The Shared Reflective Practice of Co-Planning an Undergraduate Education Course between Online and Face-To-Face Teacher Educators

Abstract

The current paper presents a reflective account of two teacher educators, from different instructional modalities, co-planning an undergraduate face-to-face education course. Wenger’s writing around communities of practice provided the theoretical underpinning for the reflections put forward and contextual information regarding how the co-planning transpired. From a critical standpoint, observations and reflections related to the communication, challenges (and successes), and pedagogical decision-making between education colleagues are considered. Three central challenges are explored through the reflective lens: length of course between modalities, norming and autonomy, and scheduling between teacher educators to co-plan throughout the academic face-to-face semester. The qualitative nature of the study provides thick and rich detail pertaining to the shared reflections of the two teacher educators. The paper concludes with recommendations surrounding the continued exploration of how the instructional modality plays part in the co-planning process. Keywords: Teacher educators, modalities, higher education, co-planning, reflective practice