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Paper Title
Stepping in/Stepping Out: A Self-Study of Two
Teacher Educators' Conversations About Campus Teaching and
Practicum
Awneet Sivia, University of the Fraser Valley; Judy
Larsen, University of the Fraser Valley
Author(s)
Developing Teacher Education Practice Through
Collaborative Self-Study
Session Title
Roundtable Presentation
Session Type
4/15/2018
Presentation Date
New York, NY
Presentation Location
Teacher Education - Pre-Service, Teacher
Research in Learning Spaces, Teaching and Learning
Descriptors
Qualitative
Methodology
SIG-Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
Unit
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10.302/1306746
DOI
1
Stepping In/Stepping Out: A Self-Study of Two Teacher Educators’ Conversations about
Campus Teaching and Practicum
By
Awneet Sivia, PhD
Judy Larsen, MSc
University of the Fraser Valley
2
Abstract
Given the persistent issues of the “thirdspace” (Bhabha, 1994; Zeichner, 2010) between
university classes and practicum, two teacher educators engaged in a collaborative self-
study of their practices through the lens of preservice teachers’ conversations about
practicum. This paper details the NVivo sentiment analyses of conversations, emails, and
reflections between the two teacher educators that took place following a series of
informal ‘meet-ups’ with preservice teachers during their practicums. Sentiment analyses
revealed positive, negative, mixed and neutral tones in the data of emails, transcripts of
conversations and reflections. Results include assertions that self-study is by nature
provocative, requires commitment and is grounded in experience. ‘Stepping in/stepping
out’ is suggested as a heuristic for examining and improving practice within the
thirdspace.
Objectives
In the context of teacher education programs, the chasm between university coursework
and practicum experiences remains a persistent issue facing teacher educators (Akkerman
& Baker, 2011, Darling-Hammond, 2000; Zeichner, 2010). Despite volumes of research
on how teacher education practices and programmatic designs might address the
perceived divide, it is clear that competing cultures and differing expectations continue to
create challenges for preservice teachers to navigate their practicum teaching experiences
(Sivia & MacMath, 2015). Zeichner (2010) identifies this chasm as a “thirdspace” and
calls on research to deepen understanding of teacher educators’, preservice teachers’ and
practicing teachers’ knowledge of practice. The “two-worlds pitfall” (Feiman-Nemser &
Buchmann, 1985) is yet another way to characterize the difference in cultures between
the university and practicum settings and the impact this false dichotomy has on
preservice teachers’ ability to learn in both contexts. Issues related to the understanding
of what constitutes knowledge also factor in addressing the chasm. Shulman (1986)
asserts that pedagogical content knowledge, including knowledge about subject matter,
pedagogical approaches, and learning theories, is a unique amalgam of professional
knowledge that constitutes “signature pedagogies” (Shulman, 2005) in teacher
development. The very basis of learning to become a teacher is, in these terms, grounded
in specific conceptions of knowledge. Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008) further suggest
teachers require a specialized knowledge to develop teacher practice and Matthews
(1994) proposes teachers’ views of content or their “epistemologies” shape their
understanding of practice as teachers. With this range of conceptions about what
constitutes teacher knowledge and how best to design programs, it becomes increasingly
challenging for teacher educators to prepare preservice teachers for the “two worlds” they
will encounter. Given the call for conceptual clarity and more research within teacher
education (Zeichner, 2005), we aim to situate our inquiry within the thirdspace between
university and practicum in order to explore the question: What can be learned from
teacher educators’ inquiry into the relationships between on-campus coursework and
practicum teaching?
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As two teacher educators in a small, regional university who teach methods courses to
prospective math and science teachers, we explored this question as co-researchers
utilizing “a personal-constructivist-collaborative approach” (Beck, Freese & Kosnik,
2004, p. 1256) in the self-study of our practices. The context involved us hosting a series
of meet-ups with five preservice teachers during their initial and final practicum
semesters to create a space for analyzing and unpacking their teaching experiences. Over
the span of four of these meet-ups, the discussions focused on preservice teachers’
practices and their experiences of navigating between practicum expectations and what
they had learned in methods courses with us as their instructors. Following each of these
sessions, we engaged in conversations and exchanged emails with each other, developing
collaborative and individual reflections prompted by the discussions with preservice
teachers at the meet-ups. By attending to Pinnegar and Hamilton’s (2009) ontological
stance, we aimed to develop greater understanding of our practices as teacher educators
by interrogating and reflecting on the conversations taking place with preservice teachers,
with the overarching aim in this study to improve our own practice as mentors and
methods course instructors.
We present the outcomes of our study as “assertions for action and understanding”
(Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) and draw on Berry’s (2007) framework. The results are
presented in the following sections: reflecting on self-study research (thinking back on
process), the nature of self-study research (describing our research process), pedagogical
orientations (knowledge of our practice as teacher educators), and a conceptual
framework (understanding practice). In final sections, we discuss assertions for action
regarding self-study research, pedagogical practices, and offer a conceptual model for
illuminating our experiences of learning from practice.
Theoretical Frameworks
Our paper draws on two related yet distinct theoretical foundations: Self-study research
and “thirdspace” (Bhabha, 1994). Self-study research is “a methodology for studying
professional practice settings and identifying their most salient characteristics as self-
initiated and focused, improvement-aimed, [and] interactive…[using] multiple, mainly
qualitative, methods with a validation process based in trustworthiness” (LaBoskey,
2004, p. 817). As a theoretical foundation, self-study of teacher education practices (S-
STEP) includes three pillars that guide our inquiry: The “authority of experience”, “the
‘so what’ question”, and “the study turns back on itself” (Pinnegar, Hamilton &
Fitzgerald, 2010). Munby & Russell (1994) suggest that S-STEP research is grounded in
experience as a way to diminish the impact of authority of reason and authority of
position on how we come to understand practice. By grounding this study in our lived
experiences of teaching and meeting with preservice teachers to discuss practicum
experiences, our authority is informed by authentic and first-hand encounters we have as
researchers – we trust our experiences of teaching, mentoring, and participating in meet-
ups to be informative as we engage in this inquiry. The resulting learning and assertions
made as outcomes of this study address the second pillar, the ‘so what’ question. The
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meet-ups create opportunities to illuminate new understandings about our practices as
teacher educators, exposing the patterns of mentoring that play out over a series of
practicums and, in turn, highlighting our roles as instructors of methods courses. Finally,
as our understanding grows, we alter the practice that we study as a way of turning the
study back on itself. By reflecting on initial data and identifying avenues to deepen our
inquiry, we refine our process as the study continues: we include a second tier of analysis
and alter aspects of our mentorship and instruction as teacher educators.
Additionally, we draw on Bhabha’s (1994) concept of thirdspace in order to extend
Zeichner’s (2010) conceptualization of the chasm between university and practicum.
While expectations in terms of performance, assessments, and aims differ, cultural
differences between the two contexts exist as well. These cultural differences call on us
as researchers to consider how preservice teachers and university instructors navigate
across, between and within the cultural dissonance brought on by the two worlds of
practicum and university. To extend this notion, we turn to Bhabha’s (1994) definition of
thirdspace: a unique construct existing in the meeting of boundaries of cultures where the
“liminal in-between-ness” puts into question established identities and entities. Roles,
responsibilities, knowledge, practice, and aims become entangled in this contested terrain
and, as researchers and teacher educators, we are drawn to question foundations of
teacher learning and development. As a result, new understandings about practicum
teaching are interrogated, negotiated, and deconstructed to expose assumptions and prior
conceptions about what it means to be a teacher. In the midst of this exploration of
identity, knowledge and practice taking place when preservice teachers reflect on
practicum experiences, we simultaneously experience a thirdspace of theorizing and
meaning-making alongside the preservice teachers. Our roles and responsibilities, our
expectations and assumptions, and our practices are also illuminated by entering into the
thirdspace with our students. Thus, as researchers, we suggest that these two theoretical
lenses, self-study and thirdspace, allow us to re-identify and propose new entities or
concepts regarding our practice in the context of practicum experiences.
Methods and Data
As teacher educators, we engaged in conversations, exchanged emails and wrote personal
reflections in relation to the central question: What can be learned from reflecting on
practicum discussions and what understandings and assertions about practice can be
“made public” (Laboskey, 2004) from this exploration? The data, prompted by our
experiences of participating in meet-ups with preservice teachers during their practicums
(at various locations including coffee shops and campus classrooms), developed in two
phases: the first phase was during the preservice teachers’ initial practicum semester (two
meet-ups) and the second phase was during their final practicum semester (an additional
two meet-ups). Our reflections stemming from these meet-ups were documented as a
series of email entries and voice-recorded conversations. Although there were only four
meet-ups, the total sum of artefacts of this self-study included a lengthy email thread (of
approximately six entries) over a period of two semesters, several personal reflections
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made by each of us, and three sets of voice-recorded, post meet-up conversations of
which one was transcribed. As artefacts that represented our lived experiences as teacher
educators, they also served to alter our practice as researchers. Each artefact prompted
and influenced the next – the study “turned back on itself” – and we delved deeper into
the issues at each subsequent meet-up. These emails, reflections, and transcriptions form
the dataset for our study.
During the first phase, while the preservice teachers were placed in their initial practicum
and completing coursework on campus, our reflections were recorded primarily via
email. At the end of this phase, we compiled all six of the email entries and used NVivo
to run a sentiment analysis on our writing. NVivo analysis identifies sentences that have
positive, negative, neutral, and mixed sentiment within the text by coding and clustering
sentences based on word usage and tone. For example, the word ‘safe’ scores moderately
positive. If ‘caring’ is found in the same sentence cluster, then the rating moves to
extremely positive. The mixed sentiment code means that both negative and positive
words are being expressed in the sentence cluster, such as ‘struggle’ and ‘success’.
Phrases coded as having a neutral sentiment are not assigned a score as the language is
less invested or emotionally charged in comparison to the language that is picked up by
the other codes. We chose NVivo sentiment analysis initially out of sheer curiosity about
the tone of our conversations, but realized it was critical in mapping the shifts in our
practices over the course of this study. While we acknowledged limitations to this kind of
analysis of written and spoken language (such as cultural and linguistic diversities),
NVivo sentiment analysis did serve one key function: it provided us with another vantage
on our data beyond thematic analysis. We were able clarify, with greater confidence, how
our language changed in tandem with the shifts in our practices. The results of the
sentiment analysis served as a new artefact in our study and prompted us to look back at
our writing and our conversations through the lens of positive, negative, mixed and
neutral sentiments. As we reflected on this data through these lenses, we identified key
themes within each sentiment category.
The second phase of the study included two more meet-ups while the preservice teachers
were completing their final practicum semester. We recorded notes and generated
personal reflections during these two sessions. Following the first of these two meet-ups,
we engaged in a conversation as co-researchers about our notes, reflections, and insights
from what we had heard and witnessed. We voice-recorded this and transcribed it for
NVivo sentiment analysis. This produced a similar corpus of results as in the first phase,
prompting us to identify themes associated with each sentiment during the second phase
of the inquiry.
Towards the final stages of this study, we engaged in and recorded our conversations
about the two sets of data generated by NVivo sentiment analyses: from emails,
conversations and reflections in the first phase and from one transcript, voice-recorded
conversations, and personal reflections from the second phase. This method of creating a
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two-tiered analysis allowed us to reflect on our progression and growth as teacher
educators and highlighted particular trends in our perspectives on practicum.
Results: Assertions for Action and Understanding
We developed several assertions and understandings about our practices as teacher
educators and about our practices within the “thirdspace” between the university and the
practicum. The data sets provided multiple entry points to examining practice, practicum
experiences, teacher development and our own growth and transformation as teacher
educators. We chose to present the results of our collaborative self-study using Berry’s
(2007) framework as an organizing structure.
Reflecting on our self-study research process
Following analyses from both phases of the study, we found the process of examining
data to be provocative, thus strengthening our engagement in the self-study of our
practices. Whether we were meeting with preservice teachers, writing about our insights,
listening and conversing with each other, or reading our sentiment analyses, the data
provoked us in ways that teaching methods courses to preservice teachers simply did not
– we experienced more dissonance in our thinking about what constituted best practice
and what impacted preservice teachers’ ability to apply their learning in practicum
settings. Our process also included feelings of excitement and anticipation as we looked
forward to participating in meet-ups and responding to each other’s emails. The
transcripts provoked our thinking in follow up conversations as we continued to discuss
aspects beyond those that emerged from the sentiment analyses.
As a consistent feature in our process, we were committed to learning with/from each
other as self-study co-researchers and to the shared vision of studying our practice,
improving our teaching, and enhancing student experience. We came to understand that
self-study research required this level of commitment in order to drive the inquiry and to
move forward with our learning.
The nature of self-study research
Mentoring emerged as a way to conceptualize self-study research. While we researched
our practice through self-reflection and analysis of each other’s descriptions and
explanations of our work, we also mentored each other to extend our thinking by a)
posing questions; b) asking for clarification; and c) naming concepts and ideas that came
from our exchanges. We came to view the nature of our self-study research experience as
a process of mentoring for both personal and collegial growth and development.
The self-study of our practices through the methods described was, by nature, grounded
in experience. We drew on our range of experiences of teaching methods courses,
mentoring preservice teachers and on our scholarship in the field of teacher education,
recognizing we held authority in speaking of our own practices. We placed value in
trusting our experiences to be ‘theory-laden’ and thus worthy of this kind of in-depth
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study. The process of grounding our study in experiences also allowed us to turn the
study ‘back on itself’ to alter our practices as teacher educators and researchers from the
first phase to the second phase of data collection. Most prominently, we incorporated
increased opportunities for preservice teachers to reflect on dissonant and provocative
experiences from their practicums and encouraged risk-taking in the form of micro-
teaching lessons in methods courses as a result of our first set of conversations in phase
one.
Knowledge of practice: Negative, neutral, mixed and positive sentiments
In envisioning future practices, we considered ways in which this self-study transformed
our teaching and our understanding of practice in preparing preservice teachers for
practicum. Our knowledge of practice emerged from the sentiment analysis of artefacts.
By comparing data from the first phase to the second phase, and reviewing the text within
each of the four categories of sentiments, we identified several themes emerging from the
data (See Table 1). Negative sentiments included what we termed as preservice teachers’
vulnerability and identity discordance in the first phase and planning in a vacuum in the
second phase. We named these themes based on what we perceived as the tensions and
concerns raised at each of the meet-ups. For example, identity discordance was named for
the challenges preservice teachers experienced of being seen as a ‘teacher’ by the
students in their classes yet being treated as ‘students’ in university methods courses.
Mixed sentiments, in the first phase, included boundary crossing and teaching against the
grain because of the positive and negative connotations associated with both of these
ideas. For example, teaching against the grain represented the impetus to innovate
practices while struggling to change existing practices in schools. In the second phase
empowerment and problematizing practice emerged as preservice teachers gained
confidence and became increasingly articulate about their teaching. These themes
reflected a growing sense of agency expressed by preservice teachers at the second set of
meet-ups. Positive sentiments in the first phase included observations of practice,
perseverance, and community and in the second phase vision and identity as the
preservice teachers developed clarity in speaking of their rationales and beliefs about
teaching. Finally, neutral sentiments included inquiry oriented/tentative and self-focused
and, in the second phase, teaching philosophies, theorizing practice and big picture
vision. Here, we began to alter how we articulated our roles and responsibilities as teacher
educators over the two phases of the study – we shifted from using prompting questions
and focussing on individual growth of preservice teachers to contemplating and
generating conceptual ideas about teacher development. Combined, these coded results
highlighted the broad range of topics and ideas that reflected the experiences of
preservice teachers as they navigated the thirdspace; however, equally significant was
that these themes reflected the progression of understanding of our practices as well.
In terms of our roles as teacher educators, we became more aware of the complexity of
the thirdspace and confronted our assumptions that preservice teachers would have a
relatively ‘smooth’ transfer of what they learned in our courses and what they were able
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to apply in practicum. We realized that our roles needed to change over the course of the
two practicum semesters in several ways. In the meet-ups, our roles moved from an
empathetic stance of acknowledging the impact of the challenges our preservice teachers
encountered to a more neutral stance of theorizing about the experiences we were privy to
through the meet-up discussions. Another change was in our personal sense of confidence
and identity as teacher educators. As we gained clarity about the issues salient to the
thirdspace between practicum and university, our practice as mentors grew to be more
responsive and our instruction in methods courses incorporated activities to address the
tensions that preservice teachers’ experienced. Overall, these shifts contributed to a sense
of empowerment in terms of our practices and identities as teacher educators.
Interestingly, all sentiments remained proportionately similar except for the neutral
category, which significantly increased from 22% to 72%. While the similar values
indicated little change in our stance as teacher educators – as one of supporting preservice
teachers’ meaning making, affirming their tensions, and offering guidance to them when
questions were raised, the increased value in the neutral tone category indicated a
significant shift in our stance. We identified this shift as ‘stepping in’ to ‘stepping out’ in
our roles as teacher educators from being emotionally provoked by our preservice
teachers’ experiences to meaning-making and theorizing practice. In the first phase, we
were drawn into the tensions the preservice teachers faced, emotionally invested in
helping them solve the dissonance they were encountering in terms of the difference
between what they learned on campus and what they were observing and being expected
to demonstrate in practicum classrooms. As we listened intently to preservice teachers’
experiences, we found ourselves ‘stepping in’ to provide comfort and support but also to
provide specific solutions and guidance to issues that were raised. In phase two of the
study, as indicated by the shift to a significantly more neutral tone, we ‘stepped out’ of
the intense and granular nature of the discussions to a stance of theorizing and ‘coming to
terms with’ the process of learning to teach in practicum. We recognized that the shift
from stepping in to stepping out resulted in transformations and growth in our practices
as teacher educators.
Framework for understanding and research
To understand our practices as teacher educators, we consider the framework of stepping
in/stepping out as a heuristic through which we attend to our preservice teachers in the
thirdspace between the university and practicum. We learned that we needed to step in
and step out in order to analyse practice– the shift in our sentiments as the self-study
progressed to more neutral tones in our conversations indicated a transformation in our
roles from “supporting and mentoring” to “theorizing and contemplating” aspects of
teacher practice. Further, in transforming our roles as teacher educators, we developed a
deeper understanding of the purpose of these meet-ups as one that served to create a
space for interrogating practice where preservice teachers could develop their own
understandings as future teachers. The thirdspace, as a contested and negotiated space of
practice became a rich site to theorize with our preservice teachers and inspire us as co-
9
researchers to generate meaning and construct and transform practices as a result of our
research. As a heuristic for understanding practice as teacher educators, we consider the
process of stepping in/stepping out for us and other teacher educators and propose several
points for consideration: a) stepping in/stepping out requires us to shift and traverse
boundaries. This is implicit in moving from a focus on personal stories and emotions of
our preservice teachers to a more distanced and broad space of theorizing about practice;
b) stepping in/stepping out becomes a lens for us to help preservice teachers develop a
vision for teaching – by modelling how to extrapolate a coherent vision from the granular
day to day of tensions and problems of practice. While stepping in/stepping out describes
our learning process in this self-study, it is potentially useful as a heuristic for preservice
teachers to learn from their practices.
Implications
As a heuristic, stepping in/stepping out offers a way to maximize the potential of the
thirdspace to be a rich site of learning by provoking us as co-researchers to theorize
practice and calling on teacher educators to attend to the relationships between teaching
at the university and the experiences of preservice teachers in practicum. Thus, we invite
teacher educators to consider this heuristic in their own theorizing about practice and
pose several questions for further investigation: How can methods courses and
instructional practices support learning in the thirdspace? What specific practices can be
incorporated to prepare preservice teachers to navigate the shifting demands? How might
the notion of stepping in/stepping out inform how preservice teachers learn from their
practices in practicum?
Table 1
Sentiments
Themes Phase One
Themes Phase Two
Negative
7% of first phase
4% of second phase
Vulnerability
Identity discordance
Supports around beliefs
Planning in a vacuum
School experiences don’t feel
right
Mixed
11% of first phase
7% of second phase
Boundary Crossing
Teaching Against the Grain
Empowerment
Problematizing practice
Positive
19% of first phase
17% of second phase
Observations of practice
Perseverance
Community
Vision
Identity
Neutral
22% of first phase
72% of second phase
Inquiry oriented/tentative
Self-focused
Teaching philosophies
Theorizing practice
Big picture visions
References:
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