Teacher educators’ collaboration in subject departments: collaborative activities and social relations

Self-Study Enabling Understanding of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: An Exploration of Collaboration among Teacher Educators for Special and Inclusive Education

“…A form of practitioner research developed primarily for use by teacher educators, self-study is collaborative by nature (Loughran, 2010) and therefore may help to somewhat address the paucity of knowledge about teacher educator collaboration (Heldens et al, 2015). Self-study may also be of benefit to a wide range of practitioners interested in developing a knowledge in practice and a knowledge of practice with a view to impacting on students' learning (Goodwin et al 2014) thus aligning the teaching and research agendas.…”

“…However such collaborative practices can be easier to develop at departmental level where there may already be a culture of trust and mutual goals. Thus proximity and having a history of collaboration within a department can support collaborative practices (Heldens et al, 2015), such as joint work, peer review, critical conversations and critique of each other's thinking, beliefs and practices. However, in this paper, a collaborative self-study was undertaken by Fiona, a new teacher educator concerned with student learning on the one hand, and making a difference on the other, thus embodying Kreber and Cranton's (2000) concept of the SoTL focusing on both students' learning and a moral or civic purpose.…”

“…This may be challenging in light of current research highlighting a knowledge practice gap (Kennedy, 2014) related to teacher educators' collaboration, with independence being more common than interdependence (Heldens et al, 2015). The importance of collaboration has been widely accepted in terms of teacher effectiveness, enhanced professional development, and innovative practices (Heldens et al, 2015).…”

“…This may be challenging in light of current research highlighting a knowledge practice gap (Kennedy, 2014) related to teacher educators' collaboration, with independence being more common than interdependence (Heldens et al, 2015). The importance of collaboration has been widely accepted in terms of teacher effectiveness, enhanced professional development, and innovative practices (Heldens et al, 2015). Interestingly, existing research seems to focus on the impact of such collaboration rather than gain any insight or understanding into the experience or patterns of teacher collaboration (Martin & Dismuke, 2015;Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes & Kyndt, 2015).…”

“…Accepting this, there is an overlap between self-study and the SoTL (Haigh, 2010). Self-study is collaborative by nature (Loughran, 2010) and therefore may help to somewhat address the dearth of knowledge about teacher educator collaboration (Heldens et al, 2015).…”