (see, for example, Bullock, 2011; Heaton & Lampert, 1993; Korthagen & Kessels, 1999; Loughran, 2006; Northfield & Gunstone, 1997; Ritter, 2007). However, what that might mean, how it might be interpreted, and, even more importantly, how it might be implemented in a teacher educator’s practice are demanding.

Loughran (2006) argued that a pedagogy of teacher education was based on two complementary aspects of knowledge and practice: teaching about teaching and learning about teaching. Teaching about teaching comprises (at least): a serious focus on pedagogy, conceptualizing teaching as being problematic, making the tacit nature of practice explicit (for oneself and others—especially students of teaching), developing a shared language of teaching and learning, and the ability to articulate principles of practice.

In many ways, this first aspect of a pedagogy of teacher education might be regarded as self-evident. Yet the nature of a teacher educator’s knowledge and practice of teaching teaching can easily be misunderstood and/or misrepresented. Knowledge and practice of teaching teaching requires much more than the simple delivery of information about teaching, or sharing tips and tricks that have been “picked up” or accumulated through school teaching experience (which itself harks back to issues associated with a teacher educator’s transitionary issues in moving from school to university).

Teaching teaching is about thoughtfully engaging with practice beyond the technical; it is about using the cauldron of practice to expose pedagogy (especially one’s own) to scrutiny. In so doing, collaborative inquiry into the shared teaching and learning experiences of teacher education practices can begin to bring to the surface the sophisticated thinking, decision making, and pedagogical reasoning that underpins pedagogical expertise so that it might not only be recognized but also be purposefully developed. The result being the creation of conditions for the development of informed professionals who better understand, and are able to articulate, the complex and sophisticated business of teaching in ways like that of Morrell and Schepige (2012):

What is tacit to us is often not apparent to our students [so] . . . we have been including more time-out voice-overs in our teaching . . . if we recognize a teachable moment outside of our original intent, we put the lesson on hold and move to the side to do a sideline discussion . . . we engage [our students] . . . to analyse what methods we used, why those methods might have been chosen, and the effects of those methods on the quality of their learning. (Morrell & Schepige, 2012, p. 169)

Myers (2002) was of the view that until teacher educators genuinely confronted the (mis)belief that telling, showing, and guiding practice was sufficient for teacher education, then teaching about teaching would not be seen as a scholarly endeavor. Embracing teacher educator practices such as those described by Morrell and Schepige (2012) is one way of confronting Myers’ misbelief. It is also likely that such practices are a conduit to the type of professional learning that underpins the development of informed scholars of teacher education.

The second aspect of a pedagogy of teacher education is initially, perhaps, less evident but eventually must be acknowledged and embraced as it is so synergistically a part of the teaching–learning relationship at the heart of a pedagogy of teacher education. Learning about teaching is concerned with the knowledge and practices related to the ways in which students of teaching come to learn from, and then develop as a consequence of, their teacher education experiences.

Lanier and Little (1986) drew attention to the fact that students of teaching embark on their teacher education programs with strong images of what it means to be a teacher. They have witnessed teaching from the “student’s side of the desk” for a considerable period of time through their apprenticeship of observation (Lortie, 1975), but when initially confronted by the act of teaching, their understanding of the role becomes more acute as their emerging needs, concerns, and expectations of what it means to do teaching interact with their personal views, emotions, and confidence in their (developing) skills and abilities.

There has been considerable discussion over the years pertaining to beginning teachers’ concerns—dating back to Fuller’s work (see, Fuller, 1969; Fuller & Bown, 1975) which in turn influenced thinking around the use of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (see, for example, Hall & Hord, 1987; Hall & Loucks, 1977). Although there have been arguments for and against developmental stage theory (Burn, Hagger, Mutton, & Everton, 2000, 2003; Furlong & Maynard, 1995; Grossman, 1992; Kagan, 1992) and its place in understanding the perspective of students of teaching, there is a view that, however characterized, the instances, issues, and situations that influence their concerns about learning to teach act “like sets of developing approaches, perspectives or ways of thinking” (Richardson & Placier, 2001, p. 912). That is, the concerns, issues, and expectations of student teachers exist and must be acknowledged and responded to in real ways through teacher education.

In addition to issues and ideas pertaining to needs and concerns, there is also considerable work related to the images, identity, and beliefs of students of teaching as they develop throughout their teacher education experiences. As a broad construct, Pajares (1992) examined the nature of beliefs and the ways in which they might impact teachers’ practice while Hattie’s (2009) extensive meta-analyses suggest that beliefs are a significant indicator of teacher effectiveness. Clearly, beliefs are important in shaping the development of students of teaching (Löfström & Poom-Valickis, 2013; Nettle, 1998); hence, findings such as those by Sosu and Gray (2012) are important for teacher educators and how they might better understand this area in relation to learning about teaching:

. . . it is possible for teacher education programmes to effect belief change in student teachers and that such beliefs can have some influence on future teachers’ classroom competence. The main implication from these findings is that it is possible for initial teacher education programmes to change student teachers’ beliefs about knowledge, teaching and learning. It could be argued based on the outcomes of this study and evidence from the literature that strategies that combine a challenge to existing beliefs and provision of plausible alternatives are powerful instruments for belief change. (p. 90)

Bullough (1991, 2005) illustrated that identity formation shapes not only what students of teaching do but also how they develop as pedagogues and van Manen’s (1999) work on anecdotes has proved fruitful in bringing those views of identity to the surface so that teacher educators might develop deeper understandings of the interplay between identity and practice. The following example of one such anecdote (below) offers many “ways in” to thinking about this interplay between needs, images, beliefs, and practice. It also seems reasonable to suggest that any teacher educator drawn to reflect on the implications of such an experience for a student of teaching (i.e., the anecdote) might also be drawn to consider the ramifications for ways of working with students of teaching and what that might mean for enhancing the knowledge and development of their own professional practice.

Dear Diary,

I had the worst class ever today. Year nine, double Indonesian on a Friday afternoon. The year nines had been on camp so I had no experience of what they were like or capable of! I walked in fairly confident. I had planned this lesson thoroughly as it was my first year nine class and my first ever double. I had created communicative activities: pair work, surveys, everything any beginning teacher would need to engage a bunch of apathetic year nines. I would surely catch their attention and help them see the value of being able to speak another language; as opposed to what I had experienced as a student!

My supervising teacher walked in and the noisy year nines straggled in behind him. I walked to the front of the class and introduced myself.

“Good afternoon year 9. I am Miss Soultan and I will be teaching you for the next few weeks.” I said sounding like I’d done it all a hundred times before.

Mr. Cool who reeked of a “couldn’t careless attitude” despite needing to have his cap sit “just so” on his head called out, “Are you a real teacher or a student teacher?”

I tried to ignore his question and carried on with some (pathetic) spiel about how we could all learn from each other and how the next few weeks would just fly.

I then launched into my lesson plan. I introduced myself in Indonesian and then asked each student to do the same. I said we would go around the room and hear something about each student. I emphasised that it didn’t matter how simple it was, as long as it was said in Indonesian.

The first student stood up and hesitantly said, “Nama saya Ben. Saya tinggi.”

I could hear some of the boys around him saying how stupid they thought all of this was because they already knew each other but I ignored them as I attempted to reward Ben’s effort.

“Very good Ben.” I responded.

I was all for positive comments even though I really didn’t mean it because I was disappointed with his too simple, “My name is Ben. I’m tall.”

I looked along to Josh, the next student. He slowly stood and said, “Nama saya Josh. Saya tinggi.”

The class erupted into laughter. Josh was maybe half the size of Ben. My heart was sinking fast as I could feel these year nines slipping away from me.

I battled on, but things got no better. It was hard to get their attention so I waited. I waited a bit longer.

Waiting, waiting, hoping.

I couldn’t stand it anymore so I mustered up the angriest face I could and told them all how rude they were and that I would not tolerate calling out and talking over one another.

“Miss, your face is going red,” came out of nowhere; but more than likely from under that cap, although they were all starting to look a bit more painful now.

I started sinking ever deeper.

I stormed over to the rubbish bin and threw in the worksheets and surveys I had spent so much time and care preparing then turned and told them all (well maybe I yelled) to begin copying a large slab of writing from their out of date textbook.

I never wanted to be that sort of teacher. But there I was doing boring work, punishing them and making them do irrelevant work that would make them like the subject even less.

What have I become? Why did this have to happen to me? (Loughran, 2006, pp. 110-111)

As the anecdote above illustrates, students of teaching are constantly immersed in experiences that are both personally and professionally challenging. Forgasz (2013) researched the ways in which her students of teaching responded to their learning challenges and why “it is hard to learn to teach.” She reinforced the point that students of teaching come to teacher education programs with a belief that they already “know how to do it [teach]” drawn from their years of observing teaching. To challenge that view, she saw a need to help her students of teaching begin to see teaching as “uncertain,” but noted that is difficult to do that because they are simultaneously involved in attempting to act in the face of that uncertainty; and that creates new and unexpected challenges for them. She concluded that as teaching is also “emotional” and is a feature of practice that is not often made explicit (either in the teacher education context at university or in schools), that there is a need to learn how to recognize and respond to emotions; to embrace them to move beyond them.

Forgasz’s (2013) research highlights the need for teacher educators to: reposition the attention of students of teaching from the visible performance of teachers’ work to the invisible work that supports it; resist the temptation to give students all the answers so that they learn to think and act in the face of uncertainty; and, create shared spaces for the exploration and resolution of difficult emotions without judgment.

It stands to reason that to become a scholar of teacher education, the development of one’s knowledge, skills, and abilities will be better informed through examining the complex world of learning to teach—most notably from the perspective of the learner. Forgasz’s (2013) research offers a prescient reminder that if “teaching is complex, then learning to teach must also be complex,” and that view needs to be upfront and explicit in the ways in which teacher educators conceptualize and enact their practice. Therefore, learning about the learning of teaching clearly requires thoughtful, focused, and meaningful professional development for teacher educators.

Researching Teacher Education Practices

The ideas, approaches, expectations, and outcomes discussed in the preceding sections of this article inexorably lead to a bald statement about the importance of research as a foundation for the professional development of teacher educators. However, simply stating that research matters—regardless of whether it is to be conducted or consumed by teacher educators—does not fully convey the professional development demands associated with such a statement.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2004) described their approach to research as “working the dialectic,” by which they meant that their work as practitioners and researchers did not neatly fit into distinct and separate compartments. Rather, they saw the boundaries as being blurred; befitting the complexity of their work as teacher educators. Further to this, inherent in their working, the dialectic was their expectation that the local knowledge of practice they generated could also be usable by, and accessible for, others, that is, to create public knowledge that might transcend the local context and inform teacher education more widely. Therefore, although stating that research is important in underpinning teacher educators’ professional development, what that might entail warrants serious examination because

. . . teacher educators need to know how to read, evaluate, critique, and use . . . research in their own work. They need to be able to interpret new research studies by locating them within a larger discourse that is informed by multiple historical, empirical, and epistemological perspectives . . . [and] they need to know how to draw from rich ethnographic studies of, for example, how beginning teachers make sense of their teacher preparation coursework and fieldwork . . . In addition to being smart consumers of research . . . teacher educators [also] need to have expertise in conducting research about their own practices and programs. This involves self examination and interrogation of the biographical bases of behaviour and beliefs . . . it also involves conducting empirical research on practice in order to determine what the outcomes of teacher preparation courses and field experiences are for prospective teachers’ own learning, for their professional performances in schools and classrooms, and for their pupil’s learning . . . Finally teacher educators need to have expertise in sorting out which questions about teacher education are empirical and which are questions of values and beliefs. Questions of value cannot be settled simply by assembling good evidence . . . these questions can be shaped, reformulated, or understood more profoundly on the basis of evidence, but evidence must always be interpreted. (Cochran-Smith, 2005, pp. 224-225)

One of the enduring issues related to the transition from teacher to teacher educator is associated with the expectations surrounding research in the academy—expectations that could be described as ranging across a continuum from the implicit to explicit and hence not easily recognized nor grasped by beginning teacher educators. That continuum of expectations can be seen as comprising, at one extreme “secret academic business” that is not shared or made explicit with neophytes, through to, in some cases, very explicit research expectations that are avoided (or maybe even ignored) rather than embraced and developed. Yet, as Cochran-Smith (2005) makes clear, understanding research—and what it means for being an academic—operates on multiple levels and being able to function across all of those levels can appear daunting; but is crucial for scholarship nonetheless.

Being a Smart Consumer of Research

Each of Cochran-Smith’s points (above) make clear that to be a “smart consumer” of research, a teacher educator needs to be, or at least seek to be, well informed. As noted earlier, it is not sufficient to pass on the accumulated tips and tricks of classroom teaching and consider that the end point in teaching teaching. Rather, the multiple issues, concerns, contradictory findings, and diverse array of approaches to understanding the complexity of classroom practice need to be based on more than one’s own experience.

If students of teaching are to move beyond their own personal opinions about what they need to do to develop their teaching (which may well be rooted in their apprenticeship of observation), then teacher educators need to be informed about the research that can assist in catalyzing that shift through a consideration of an appropriate evidence base. That means that teacher educators must be able to model how their practice is informed by, and responsive to, the implications and applications of such knowledge. They need to be conscious of the need to create conditions that support the development of their students of teaching as research informed practitioners through the way they approach their teacher education practices themselves. On top of all of the demands (outlined earlier) around learning about teaching, this first aspect of research, although clearly important, carries serious pedagogical implications which inevitably translate into serious professional development needs.

Researching One’s Own Practice

There has been a growing momentum in practitioner research as methodologies such as self-study (Hamilton, 1998) have created new ways for practice to be better understood, more highly refined, and increasingly, more cogently codified. Self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) has proved attractive to many teacher educators because it places teaching and learning about teaching at the center of the research endeavor. The range of research reports and opportunities to make the outcomes of self-study public and available for critique are numerous, beyond books (see, for example, Berry, 2007; Bullock & Russell, 2012; Crowe, 2010; Kosnick, Beck, Freese, & Samaras, 2006; Loughran & Russell, 2002; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009; Samaras, 2006; Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009) there is a biennial conference in the United Kingdom and S-STEP is one of the largest Special Interest Groups (SIG) in the American Education Research Association (AERA) and sponsors the journal Studying Teacher Education.

A key aspect of self-study methodology is that it tends to “provoke, challenge, and illuminate rather than confirm and settle” (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001, p. 20), and that self-study must go beyond stories in the development of knowledge of teaching teaching (Loughran, 2010). In some ways, the expectations of quality self-study could be viewed as disconcerting but for many teacher educators it has meant that they have begun to see new opportunities for ways in which to research teaching and learning about teaching. In so doing, they have been able to not only learn more about their own practice but also, by focusing more attention on the learning about teaching perspective, better understand the relationship between teaching and learning in substantive ways. As a consequence, their inquiries have highlighted the role of reframing (Schön, 1983), the taken-for-granted in their practice to become more informed and knowledgeable about teacher education more generally, their teaching about teaching more specifically, and the learning about teaching by their students of teaching more fundamentally (examples of such types of outcomes are demonstrated by Crowe & Berry, 2007; Dinkelman, Margolis, & Sikkenga, 2006; Ritter, 2007, 2009).

Bullock’s (2009) examination of his learning about being a teacher educator highlighted how his professional development through researching practice based on self-study impacted his learning about, and knowledge development of, teacher education. He described in detail how his research led him to recognize three foundation principles on which his learning to be a teacher educator was based. They were that learning to be a teacher educator required him to

analyze carefully the teaching and learning experiences in his classroom as he constructed knowledge of teaching through teaching teachers;

identify and re-interpret his own experiences as a teacher candidate (student of teaching) and to be aware of how he was influenced by that apprenticeship of observation; and

create and sustain a context of productive learning for himself and those students of teaching that he taught.

In reviewing his learning, Bullock demonstrated the value of embarking on personal professional development in accord with the first two aspects of Cochran-Smith’s (2005) argument (above). He concluded that his three “learning to be a teacher educator” principles were

a set of personal understandings constructed partly through reading research on teacher education and partly through engaging in self-study of my developing pedagogy of teacher education . . . [I] analysed problems that I encountered in my early practice as a teacher educator with a view to enacting a disciplined approach to thinking about teaching and learning. Careful and sustained analysis of both the limits of my prior assumptions about teaching and learning and my early experiences as a teacher and teacher educator has made it possible to construct explicit knowledge of teaching as a discipline. (Bullock, 2009, p. 302)

Interestingly, as enthusiasm around seriously explicating knowledge of teaching and learning about teaching through a practitioner-researcher approach has grown, there has also been some “push back” and questioning of the place of theory in programs of teacher education. For example, Hodson, Smith, and Brown (2012) suggested that theory itself:

. . . must adjust to new circumstances. Indeed, the very provenance of the term theory is at stake within contemporary educational practices. It can no longer be seen primarily as a mere state of affairs, or the outcome of past research now available to the new generation seeking guidance from their antecedents. Rather theory needs to be asserted as cutting edge analytical engagement with new situations. And the very people experiencing newly formatted educational contexts might be best placed to carry out this reformulation of theory. (p. 181)

Although arguments about the place of theory persist, it seems reasonable to suggest that the outcomes of much practitioner research have illustrated for teacher educators the value of embracing research in their pursuit of scholarship. By recognizing that no matter the form educational research might take, there is a justifiable imperative that the knowledge derived of that research should be appropriately considered, interpreted, critiqued, and applied in relation to its place in, and value to, teacher education. In so doing, professional development might not only be catalyzed but, more importantly, enhanced.

Values and Beliefs

The nature of values and beliefs is a topic that has attracted a great deal of attention. Calderhead (1996) illustrated well how beliefs impacted knowledge while Pajares (1992) was of the view that beliefs was a “messy construct in need of cleaning up.” In attempting to do that cleaning up, Pajares highlighted many issues, not least of which was the point that beliefs are very powerful in shaping who we are and how we act. Among his myriad findings, two (but by no means the only) that are particularly pertinent to the professional development of teacher educators are that beliefs play a critical role in defining behavior and organizing knowledge and information, and beliefs strongly influence perception and can be an unreliable guide to the nature of reality. Beliefs, like values, clearly impact the way in which we see and respond to our teacher education experiences. Therefore, fully grasping the implications of Cochran-Smith’s (2005) statement that, “Questions of value cannot be settled simply by assembling good evidence” (p. 225), becomes all the more important when considered in relation to Pajares’ findings.

Although research into the nature of beliefs and values of students of teaching may shape teacher educators’ understandings of what it means to learn to teach (see, for example, Löfström & Poom-Valickis, 2013; Nettle, 1998; Richardson, 1996; Sosu & Gray, 2012), how teacher educators come to recognize and confront their own values and beliefs requires a deeply personal response and is different to responding to the values and beliefs of others (e.g., students of teaching). For example, Russell (2007) described how he came to better recognize how his values impacted his practice. As a consequence, he purposefully challenged his “default settings” to better align his teaching intents with his teaching actions as he recognized that “listening to students was a value that became an active part of my teaching . . . [it] required listening to my students and asking them to play back to me the effects of my teaching on their learning” (p. 184).

By focusing on his deeply held beliefs and values, it could well be argued that Russell was in fact enacting what Korthagen and Vasalos (2005) described through their “onion model” as core reflection. Core reflection is the pursuit of deeper levels of reflection aimed at a teacher educator’s sense of mission and can help to explain the “less rational sources of teacher behaviour” (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005, p. 5).

The onion model comprises layers (from the outer layer of Environment, through to Behavior, Competencies, Beliefs, Identity, and at the center, Mission). Korthagen and Vasalos (2005) “concretized” the layers in the onion model through questions (e.g., Environment: What am I dealing with? Behavior: What do I do? Beliefs: What do I believe? and Mission: What greater entity do I feel connected with?). Their questions offer a powerful way of bringing one’s values and beliefs to the surface and encouraging reflection to be more holistic by directing attention to the deeper layers (beliefs, identity, and mission). Core reflection helps to overcome the natural tendency to be caught up in the more superficial layers (What am I dealing with? What do I do?) that typically attract attention in practice. It is not difficult to see then how such an approach to reflection can enhance the professional development of teacher educators.

Russell’s (2007) work could be seen as him pursuing his mission as a teacher educator and, as such, he saw a need to

resist the myth that teacher educators provide right answers about teaching, such as teaching tips and resource packages, so that productive professional learning can begin . . . [He believed that] new teachers can take charge of identifying and making explicit their own development as they gain teaching experience. (p. 190)

Enacting that belief in his practice required him to demonstrate that he explicitly valued “classroom environments in which it is safe, appropriate and necessary to consider how we learn as well as what we learn” (Russell, 2007, p. 191). Although he collected data that convinced him of the value of pursuing his teacher education practices in accord with his mission, his research consistently illustrates that his approach to supporting learning involved questions of value that could not be settled by evidence alone. Thus, values and beliefs, when realized, drive a teacher educator’s mission in ways that can create greater clarity and a greater likelihood of better aligning teaching intents and actions—a professional learning outcome that fundamentally impacts personal professional development.

One final example of how important it can be to explicate beliefs and values is in the work of Kosnick (2007). She developed a better understanding of her sense of identity as a teacher educator, and her underlying mission, as a consequence of seeing that “being a teacher educator means that I am also a researcher” (p. 25). She made clear the importance she placed on not only conducting research but also drawing on research as a basis for her scholarship as she saw both as fundamentally important to whom she was and what she did as a teacher educator. That realization was crucial to defining her mission as a teacher educator; a mission based on a deeply held belief that “being an innovative teacher educator requires patience, fortitude and skill [and that] decisions [are] guided by a set of values and skills [inherent in the challenge of] trying to create an innovative, research-based teacher education program” (Kosnick, 2007, p. 28). Clearly, her identity as a teacher educator was shaped by her expectations of the role and that role was simultaneously refined through her personal professional development as a scholar which was underpinned by values and beliefs that sat proudly at the heart of her conceptualization of the work of teacher education.

Like Russell, although she collected evidence to guide her efforts, she fundamentally valued the learning she gained by maintaining a focus on the experiences of her students of teaching, not only while in her program but also as they embarked on their careers. Valuing those experiences became a major factor in shaping her approach to teaching teaching; a factor that could not be defined by evidence alone.

Overview of Professionally Developing as a Teacher Educator

Professional development of teacher educators must be purposefully conceptualized, thoughtfully implemented, and meaningfully employed. However, for that to be the case, there is an overwhelming need for teacher educators to have a vision for their professional development that affords them agency in the active development of their scholarship.

In her review of professional knowledge of teacher education through self-study, Hamilton (2004) used the metaphor of a cartographer to chart her ideas “of the world of educational research focused on professional development” (p. 376) to create an effective and useful representation for others. Creating such a map can be difficult, and in the case of the professional development of teacher educators, especially difficult as the journey into such unchartered territory involves unfamiliar or harsh terrain that is difficult to navigate. Even more so if signposts along that path are obscured, difficult to read, or ambiguous, hence the development of Figure 1 as an attempt to begin to draw attention to those signposts and offer productive possibilities for thinking about how a teacher educator might begin to plan to traverse the landscape of professional development.

Conclusion

When Zeichner (2005) described his personal journey of becoming a teacher educator, he illustrated well how his transition from schoolteacher to teacher educator was informed by his: research into his practice, his students’ learning about teaching, and his desire for programmatic responses to his learning in ways that led to meaningful change. In many ways, Zeichner’s explanation of his journey offers insights into what it means to professionally develop as a teacher educator and reinforces the signposts described in Figure 1.

As a consequence of his own personal professional learning, Zeichner (2005) simultaneously became cognizant of the need for teacher educators to

think consciously about their role as teacher educators and engage in the same sort of self-study and critique of their practice as they ask their students to do . . . [to] work in teacher education with more conscious links to the programs in which they teach . . . [and to see] that the preparation of teacher educators needs to include some attention to the conceptual and empirical literature in teacher education. (p. 123)

As Zeichner described it, and as this article has attempted to lay out in detail, if such expectations were used to create a personal professional development agenda for teacher educators, then the result might be scholars of teacher education who have much greater control over what teacher education looks like, does, and produces; and that would be powerful educational change indeed.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

John Loughran is the Foundation Chair in Curriculum & Pedagogy and Dean of the Faculty of Education, Monash University. He was a science teacher for 10 years before moving into teacher education. His teaching and research in teacher education has a particular emphasis on a pedagogy of teacher education, and his interest in science education is illustrated through his work on pedagogical content knowledge.

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