This self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) is a collaborative analytical autoethnography (CAAE) of four colleagues, represented in the text as the Poet and alter ego 'Other', alongside three critical friends. We drew on an arts-based approach, merging three genres: poetry, theatre, and narrative (story-telling). With this teacher…

This study focuses on the systematic collective reflections of four teacher educators as they interrogate their own practice engaging in community-based settings, specifically considering how these settings can serve as an additional teacher. It is informed by a theory that centers educational experiences within the community and is guided by…

How does a teacher educator come to engage in self-study research? In this article, the authors seek to answer this question by investigating the personal, professional, and programmatic influences that drew one teacher educator to self-study. The authors used critical friendship to investigate the first author's introduction to self-study, with…

From this year-long study, we offer new perspectives for being and becoming critical friends as co-authors. Informed by the Transactional Theory of Reading, a narrative view of experience and feminist communication theory, we positioned ourselves as collaborative, active meaning makers who could read and make meaning from our lived experiences and…

When a cultural disconnect became antagonistic between me and my students of color, I found myself at a crossroads as a White teacher educator: use coercion and force students to follow my directions, or care and base my responses on students' needs. I chose the latter. Findings suggest that this choice benefitted the class and changed how I see…

This issue of "Studying Teacher Education" is devoted to researching the experience of practicum in teacher education. They come from a multi-year research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Located at four Canadian universities, the five authors of this special issue investigated the…

Within US teacher preparation programs, critical pedagogy and a desire for social change can lead teacher educators to prioritize transformation of prospective teachers' beliefs through self-reflection. In pursuit of effective critical pedagogies, teacher educators also need to examine their own practices and beliefs. This self-study, a…

While there is a growing literature focused on doctoral preparation for teaching about science teaching, rarely have recommendations extended to preparation for teaching science content to teachers. We three doctoral students employ self-study as a research methodology to investigate our developing pedagogical content knowledge for teaching…

Teacher education programs that appear to be more successful work to thread practicum experiences and on-campus courses with an eye to achieving overall program coherence. As part of a funded research project centred on understanding how teacher candidates perceive quality in their practicum experiences and, by extension, in their professional…

Our self-study has two main purposes: (1) to understand the value of self-study for credential program graduates to confront in transformative ways the pedagogical challenges of urban schools, and (2) to add to an exploration of self-study for non-teacher educators and strengthen our preparation of candidates to enact such inquiry. To answer these…

We explore the first four articles in this Special Issue of "Studying Teacher Education" to identify challenges to the self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STEP) methodology, and how this methodology supports the work of teachers and teacher educators working in urban settings. We respond to these articles by…

In this study, I explore my practices as a teacher educator in one course both before and after returning to the K-12 classroom to teach secondary language learners for one academic year. By examining the intersection of self-study and practice-based teacher education, I illustrate how I used self-study as a mechanism for innovation and change and…

Professional development intended to change teachers' teaching practices is often unsuccessful. This article explores a case set in a developing country. Although some researchers have attributed failure to factors that are external to the teacher educators involved, this study explores the role that teacher educators themselves may play in…

For this self-study of my teacher education practice, I positioned myself as a novice in the unfamiliar context of learning to ride a horse. This gave me an opportunity to re-experience being an authentic learner and thereby to deepen my understanding of how an individual learns to teach. I recorded my experiences in an electronic journal and…

The aim of this self-study was to better understand and improve my practice in preparing elementary credential candidates to create positive, educative learning environments for all children, especially those in high-need urban contexts. I felt I could learn most about this question by studying how graduates were engaging in this work and how…