Professionally Developing as a Teacher Educator

TLDR

Growing interest in teacher educators’ professional development reflects increasing scrutiny of the demands, expectations, and requirements of teacher education, highlighting the importance of how they develop knowledge, skills, and abilities. The article aims to outline key shaping factors in teacher educators’ professional development, such as the transition to the role, the nature of teacher education, and the need for research into teacher education practices. The authors propose a framework derived from a careful analysis of these features to better understand professional development for teacher educators. The framework highlights major aspects of teaching and learning about teaching that shape scholarship in teacher education and provides insights into interpreting teacher educators’ professional development.

Abstract

There is growing interest in the professional development of teacher educators as the demands, expectations, and requirements of teacher education increasingly come under scrutiny. The manner in which teacher educators learn to traverse their world of work in the development of their knowledge, skills, and ability is important. This article outlines some of the crucial shaping factors in that development, including the transition associated with becoming a teacher educator, the nature of teacher education itself, and the importance of researching teacher education practices. Through a careful analysis of these features, a framework for better understanding what it might mean to professionally develop as a teacher educator is proposed. The framework is designed to draw serious attention to the major aspects of teaching and learning about teaching that are central to shaping scholarship in teacher education and offer insights into the ways in which teacher educators’ professional development might be better understood and interpreted.