How Our Personal and Professional Life Experiences Have Shaped Who We Are as Teacher Educators

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Ideology and Identity Across the Educator Career Span

Abstract

This paper considers a duoethnographic study of the professional identity and work of university-based teacher educators. It aims to examine the ways in which the articulation of memories of experience can contribute to the construction and perception of our own identities as teacher-educators; how this influence practice; and how pedagogies are adapted in order to negotiate external and institutional requirements which sometimes contradict our own beliefs about teaching and learning. Findings show how the link between early experiences of education and schooling, and careers as school teachers, directly influence practice and identity as teacher educators. This study is significant as it illustrates the value of duoethnography as a method of inquiry into the work and lives of teacher educators.

Authors

• Michael Hayler, The University of Brighton

• Judy Joy Williams, Monash University