Self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) is a well-established methodology that helps scholars to describe, interpret, and analyse their pedagogies. Although there is not one set methodology used for self-study (Loughran, 2005), a defining characteristic of powerful self-studies is that teacher educators come to understand their own practice differently as a result of engaging in self-study. Although there is a growing body of literature documenting the transition from school teacher to PhD candidate to assistant professor who teaches teachers (e.g., Berry, 2007, Bullock & Christou, 2009, and Ritter 2009), the majority of teacher educators engaged with self-study are tenured academics who have significant experience teaching teacher candidates. Murray and Male (2005) noted how teacher education “demands new and different types of professional knowledge and understanding, including extended pedagogical skills, from those required of schoolteachers” (p. 136). Little is known, however, regarding the extent to which beginning teacher educators purposefully develop pedagogies of teacher education as they struggle to fulfill all of the other obligations associated with their new roles.

Pinnegar and Hamilton (2009) recently made a strong case that adopting an ontological stance toward self-study underscores the “moral commitment” of self-study research. As a new academic charged with the task of teaching future teachers, each one of whom has the potential to teach hundreds of children over a long career, I regard studying my pedagogy as a moral imperative.

Recent Publications:

Bullock, S. M. (2009). Learning to think like a teacher educator: Making the substantive and syntactic structures of teaching explicit through self-study. Teachers and teaching: Theory and practice, 15(2), 291–304.

Bullock, S. M. & Christou, T. (2009). Exploring the radical middle between theory and practice: A collaborative self-study of beginning teacher educators.Studying Teacher Education, 5(1), 75–88.

Bullock, S. M. (2009). Becoming a teacher educator: The self as a basis-for-knowing. In K. Pithouse, C. Mitchell, & L. Moletsane (Eds.), Making connections: Self-study and social change (pp. 269-283). New York: Peter Lang.