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We are three teacher educators – Christi, Bethney, and Abby – representing literacy, educational leadership, and special education, who have collaborated in self-studies of our teacher education practices (S-STEP) over a period of five academic years. Through this collaborative engagement, we came to recognize the similarities and differences in our language and values found within each of our individual disciplinary cultures. It was through the juxtaposition of studying ourselves alongside of that of our colleagues that we further generated a shared culture and common understandings. In our chapter, we explore the ways in which self-study enabled collaboration with teacher educators representing different disciplines. The research brought to light specific disciplinary values, assumptions, and terminology that, when articulated and examined among critical friends, facilitated our ability to both broaden and deepen our individual understandings of teacher education practices in light of each other’s diverse disciplinary perspectives.

This paper explains a collaborative self-study research project that included an evolving arts-based inquiry (ABI) approach. The combined experiences of a visual artist/art educator and a drama educator, informed the design and use of ABI strategies to investigate practices of Australian teacher educator-researchers. These strategies are shared along with results from interviews that reveal the dynamics and value of this particular model of ABI within a larger research project.

ABI was included in the methodology of collaborative self-study. It involved listening to participants’ arts-based and written responses then basing the next provocations on these outcomes. This gave ownership to the group members and reinforced the community of practice foci.

ABI challenged academic identities and practices. It allowed for more enjoyment in the workplace, for reflection and reflective practice to develop. It provided opportunities for shifting perspectives and perceiving teaching practice differently, inspiring more creativity in teaching. It also improved relationships with co-workers and held the group together.

The authors share this research to recommend others a way to collaborate within group research projects.

The authors found it vital to have a co-ABI facilitator from within the group to collaborate with, in order to develop the most appropriate ABI provocations within an emerging research project.

This model of research can generate honest and in-depth insights for participants (members of a community of practice) as to how and why they do the work (practices) they do.

The study’s use of ABI offers an original perspective in the use of this methodology.

Judith Barak is the former head of the ACE program, is currently head of the graduate school of education at Kaye Academic College of Education in Beer Sheva, Israel. Her work focuses on educational innovations and creating collaborative relations. Her research aims at a deeper understanding of learning environments and their interrelations to professional development processes. She is involved mostly in collaborative self-study stemming from her lived experiences. Recent publications include “From the inside out: Learning to understand and appreciate multiple voices through telling identities” (2009), “‘Without stones there is no arch’: A study of professional development of teacher educators as a team” (2010), and “Conversations in a collaborative space: From stories to concepts to dimensions” (2010).

A critical function of leadership formation is the leader’s deepening sensitivity, reflexivity, and self-reflection on one’s own, and others, practice. A particular tool that has potential to support such endeavour is the eportfolio (EP) (currently referred to as a personal learning space). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper presents a personal report from a collaborative self-study which focused on the usefulness and potential of EPs as a tool for leadership formation that might: first, support learning enquiries, second, enable contemplative thinking and reflection, and third, coordinate personal representations of “who” we are.

Having engaged as academics in a collaborative quest to embrace the technology of EPs in the everyday professional lives, while also critiquing the influence and power of the tool, the authors present a personal position for the use of EPs in leadership programmes as well as some critical dimensions that appear to awaken and enable self-reflective practices.

As a tool which can enable leadership formation, EPs can evoke individual and collective voice within a generative and shared space.

A deficit view of teachers' daily practices and the message that teachers do not know how to teach diverse groups of students and need support is common. Excessive entitlement in teacher education is a topic that has been brought to the surface in somewhat a new way and from a new perspective. By using the term to conceptualize and uncover the sources of oppression, it is possible to understand educators' experiences in new ways. The purpose of this excessive entitlement research in the self-study-autoethnography-memory vein was to gain an understanding of teacher entitlement related to demands and pressures placed on teachers and teacher educators by different personnel as classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse.