Source: Studying Teacher Education, Volume 6, Issue 3, November 2010, pages 221 – 226.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
Many self-studies are derived from the issues, problems and concerns that emerge out of a teacher educator's practice. These self-studies are accounts of a teacher educator's search for meaning in teaching about teaching. This search is commonly driven by a teacher educator's desire to know if he/she is making a difference in students' learning.
The author argues that what makes these self-studies so powerful is the knowledge about practice that is derived from the study itself. This article sets out to question a common feature of self-study by exploring why stories are so prominent.
The author claims that a good story can carry important messages and information about teaching, so that other teachers might be able to implement a similar approach in their own classrooms. However, the knowledge that matters then is the knowledge of how to do the teaching much more than the knowledge of why that approach to teaching matters.
Therefore, telling stories is helpful for sharing practice, but in terms of academe and the development of knowledge, the author would suggest that stories alone are not enough.
The author concludes that the stories of these teacher educators' work are helpful, and readily identifiable by others, as ways of doing teaching teaching. However, it is the learning derived from their researching of their practice that leads to the production of new knowledge of teacher education practices.