Professional Development in Teacher Education: Transforming Knowledge and Scholarly Discourse Into Engaging Practice

• In Event: 18.072 - Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: 18.072-20 - Learning Together: Teachers and Teacher Educators Learning in Professional Communities

Abstract

Collaborative design work can be professional development for teacher educators to transform knowledge and scholarly discourse into engaging practice. This study examines the work of interdisciplinary faculty over three years in an iteratively designed and enacted ambitious graduate preservice program. Guided by ideas about professional community and sociolinguistics, data were examined for evidence of how teacher educators’ talk illustrated their beliefs, knowledge and negotiation of ideas. Findings show increasingly sophisticated thinking about teacher education as conversation patterns shift to deal with ambiguity, judgments and work toward consensus about teacher preparation. Understanding collaborative faculty curriculum design work is invaluable in creating opportunities for the learning of teacher educators, preservice teachers and ultimately the children in our classrooms.

Authors

• Jenny Denyer, University of Toledo

• Rebecca M. Schneider, University of Toledo