Source: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 4 Issue 1, 2008, p. 77 –91.
This article explores how supervisors of teachers preparing dissertations can create a space for the imagination in the tutorial setting. The imagination is seen as “opening up to possibility,” where the student is taking a step into the unknown. The article discusses how the tutor can best support this, taking the theme of “holding the space for the student's learning.”
The author considers how the development of a methodological stance that draws on existential and phenomenological perspectives supports inquiry into this aspect of the tutor role. An example of a tutorial is used to discuss this methodological approach, and to highlight key dimensions of the tutor's imaginative capacity in holding this space.