Being a Teacher Educator
Research-Informed Methods for Improving Practice

This collection offers a timely and wide-ranging contribution to the research-informed improvement of the work of teacher educators. Drawing on original research studies conducted across a range of European countries, Canada, and Israel, contributors offer insight into not only questions of curriculum and programme development, research, and professional development, but also their day-to-day experience as teacher educators, student teachers, and mentors in schools.

Themes explored include teaching and working with students, teacher educators as researchers, the partnership work of teacher educators, the professional development needs of teacher educators, professional development approaches for improving teacher education, and teacher educator empowerment.

Arising from the international community of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE), and drawing together theory and practice, this book offers a unique survey of the contributions of teacher educators and charts a path for future directions of the field.

Preface 1. Introduction 2. Being a Reflective Teacher Educator: Professionalism or Pipe-dream? 3. Understanding the Reflective Process through Self-study: a Teacher Educator’s Journey towards Continuous Professional Development. 4. Developing as Teacher Educators: Lessons Learned from Student Voices during Practice and Research. 5. Teacher Educator Collaboration and a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Practice Architectures, Professional Learning, Praxis and Production. 6. ‘Are We Doing the Right Thing?’ Challenges Teacher Educators Face When Taking the Risk of Opening Up Possibilities for Student Teachers 7. Old Learning, New Learning: Teacher Educators as Enquiring Professionals 8. A Professional Social Network as a Platform for Teacher Educators’ Professional Development 9. International Semi-collaborative Research Initiative: a Critical Reflection of the Research Process 10. Learning from Stories about the Practice of Teacher Educators in Partnerships between Schools and Higher Education Institutions 11. Teacher Educator as Researcher: Striving towards a greater visibility for Teacher Education 12. Brave Research as a Means to Transform Teacher Education 13. Epilogue: What We Have Learned and Next Steps in Developing the Profession of Teacher Educators

Anja Swennen has retired from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where she was a teacher educator and researcher. She is currently co-editor of the European Journal of Teacher Education.

Elizabeth White is Principal Lecturer at the Centre for Research in Professional and Work-Related Learning, University of Hertfordshire, UK.