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This article was downloaded by: [University of Central Florida]On: 17 October 2014, At: 07:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Studying Teacher Education: A journalof self-study of teacher educationpracticesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cste20
The Importance of Being Aware:Developing professional identities ineducators and researchersJanneke Geursen a , Ari de Heer b , Fred A.J. Korthagen a , MiekeLunenberg a & Rosanne Zwart aa CETAR, VU University , The Netherlandsb IVLOS, Utrecht University , The NetherlandsPublished online: 05 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Janneke Geursen , Ari de Heer , Fred A.J. Korthagen , Mieke Lunenberg& Rosanne Zwart (2010) The Importance of Being Aware: Developing professional identities ineducators and researchers, Studying Teacher Education: A journal of self-study of teacher educationpractices, 6:3, 291-302
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2010.518685
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Importance of Being Aware: Developing professional identitiesin educators and researchers
Janneke Geursena, Ari de Heerb, Fred A.J. Korthagena*, Mieke Lunenberga and
Rosanne Zwarta
aCETAR, VU University, The Netherlands; bIVLOS, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
In a Dutch self-study project, five teacher educators studied their own practices withthree experienced researchers as the facilitators of the group. These facilitators alsoconducted a self-study of the whole project, particularly focusing on helping andhindering aspects of the facilitation process. In this article, we report two of the teachereducators’ self-studies, one in the context of foreign language teaching and the other inthe context of deepening student teacher reflection. In addition, we describe the designand outcomes of the self-study carried out by the facilitators. We discuss what we havelearnt from each of the three studies, but we also emphasize going beyond the story,drawing conclusions that may be of interest to the broader community of teachereducators. We work to deepen the awareness of the people we work with, but animportant outcome of the self-studies is also deepening our own awareness of certainphenomena in our practices, which are elaborated in this article. Another commonthread in each of the studies is the impact a self-study can have on the professionalidentity of the individual researchers.
Keywords: awareness; facilitation; identity; teacher educators; frictions
In February 2007, we started our first joint self-study project in the Netherlands. The
project was embedded in the context of the academization of teacher education. Teacher
educators were invited to work on their own professional development by performing a
self-study leading to a research paper or a presentation reflecting the essence of their own
learning as teacher educators. At the same time, the challenge was to go beyond these
personal stories to offer something worthwhile to other teacher educators, which concurs
with the theme of this journal issue. This combination of practical relevance and the
development of public knowledge is the central goal of the “new scholarship” in teacher
education (Zeichner, 1999, 2007). As this type of practitioner research is still relatively
rare in Europe (although the UK and Iceland are two exceptions), we started our own self-
study group.
The facilitators of this project (Rosanne, Mieke, and Fred) had several goals in mind.
First, they sought to provide support to individual self-studies and to the development of
insights valuable for participating teacher educators’ own practices, while at the same time
the teacher educators involved in the project would gain experience in performing
ISSN 1742-5964 print/ISSN 1742-5972 online
q 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17425964.2010.518685
http://www.informaworld.com
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Studying Teacher Education
Vol. 6, No. 3, November 2010, 291–302
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research. In the next sections of this paper, two of the project participants report their self-
studies. Second, the three facilitators sought to discover what kind of support helps or
hinders this process of working with the participants. The self-study conducted by the
facilitators is also discussed.
In carrying out this joint project, we have taken the position that, in addition to its focus
on teacher educators, self-study research can be distinguished from other forms of
practitioner research (such as teacher research and action research) by its emphasis on both
individual gains and its contribution to the theoretical development of teacher education
(Korthagen & Lunenberg, 2004; Zeichner, 2007). In this way, self-study research
contributes to the empowerment of individual teacher educators, as well as to the
empowerment of teacher educators as a professional community. Ultimately, this may
enhance the social status of teacher education. In order to achieve this aim, the outcomes
of self-study research ought to be made public and opened up for academic discussion and
criticism (cf. Hoban, 2002). We recognize that this is not always easy, taking into account
the academic traditions (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Cole & Knowles, 2004;
Kuzmic, 2006). Hence guidance and facilitation of this process are of great importance.
Janneke’s Study: Stimulating student teachers to develop and express their views on
foreign language teaching
During almost a decade of experience as a foreign language teacher educator at Vrije
University, Amsterdam, I have become increasingly interested in the effects of my actions
on student teachers’ learning about teaching. It is my ideal to educate thinking teachers by
encouraging student teachers “to think like teachers through ‘being awake to, and aware
of, their practice, not just immersed in it’” (Mason, 2002, cited in Crowe & Berry, 2007,
p. 32). However, in my view, I rarely managed to make this dream come true. I was often
somewhat disappointed with what student teachers produced and with the views on foreign
language teaching they expressed. Moreover, some students were unable to explain the
choices they had made when preparing their lessons. Apparently, they were not yet
sufficiently awake to, nor aware of, their practice.
In the years prior to my self-study project, I had taken a close look at some of the
literature on teacher education. I knew it was important to relate to student teachers’ pre-
existing concepts about learning and teaching and how hard it is to change these concepts
(Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). I was aware of the fact that beginning teachers
tend to adjust to existing school practices rather than to scientific insights, and I recognized
their need for quick and ready answers rather than the more abstract knowledge that
teacher educators tend to provide. Knowing that student teachers will be more likely to
relate to Theory (with a capital T, or episteme; see Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, Lagerwerf,
& Wubbels, 2001) if they can begin with experiences with practical theory (theory with a
small t, or phronesis), I made sure my teacher education practices reflected this approach.
Conscious of the positive effect of modeling, I included many awareness-raising activities
and reflected on them explicitly with my students. (Swennen, Lunenberg, and Korthagen
[2008] call this explicit modeling.) Moreover, I tried to take into account that my students
are at different stages in their development and thus have different needs when it comes to
guidance, (in)dependence of/on the teacher educator, motivation, and so forth.
Despite all these insights and my efforts to use them in my teaching, I was still
somewhat dissatisfied with the effects of my teaching. This led me to question whether my
practices did actually mirror the theory behind them. In my self-study project, I hoped to
discover which elements of my approach helped my students to develop more
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sophisticated views on foreign language teaching (i.e., which elements were recognized as
helpful by my student teachers). I soon realized that my focus should not just be on what I
do, but also on how I do it, and even on how I do it. My research questions became these:
1. Which interventions help student teachers develop their views on foreign language
teaching?
2. What part do I play in this process?
Method
Four students who had been or were still being educated to become teachers of English
volunteered to be interviewed. Their ages ranged from 27 to 41. As I expected that they
might speak more freely about their experiences of my teaching when interviewed by
someone else, I asked a colleague to interview them using an interview guideline
I developed. This guideline consisted of three parts: (1) context, concerns and views of the
interviewees about learning to teach a foreign language; (2) the foreign language methods
program; and (3) my personal influence on their development. The guideline was reviewed
by another researcher and by another foreign language teacher educator prior to the
interview.
Part 1 of the interview included questions like, “When I started teaching I was mainly
concerned with . . . ” and, “If someone were to ask you: ‘How can you help pupils to learn
English’, what would you say?” In part 2, the student teachers were asked to make a visual
representation of how they ranked, according to the importance for their development into
thinking language teachers, the various activities and interventions that were part of the
methods program. This was done in the form of a wall (see Korthagen et al., 2001,
pp. 162–163). Twenty-five paper bricks were handed out, two of which were blank. Other
bricks had labels describing activities they had experienced, such as presenting a task,
classroom observation by a methods teacher educator, and the like. The interviewees were
asked to order the bricks (i.e., build a wall), placing the activities that were most important
for their development at the bottom and the others on top (see Figure 1). The wall was then
created by attaching the bricks to a piece of paper. The students could also draw a waste
paper basket in which useless bricks could be deposited. While building the wall,
interviewees were asked to explain their choices.
Part 3 consisted of two open questions about the positive and negative effects on their
development of remarks I had made and feedback I had given to students.
I collected the data from parts 1 and 2 of the videotaped interviews, placed the data in a
grid according to the questions, and compared the walls of the students. Analysis of the
walls was carried out by scoring how often an intervention or activity was placed in the
bottom row (the most important), the second row, and so forth. Specifically those
Figure 1. A wall.
Studying Teacher Education 293
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interventions and activities that had been placed in the two bottom rows were used to
answer the first research question. I also took into account the explanation given by each
student for their arrangement of the bricks. The outcomes were checked by a fellow
researcher. Data from part 3 were incorporated by summarizing the interviews and relating
them to the second research question. Finally, as the answers to the questions from part 3
were very different, I decided to analyze in more detail the answers given by two of the
students (one experienced student teacher, one beginner).
Outcomes: What did I learn?
All four students pointed out that reading literature about foreign language methodology
helped them develop a view on their language teaching. This did not surprise me. These
texts can give students something to hold on to, especially when linked to their teaching
practice. What did surprise me is that they all mentioned their starting point to be theory
(capital T) and not their practice. (“Finding out how you should do it in theory and then
trying it out in class, that’s how it works forme.”) Interestingly, although Imade a conscious
attempt to elicit personal questions and concerns before discussing ‘T’heory with them,
they did not seem to be aware of this action, or at least did not mention it during the
interviews.
The second result that struck me is that the student teachers apparently considered the
literature they read and the examples of good practice we studied to be more important than
the feedback their mentor teachers gave them. A possible explanation might be that the
course I teach is subject-specific. Students report that the main focus of the mentor’s
feedback is on classroom management and pedagogy rather than on foreign language
methodology. One student teacher actually said, “Mymentor teacher only taught me ‘small
t’ [theory].”
Another interesting outcome is that these four students claim to have learnt relatively
little from their fellow students. They make a clear distinction between what can be learnt
from peers and what can be learnt from a teacher educator specialized in foreign language
teaching methods. For example, one student stated, “During peer group sessions, I learn a
lot from my peers, because we are at the same level of experience.” But when it comes to
foreign language teachingmethods, it seems that these students prefer input from an expert.
The most experienced student reported that she only values the input of someone she thinks
is competent. All this seems to suggest that the teacher educator’s expertise in teaching
specific content is highly valued by the student teachers and, according to the student
teachers, it is the responsibility of the teacher educator as an expert model to provide this
type of theoretical knowledge to them. In sum, conducting this self-study made me more
aware of the way my students see me and interpret my actions.
The Self in the Study
As for my personal influence on their learning processes (research question 2), two student
teachers stressedmy role as amodel teacher while the other twomentioned the personal and
positive feedback I gave them, and that I helped them discover their personal style. The
student teachers described my practice as “competent,” “structured” and “stimulating.” In-
depth analysis of the data from two of the students revealed that different teaching
approaches appeal to different students. For instance, Marianne (an experienced student
teacher) needed stimulus and input, whereas Nina (an absolute beginner in a survival mode)
needed affirmation and encouragement. Looking at their responses leads me to wonder
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whether I may be better at motivating students than affirming them. Marianne highlighted
this issue when she said, “Her approach seems to work best for students with some
experience.” As a result of these students’ feedback, I have becomemuchmore aware of the
varying needs of my student teachers and have begun to address these needs in my planning
for their learning.
The outcomes of my self-study have made memore aware of my personal strengths and
weaknesses and have led to alterations in our program. For example, students are asked
to give each other feedback on a more regular basis and lead discussions during group
meetings. In this way, I want to make them less dependent on me and more aware of their
own insights. Conducting this self-study also helped me to learn about my identity as a
teacher educator. This study opened my eyes to the fact that as a teacher educator I have
multiple roles. Within our teaching institute, I teach a general course on curriculum design
and a course on foreign language teaching. As the latter course is closer to my former job as
an English teacher, perhaps I present myself as the expert in this field; or, as the outcomes of
this study suggest, at least these students view me as such.
In addition, through this self-study, I also discovered a new aspect ofmy identity: that of
researcher. As a researcher of my practice, I have the opportunity to model a new type of
professional behavior to my students, and to engage in discussions with fellow researchers
and student teachers about significant issues in education. I have learnt a great deal about the
processes of doing research, including some of its problems and complexities. The
immediate and positive feedback I received from the facilitators helped me recognize how
such actions might also benefit my students as they carry out their research projects within
the teacher education program.
Going Beyond the Story
On the whole, this self-study confirms what is already known from formal theories on the
pedagogy of teacher education: it does matter how you teach prospective teachers,
especially when it comes to modeling. However, this study also offers two insights that
appear to challenge other aspects of what is known from the research literature about
learning to teach: (i) These students’ explanations regarding the importance of studying
theoretical literature seem to contradict the focus on practical experience as the starting
point for teacher education, as put forward by Korthagen et al. (2001). At the same time, if
my students really do learn about teaching from studying the literature and then putting
these ideas into practice, then why don’t I see more examples of transfer in their
assignments and practicum than I do?; (ii) Comments from these students that my influence
on their views of language teaching has a greater impact than their mentor’s appear to
contradict earlier studies on the role of the mentor (e.g., Brouwer, 1989; Lortie, 1975).
These insights offer further pathways for the development of my learning through self-
study.
As Lunenberg and Hamilton (2008) pointed out, the profession of teacher educator is
not well defined. This means teacher educators have to (re)define themselves. At the same
time, this is not easy, as teacher educators often experience a lack of helpful opportunities
for such a (re)definition. I can now conclude that conducting a self-study project did offer
me such an opportunity.
Ari’s Study: Supporting core reflection
I am a teacher educator and a secondary school teacher. To me, it is important to support
student teachers in the process of becoming aware of their mission, professional identities,
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and beliefs, as I strongly believe this helps them to become better teachers. This conviction
has grown through courses in Core Reflection (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005), which I have
taken in recent years. These courses are a great source of inspiration in my work. Central to
these courses are the onion model (Figure 2) and the notion of core qualities, i.e., personal
qualities, such as openness, care, flexibility and enthusiasm.
I chose this model as the framework for my self-study because it shows not only a
human being in his daily action (the outer layers of the onion), but also the less visible and
deeper layers that guide one’s interactions with the environment. I strongly believe that all
of these layers are important in teaching. The idea behind the model is that the work of a
professional is more effective and fulfilling if there is an alignment between the various
layers.
I started to use the onion model in my teacher education practices and to help student
teachers recognize core qualities in themselves and others. The central research question
of my self-study thus became: How does the introduction of some elements of the Core
Reflection approach (the onion model and core qualities) influence my student teachers’
reflections about their teaching practices?
To answer this question, I worked with a group of seven student teachers, all over 35
years old, who had made a conscious choice to enter teaching as a second career.
Method
I used two instruments. First I interviewed the student teachers at the end of the program
about their experiences and how these affected their approach to teaching school students.
Environment
Behavior
Competencies
Beliefs
Identity
MIssion
What do I do?
What am I competent at?
What do I believe?
Who am I (in my work)?
What do I encounter? (What am I dealing with?)
What inspires me?(What greater entity do I feelconnected with?)
Core qualities
Figure 2. The onion model.
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During these interviews, I also invited them to recall and reflect on critical situations,
which may be positive (for example, an ideal situation) or negative. The interviews were
videotaped. Second, all seven student teachers were asked to include reflections in their
teaching portfolio on how they had used the onion model and core qualities in their
teaching practices.
In the data analysis, I focused particularly on the role of the deeper layers of the onion
model in the student teachers’ reflection processes, and on the use of core qualities in their
teaching. I interpreted the learning gains in terms of the layers distinguished in the onion
model (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005).
Outcomes: What did I learn?
An important result of my analysis was that all seven of the student teachers reported that
they used the onion model, but in different ways. All students used it for reflection-on-
action, but not all used it for reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987). Two student teachers
explicitly reported that learning about the onion model helped them to experience a deeper
connection with a source within themselves guiding their teaching. When interviewing the
student teachers, I observed that in each of them the onion model had somehow stimulated
a change of perspective. A representative example that one student teacher reported is, “I
now realize that I behave within an automatic pattern; my belief keeps me within this
pattern. Now that I look at the onion model, I realize that I can also step out of this pattern
. . . I have more alternatives in my behavior than I showed.”
All of the student teachers mentioned that the deeper layers of the onion model were
important to their behavior as teachers. Four student teachers actually worked with core
qualities in their interaction with their students. One student teacher described a situation
in which she experienced a difficult relationship with a student: “When I mentioned her
core quality, I think she felt more acknowledged by me. Besides, it gives me some fresh
air, because it creates maneuvering space in this difficult relationship.” Although I
consider this to be an important outcome, I was surprised to find that two student teachers
could not work with core qualities in their interactions with their students because they felt
that discipline problems occupied all of their attention. One student teacher said that core
qualities did not fit into her view of teaching.
The Self in the Study
My self-study made me more aware of my own goals as a teacher educator working with
student teachers. Previously, I often worked rather intuitively on issues such as mission
and identity, but now I have learnt to clarify what I stand for and to reflect more deeply on
my pedagogical behavior. This also became clear when I had a fruitful and in-depth
discussion with a colleague on how to clarify the different terms we use to indicate the
deeper layers of the onion model.
My self-study has also empowered me in further enhancing the intended development
in my student teachers and in myself. For example, in this year’s course, I now also help
my student teachers to become aware of their own core qualities, so that they can identify
them in the professional profiles they are asked to write in their portfolios. Most
importantly, I found that I am now looking more closely at the processes and outcomes of
teacher education in a research-oriented manner. Through my self-study, I have changed at
the identity level. I have become a professional who looks at his practices in a different
way than before.
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Going Beyond the Story
What bigger issues are hidden in this story? One important issue is pointed out by
Loughran (2008), who emphasizes the importance of differentiating between the doing of
one’s teaching and the knowledge of practice underpinning that teaching. Loughran
stresses the need to make explicit the tacit aspects of one’s practice. Through my own self-
study journey, I have discovered that making the tacit explicit is an essential element of the
professionalism of teacher educators. Second, by doing this study I became aware of a new
way to support my student teachers in their research and development. I better understand
their moments of flow and the difficulties they face, because I recognize the pitfalls and the
moments of pride or disappointment from my own experiences of researching my practice.
While taking part in this project, I learned that awareness and doing are two sides of the
same coin. It is only when you are aware of something that you can act upon this
awareness. Third, the onion model and core qualities give words and support to my
struggles and dilemmas as a teacher educator, in ways similar to how they were helpful to
my student teachers. Finding connections between the layers of the onion model seems
beneficial to the promotion of more effective reflective teaching. In more general terms,
through the introduction and use of models, schemes and symbols (new words), we
construct a language, and this language constructs our social “teaching world” (Berger &
Luckmann, 1966). This seems to be the essence of what we can offer our students in
teacher education programs.
The Facilitators’ Study: Supporting self-study research
Many scholarly teachers and teacher educators are conducting self-studies in various
settings. Terms such as collaborative self-studies, self-study communities, and
collaborative studies of teaching practices (e.g., Miller, East, Fitzgerald, Heston, &
Veenstra, 2002; Schuck & Aubusson, 2006) all point to slightly different forms of self-
study research. Different theoretical backgrounds naturally give rise to different
understandings of self-study research, but the essence remains the same: it is important to
develop one’s insight into one’s own practices for the purpose of enhancing learning of the
self and one’s students.
In our project, teacher educators carried out their individual studies, while supported
by the group of colleagues and by us, the three facilitators. In our research question (What
are stimulating and inhibiting elements when supporting the self-study research processes
of teacher educators?), the role we play in the support process is therefore explicitly
incorporated. In this paper, we choose to focus on the frictions we experienced and on how
we handled these during one year of supporting the Dutch self-study group. We anticipate
that our learning may offer helpful insights to those who also engage in facilitating
collaborative self-study research.
Method
All teacher educator participants were interviewed at the start and at the end of the one-
year project, and every two weeks they mailed us their individual digital logbooks. The
eight monthly group meetings were videotaped; our e-mail correspondence with the
participants was an additional data source. The three of us regularly met, discussed, and
reflected on the project processes. We analyzed the data using a grounded theory approach
(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). We based our sensitizing concepts on the important elements of
supporting a self-study group described by Hoban (2007). First, Hoban emphasizes the
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connection with one’s own practice, but also the need to work towards an external goal,
such as a publication or presentation at a conference. Equally important is the availability
of literature and external input, such as learning about the technical aspects of research.
Hoban also points to social aspects such as organizing meetings of the group as a whole,
because of its supportive function, but also because of the ‘voyeurism’ aspect (i.e., hearing
from colleagues what you did not know about them). Hoban stresses that the facilitators
need to create a sense of themselves as next door, so that feedback can be given in a timely
and easily accessible way. Finally, Hoban identifies the importance of finalizing the self-
studies and discussing possible follow-ups to prevent the results from fading into oblivion.
Based on these sensitizing concepts, the three of us analyzed the data individually and
then discussed the outcomes together. This process led to the identification of a number of
helpful elements in the facilitation process and five main frictions, which we summarize
below. These frictions came to our awareness during or after the whole project, which
means that we were not aware of them at the outset.
Outcomes: What did we learn?
First, the teacher educators experienced friction on the one hand between a better
understanding and development of their own practices and, on the other, staying objective.
Janneke’s idea of asking a colleague to conduct interviews with her students in order to
create a safer environment for the students is an example of addressing this friction. As
facilitators, we explained how studying your own personal and specific concerns could be
combined with objectivity. Notions such as trustworthiness (as an alternative to reliability)
and triangulation were introduced and explained. Second, the teacher educators
experienced tension between wanting to carry out very comprehensive and ambitious
studies, yet having limited capacity to do so or facing lack of time. The facilitators guided
the teacher educators in shaping their ambitions on the one hand, but on the other,
provided enough space for the teacher educators to develop their researcher skills and find
out what types of projects worked for them. Third, regarding the data collection methods,
the teacher educators first thought of traditional instruments such as questionnaires to be
used in large surveys, and interviews with a large number of people. This led to friction
between encouraging the teacher educators to set up a small study and helping them to
recognize the pitfalls of using large-scale, time-consuming methods. The facilitators
provided the teacher educators with other possible (sometimes less traditional) research
methods, which were less time-consuming, but which did provide fruitful opportunities to
gain a deeper insight into their practices. (An example of such a method is the wall used by
Janneke.) Fourth, friction was experienced between studying sometimes very personal
aspects of one’s own practices and going public with the results. After all, dissatisfaction
or uncertainty about one’s own teaching or students’ performances was often the starting
point of the participants’ self-studies. This friction sometimes created the risk of moving
away from the personal significance of the research focus and even from the idea of
conducting a self-study. Taking the risk of putting the self into the study and keeping it
there proved to be an important task for us as facilitators (cf. Lunenberg & Hamilton,
2008), as we now describe.
The Self in the Study
The fifth friction differs from the others, because it was one that was particularly
experienced by the facilitators. It can be described as the friction between self and study.
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As facilitators we asked ourselves, was the ultimate goal to learn about oneself or to stay
on course and deliver a public report on a study? This caused some struggles within
ourselves, as we wanted to achieve both purposes at the same time. However, during the
year as we worked with the teacher educators, we realized that research was probably not
the only way for these participants to find answers to their questions. One could argue that
in some cases systematic coaching or supervision could have been a promising alternative.
Finally, something interesting to us as facilitators was that within ourselves, there was
tension at the identity level of the onion model that was starting to disappear through our
collaborative self-study work. Each of us is an experienced researcher, with much
knowledge about what constitutes rigorous research. Hence it was sometimes hard for us
to adapt our expectations and ways of thinking about certain contextual factors, such as the
extent of research knowledge of the project participants, the limited time available for the
self-studies, the very personal concerns and foci of participants, and so forth. On the other
hand, two of us had many years of experience in the role of teacher educator or learning
facilitator. This role gave us expertise on how to work within all kinds of contextual and
personal limitations, while still focusing on enhancing learning. However, we had never
before combined the two roles of researcher and facilitator of learning, other than in the
specific situation of supervising PhD students, which we feel is a rather different context.
During the project, the two roles became more and more interconnected. This created a
new dimension of our professional identities, and was a particular area of growth for one
facilitator, who had less experience as a learning facilitator. The three of us developed
what we now consider a very specific integrative identity, namely the professional identity
of being a facilitator of self-studies by teacher educators. This process of integrating
identities has been very rewarding to us, for it offered the opportunity of witnessing
impressive examples of rapid professional growth in our participants. This seems to touch
even the deepest level of the onion model, for it resonates with a mission central to our
work, namely to improve education by connecting practice, research, and people.
Going Beyond the Story
The main title of this contribution is “the importance of being aware,” and this title can be
understood at four levels. First, the studies of Janneke and Ari and those of the other
participants in the project confirm what we already know about the benefits of self-study
research: self-studies support professional development and provide insight into one’s own
practices. Moreover, the participating teacher educators became more aware of the pitfalls
faced by their students when carrying out research, and of the support they may need.
Especially in the Dutch context, in which most teacher educators do not themselves have
research tasks, awareness of such issues is of great value to teacher education practices.
Second, supporting and facilitating self-study research is not something to take lightly.
Support and sensitivity about friction that occurs seem very important if we are to avoid the
risk of too many individual self-studies failing. After all, failing self-studies affect not only
the teacher educator who started it, but also the self-study movement. Creating a self-study
group in which teacher educators and researchers work closely together to establish a sense
of professional intimacy (see Fitzgerald, East, Heston, & Miller, 2002) turned out to be of
great importance in this respect. Third, working on self-studies in the context of teacher
education academization opens up a whole new world of questions on performing research.
Questions regarding objectivity and quality of the conducted research go hand in hand with
concerns regarding establishing a safe and inspiring professional community in which both
the personal and the professional are aligned. Awareness of these questions, an open mind
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towards the answers, and collaborative efforts to find fruitful ways of handling these issues
seem necessary ingredients for a successful self-study group. Finally, it is noteworthy that,
in the self-studies by Janneke and Ari and in the overall study, there has been an important
impact at the identity level: through our self-studies, we have changed as professionals. We
have developed different and inspiring new insights into our own professional roles and new
perspectives on who we are and can be in our work.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Paul van den Bos, Willem Hoekstra, Yke Meindersma, Joke Morshuis,Joke Rentrop and Peter Ruit for their collegial support in the self-study project.
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