A Work in Progress. Transitions and Transformations: Teacher Educators' Journeys of Becoming

• In Event: 61.054 - Transitions and Transformations: Teacher Educators' Journeys of Becoming

Abstract

I have taught for over 40 years in middle school, high school, and university, but until I began analyzing and interpreting my practice through action research and self-study, I would have struggled to describe my pedagogical beliefs. In this symposium I want to share some aspects of how this process of inquiry provided me with a way to name my beliefs through three axioms, which give me guidance to make pedagogical decisions and have allowed me to share, test and discuss them with others.

I have learned that in order to teach teachers about teaching, I must not only teach but also demonstrate the “why” of teaching. I provide my graduate students with the reasons why I have chosen to structure a lesson in a certain way or why I have written an assignment thusly. I want them to see what it means to be a teacher who makes conscious decisions based on data and experience.

Action research certainly has influenced who I am as a teacher. Not only do I conduct action research in my classroom, but I also make its methods available to others. The university courses I teach are grounded in action research.

Constructivism has been a deeply satisfying framework that has influenced my teaching, both at the high school and the university. The axioms that I discovered in my work can be traced to constructivist beliefs that make meaning a personal discovery.

These beliefs led me to conclude that in order to construct understanding, everyone in the classroom must be both a teacher and a learner. Every time I teach, I learn as much about teaching as do my students. The fluidity of teaching and learning (and the blurring of the lines between the two) keeps me fresh, current, in touch, and relevant.

Self-study has been a major part of my learning. By taking my learning to the level of the self, I have been able to delve more deeply into the core of who I am as a person and as a teacher.

I, for one, never envisioned myself as a teacher educator. I went from being a middle school teacher to a high school teacher to a high school assistant principal. Working in school systems, I became interested in organizational theory. It spoke to me because I foresaw a greater role in the systems in which I worked. To this day, however, even having worked as a teacher educator for 15 years, I see myself first and foremost as a teacher.

Author

• Joseph C. Senese, Northwestern University