Search results

This chapter examines the professional background, trajectories, and learning of a broad group of teacher educators involved in initial teacher education. The work specifically identifies those who shape the practice of teaching. The authors who are members of the International Forum on Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED) were key to the creation of InFo-TED, NA (North America), which has used Zoom technology to launch and spread its efforts. Its central purpose is to spur teacher educators and policymakers to embrace new ways to educate all children.

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.

In this chapter, we outline an approach to structuring a collaborative self-study that supports the sharing of individual experiences in a way that enables collective analysis and personal reflection. We share examples of how this approach enabled eight Brazilian teacher-researchers to work collectively to investigate their own social justice pedagogies. To do so, we used a four-phase process. First, each coauthor identified and wrote about a critical incident from their teaching that they shared electronically. In the second phase, We used email to comment on each other’s written pieces. Email exchanges scaffolded reflection. In the third phase, each person analyzed the comments and presented them back to everyone at a group meeting. Finally, through discussion, the group identified the recurring themes that permeated the different critical situations. The chapter provides a methodological overview based on our empirical work about teaching themes which are entangled with socially just PETE (Physical Education Teacher Education). We have found that being a teacher-researcher has some commonalities related to criticality whether one is teaching in K-12 schools or higher education.

This chapter is contributed by InFo-TED, the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development. This newly established community brings together people from across the world to exchange research, policy, and practice related to teacher educators' professional learning and development. We define teacher educators broadly as those who are professionally involved and engaged in the initial and ongoing education of teachers. Our contention is that while there is general agreement about the important role played by teacher educators, their professional education is understudied and undersupported. Here, we elaborate the rationale for this initiative, delineate our conceptual framework, and provide examples of steps taken in Belgium, Ireland, and Norway to develop the professional identities and knowledge bases of those who educate and support teachers, and conclude with implications for a scholarly study agenda having to do with research, policy, and practice relating to teacher educators' professional development.

Teachers are generally interested in practical ideas for their classroom without being inclined to reflect on the theory behind them. Teacher aversion to theory has been a constant source of frustration for teacher educators who conduct in-service programs in the Indian context. Teachers' disinclination to think theoretically and recognize the need to change to create more equitable educational ecologies in a rapidly evolving multicultural world can easily be taken to signify an “excessive entitled attitude,” a personality deficiency. An investigation into understanding the source of what seemed to be “excessive teacher entitled attitude” led me to become self-reflexive about my own journey as a teacher. This chapter, which unravels my reflective journey as a teacher, uses narrative inquiry to make sense of my “stories of experience”. It is an intersubjective process intertwining teacher narratives with my personal narrative. Self-reflectivity facilitates the liberation from “excessive entitled attitude” by shining a light on it and paving the way for learning and the development of new attitudes toward the self, the other and the world. The findings show the complex recursive path negotiated by me in becoming aware of the way my “excessive entitled attitude” in my position of authority as a teacher blocked my connection to my students. It also shows the place of theoretical thinking in my transformation into a more thoughtful teacher agentively creating inclusive learning spaces for all students. The story of my transformation and the attendant change in my attitude toward myself and others helps others – teachers/educators/readers – retell their stories “with added possibilities.”