Examining Beliefs and Practices of Self and Others: Pivotal points for change and growth for mathematics teacher educators

Learning to teach mathematics specialists in a synchronous online course: a self-study

“…Self-study draws on a variety of data sources and analysis methods in order to support investigation into the role of self in the context of practice. A significant part of self-study is the role of critical friends to support the design of the study and provide data analysis support and feedback (Lovin et al 2012;Lunenberg and Samaras 2011;Samaras 2011). Such critical friends provide an external perspective on the study of self and help shape and triangulate data analysis realistically.…”

“…It is situated within larger calls for scholarly, reflective practices as teacher educators (Grossman et al 2009). Other mathematics educators have used self-study to examine their own work as teacher educators as they examine their teaching practice and their own beliefs and assumptions (e.g., Brandenburg 2008;Goodell 2006;Lovin et al 2012). The work in mathematics education has primarily been completed with prospective teacher courses in face-to-face settings (e.g., Brandenburg 2008;Goodell 2006).…”

“…Therefore, while the research is a study of self within the context of teaching, the research is situated in a collaborative context of feedback from critical friends. In some examples of self-study projects, the instructors are teaching a common type of class such as a mathematics teaching methods course (Anderson et al 2011;Lovin et al 2012) or using a common tool such as an online social media tool for teachers (Nicholson et al 2014). In my case, my critical friends and I had a common context, online teaching in teacher education programs.…”

“…Selfstudy requires the instructor to examine and document their practice in order to analyze and understand their role in the teaching environment Samaras 2011). Self-study focuses on examining and making explicit beliefs and assumptions the instructor may have (Brandenburg 2008;Lovin et al 2012) in order to generate new knowledge that is sharable with the community. In this sense, self-study is motivated by personal interests and motivations as a teacher that are complemented by and contribute to theory and research.…”

Enriching Teaching Through Artefacts: An Early Childhood Mathematics Teacher Educator's Self-Study Project

“…The self-study research approach was appropriate because my goal was to improve my practices in preparing preservice teachers for early mathematics teaching using an ILA. Lovin et al (2012) encouraged the self-study approach because it assists researchers in constructing new practice-oriented knowledge and understanding through various methods that "capture the essence of the question being studied" (Samaras, 2011, p. 284). To respond to my research question, I adopted an arts-based self-study method that involved the use of cultural artefacts.…”