Self-Study

This article points to characterize what self-study inquire about is, why self-study can be a great approach to educator educators' proficient advancement and improvements in practice and highlight a few challenges and opportunities in this investigate approach. In expansion, the article will shed light on a few methodological angles related to selfstudy. Self-study alludes to educator teachers who in an intentioned and efficiently way look at their practice to move forward it, based on a more profound understanding of practice, as well as the setting practice takes put. Within the article, I contend that 10 10zzz engaging in self-study may be a learning and improvement handle and an approach to creating individual polished skill, collective polished skill and changes in practice.

Professional practice evolves as individuals reflect and theorise about their experiences, and consider their practice in new ways. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how self-study can be used as an approach to interrogate the professional practice of a university advisor as they coach undergraduate students to develop meaningful resumes and job applications. Not only are the artefacts reconsidered but there is also a concurrent shift in identity and vocational persona. This paper uses the qualitative method of self-study where a practitioner provides vignettes and reflective writing to describe moments of transformative learning. These two sources of data were then evaluated using LaBoskey’s five characteristics of self-study. This research highlights how self-study supports a praxis and change in professional prac- tice. The university advisor and undergraduate students when given the opportunity to consider their practices by looking to their motivations and assumptions it is possible to precipitate transformative learning. Self-study is an approach to an epistemology of practice that is rarely used outside the education field. However, it is an approach that has significant potential for investigating the practices in arrange of professional contexts where a praxial interrogation of the work is valued.

The professional development of English teachers is a significant area in language teaching and learning, as well as in teacher education. On the one hand, at least in theory, professional development initiatives respond to the teachers’ changing needs. On the other hand, it reflects the beliefs that different educational authorities and stakeholders have about English uses and education. In this self-study, I consider the professional development of English teachers in Colombia and its tight connection to the language education policies of the country. Following a chronological approach, I present the findings as landmarks that have contributed to my reflections and research around professional development and language education policies.  Discussing the findings, I show how the discourses and decisions about teachers’ continuing learning represent certain views of language, second language acquisition, English language teaching and learning, and teachers as professionals. This self-study addresses some of the concepts that illuminate the discourses that have shaped English teachers’ professional development. Focusing primarily on the development of the National Program of Bilingualism, I underscore the power of these concepts over the major decisions made at the local and school levels. In the analysis of the past and present of teachers’ professional development in Colombia, I conclude on the necessity of maintaining critical scholarly work to contribute to the construction of local knowledge for future reflection.

This self-study examines our use of video with a cohort of preservice teachers as a means to address the challenges we face as teacher educators who are working with  candidates in extensive clinical practice. We came to video as a nuanced way to discuss and make meaning of “complex practice” and the process of bridging theory and practice. Our work with video is informed by the complex practice framework of Grossman, Compton, Igra, Ronfeldt, Shahan, and Williamson (2009). We found that our use of  video supported preservice teachers and their mentors in engaging in decomposing, representing, and approximating practice. We also found that, as suggested by the literature, the use of video distanced preservice teachers from their experiences in practice and helped us to bridge the theory-practice divide. Finally, we discuss the implications for using video to support the work of rich clinical teacher education.

This narrative self-study focuses on my experience as a sixth-grade teacher in Quebec, Canada making the pedagogical shift to student-centered assessment. Student-centered assessment is defined as one that decentralizes teacher authority, increases transparency of evaluations, and increases assessment dialogue. Some elements of student-centered assessment are in line with the Quebec Education Plan while others are more diametrically situated. Through a “bricolage” approach to narrative inquiry, I analyzed how the role of the teacher in terms of curriculum and assessment is impacted by political, cultural, and philosophical realities that impact the teaching context. My identity as a teacher, and particularly my ideas on teacher authority, informed my responses to dilemmas during the shift and my approach to introducing student-centered assessment to students at the sixth-grade level.

Mobile learning (m-learning) is increasingly adopted in Higher Education (HE) given that almost all undergraduates own mobile devices with Wi-Fi and fast Internet connections. In HE, undergraduates are required to spend a significant proportion of time on self-study as well as use effective learning strategies during self-study to achieve academic success. Therefore, the use of mobile applications opens a wealth of opportunities for undergraduates to learn by giving them continuous access to learning materials as well as enabling them to study at their own pace. However, undergraduates' use of mobile applications may be influenced by the applications' usability. The current study examines the usability of a mobile app developed to support learning in HE to shed light on undergraduates' experience using a mobile learning application in HE context for self-study and study support. While the results reveal a good level of acceptance in terms of learnability, efficiency, and satisfaction, further findings indicate that the app needs slight improvements in terms of memorability and errors. There are two key outcomes of this study, as a study support tool, the results show that undergraduates may rely on such apps for practicing and testing knowledge rather than using the app as a tool for studying. As a usability study, we did not only examine the memorability, efficiency, user satisfaction, and learnability, but also assisted ourselves in obtaining plentiful suggestions for further improvements of the app based on student experiences.

In this chapter we contribute to the conceptualization of self by engaging in a self-study of teacher education practices in which we distilled our perspectives on incorporating mindfulness in teacher education. Mindfulness is currently incorporated in teacher learning and education mostly toward stress-reduction and well-being, yet its ancestries stress its role as a path toward self-knowledge. Working in teacher education departments set in Israel on the one hand, and Canada on the other, we describe the place of the practice in our personal lives and articulate how we view its contribution to teacher education. Specifically, we focus on how 'self' features in our endeavors, by examining 'who it is' in the teacher that we seek to evoke/invoke by the application of mindfulness? We engaged in dialogue and reflective writing, in which each of us served as the other's critical friend in an attempt to clarify our different views. Oren emerges with a view of mindfulness as invoking 'self as moment-to-moment experience' and the 'teleological self', both crucial for teachers. They mobilize us away from socio-political identities toward human-to-human relationships and re-ground teachers in the values they view as core to their call to teach. Conversely, Karen stresses the practice as a primer for situating the self in the socio-political. It enables deeper engagement in critical pedagogy, invoking teachers' 'fluid self' situated in open-mindedness. Here mindfulness becomes a practice of social-justice that allows us to acknowledge marginalized voices. Highlighting these different approaches we contribute to the understanding of the role of mindfulness in teacher education. In particular, we extend the practice's main positioning within teacher well-being to its role within the discourse of teacher identity.

El presente estudio busca dar a conocer el patrimonio industrial que ha sido puesto en valor turístico en la provincia de Imbabura – Ecuador. Este patrimonio está constituido por el Tren de la Libertad, la Fábrica Textil Imbabura y el Ingenio azucarero San José que en el pasado cumplían una función industrial y hoy en día
son usados como recursos turísticos. El tema es relativamente nuevo en el Ecuador debido a que no se conoce a este país como “industrializado” por lo que podría resultar interesante para los amantes del patrimonio industrial exótico. Dentro de las
conclusiones se mencionan las conexiones pre-industriales de los patrimonios antes mencionados y la aceptación que en los últimos años está teniendo el turismo industrial en la zona norte.

The compulsory school act in Iceland states that schools should be inclusive. This entails that schools need to provide every pupil with quality education according to their needs and ability, and to remove barriers to participation in learning and social situations to enable pupils and their parents to belong in the school community. Given the fact that the policy calls for significant restructuring of school organisation, it is important to consider how and whether the organisation of special needs education and support operates according to the ideology of inclusive education.
The research focuses on how I, a coordinator for support services in a compulsory school in Iceland, worked on developing the organisation of support towards inclusive practice. Inclusive practice is grounded in the ideologies of social justice, democracy, human rights and full participation of all. In using the term inclusive practice, I seek to demonstrate that there are many factors that have an impact on the process of inclusion in a school setting and to emphasise the fact that inclusion is a process that can never be completed. The research is framed by the concepts of collaboration between classroom teachers and support services, leadership for inclusion and reflective practice, as these concepts have been considered crucial for re-conceptualising education practice to become inclusive.
Self-study methodology was employed in the research to allow for understanding of my role in transforming practice and how that transpired. The purpose has been to transform the support service in Waterfront School so that it reinforces inclusive practice and to understand my role in improving leadership and collaboration for inclusion.
This is a study in and of my practice that was divided into three distinct phases: reconnaissance phase, enactment phase and reflective phase. In the reconnaissance phase I interviewed administrators, teachers and support staff working at the school in order to achieve insight into how the people I work with understand inclusion and into their views on the support system and collaboration. Analysis of this phase illustrates the voices of staff working with pupils in the school by highlighting their perception of inclusion and their ideas about how the support system could be improved. Based on this analysis I created an action plan that I implemented in the next cycle of the research, the enactment phase.
In the enactment phase the organisation of the support service was transformed according to analysis of the data from the reconnaissance phase and the process was recorded in a self-reflective research journal. Furthermore, the viewpoints of parents, pupils and learning support assistants were gathered on inclusive practices in the school and how that could be improved from their standpoint. The analysis of this phase gives an insight into how the coordination of the support system was developed, what the main challenges were, and how collaboration between general educators and the support staff in the school was transformed.
In the reflective phase, I reflected on my learning of the practitioner research, alone and with others, as I analysed the data and gained understanding of my development in thinking and practice. Through reflection and with the assistance of critical friends I transformed the findings into a story that others might relate to and perhaps learn from.
Findings from this study cast a light on the factors constraining or facilitating the restructuring of the support service as inclusive practice in a school. The findings show that even though I was committed to improving the practices of support, there were influences and barriers to those improvements that made the whole process complex. Breaking away from the discourses of disability, charity and pathology that dictate the practice of support, thereby changing my own and others mind set, proved to be the greatest challenge.
My contribution to knowledge is the provision of a first-hand account of a middle manager endeavouring to change practice towards inclusion. Furthermore, I used the understanding gained from the research to form a model of an inclusive education system, which can be employed to inform school change across system levels, to explore inclusive practices, and to support teacher education and professional development.
Through the research process I have gained an understanding that creating an inclusive support system is a complex venture. It is bigger than improving collaboration and leadership of the coordinator for support. I have learned that the position of a coordinator for support needs to be re-conceptualised. While the teachers are responsible for meeting the daily needs of their pupils, the coordinator for support services has a role to provide the support and advice required to assist each teacher in fulfilling their statutory duties.

This self-study presents an analysis of our recent efforts to teach teacher educators, our
colleagues, how to support their pre-service students in reflective practice. This initiative originated
in conceptual changes about teaching practice at our faculty. The main results of this change were
an increase in the number of hours of teaching practice and the introduction of seminars designed
to help students reflect on their practice. The aim of this self-study is to identify and interpret what
we learned from our experience with the education of teacher educators

Like many teacher educators supervising teaching practice, we have spent countless hours in post-observation conferences (POCs) attempting to facilitate teacher candidates’ self-reflection, guided by the firm belief that through the non-judgmental feedback of an experienced observer (Fanselow, 1987, 1988), teachers will grow in their capacity to assess their own practice. However, due to the private nature of POCs, we lacked peer feedback on our effectiveness during these sessions and were often frustrated by a sense of insufficiently fostering self-reflection in our teacher candidates. In order to address this, we examined Bede’s supervisory conferences with two experienced and two inexperienced teacher candidates seeking their Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL). This paper shares how we first analyzed these POCs, then examined our findings using an interactive journal, as tools to better understand how our post-observation conferencing might support or impede teacher candidate self-reflection. Two questions this paper sets out to explore are “What specific linguistic moves in Bede’s post-observation conferencing seemed to promote or inhibit self-reflection on the part of teacher candidates?” and “How did our journal exchange about this data serve to deepen our understanding of our supervisory role as teacher educators?”

Learning essentially relies on the style of technique used in a context. Today's learners mostly prefer to process on their own thanks to the development on the technology and rising trend of accessible sources all around the world and it paves the way for more effective self-education which can be more practical in the age we live in. It is primarily the aim of this paper to examine the dimensions of self-studying and how it can support students' modern needs and its effectiveness considered the pros it may consists, especially in higher education. Additionally, it also presents some suggestions about how we facilitate the self-study in learning

Our chapter, based on a self-study, responds to the question, “What impact does international experience have for faculty and teacher candidates?” We have utilized a 5-step process: collection/recognition; recording; revisiting; deconstructing and reconstructing to gather and analyze our data drawn from two different international Community Leadership Experiences (CLE). In this chapter, we examine two distinct contexts: a CLE in a developing country such as Kenya or Nicaragua, organized through a Not-for-Profit-Social-Enterprise (NPSE) contrasted with a CLE in Italy. We outline three key findings: concepts of authenticity; assessment of risk; and, understanding professionalism. Our examination of the themes has allowed us to interrogate the impact our facilitation of international placements may be having on our broader practice as teacher educators.

Several educational researchers have critiqued the increasing marginalization of foundations coursework in teacher education programs within the United States. Situated within a teacher certification
program at a Predominately White Institution without foundations courses, this self-study examined an English methods course designed to address this curricular gap and prepare candidates to teach racially and culturally diverse students attending urban schools. Through a conceptual framework grounded in critical race theory, interpretive analysis of student work relative to course material evidenced a consistent pattern of omitting themes, discussions, and reflection about race and racism. This finding–consistent with the literature on colorblind epistemologies–led me to implications about pedagogy and curriculum in teacher education centered around opportunities for candidates to develop racial literacy in their methods courses and across their programs.

Self-study is an approach to the study of personal experience in a social context. What distinguishes self-study from many other methodologies for researching personal experience is that it focuses on the researcher’s own self and experience. Self-study research has so far mostly been initiated and conducted by teacher educators and teachers who study their selves “in action . . . within [their] educational contexts” (Hamilton, Smith, & Worthington, 2008, p. 17) with the aim
of improving their own professional understanding and practice as well as contributing to public conversations about teaching and learning (see, for example, Kosnik, Beck, Freese, & Samaras, 2005; Loughran, Hamilton, LaBoskey, & Russell, 2004; Mitchell, Weber, & O’Reilly-Scanlon, 2005). However, self-study is now increasingly being undertaken by practitioners and scholars working across the human and social sciences (see Pithouse, Mitchell, & Moletsane, 2009b) who have a common commitment to exploring how study of the self “might illuminate significant social questions and make a qualitative difference to shared human experience” (Pithouse, Mitchell, & Moletsane, 2009a, p. 2).
Researchers who adopt a self-study methodology draw on a wide range of mainly qualitative research methods to produce, collect, and interpret data (Pithouse, Mitchell, & Weber, 2009). The use of a variety of methods enables self-study researchers to examine their selves and personal experience from a range of perspectives (LaBoskey, 2004). Methods for self-study can include commonly used
qualitative research methods such as journal writing, interviews, and group discussions. They also often take on creative or arts-based forms, for instance, drama, poetry, narrative, collage, video, and drawing (see, for example, Mitchell et al., 2005; Pithouse et al., 2009; Tidwell, Heston, & Fitzgerald, 2009; Weber & Mitchell, 2004).
In this chapter, I consider three different published examples of drawing as a method for self-study (namely, Derry, 2005; Richards, 1998; and Tidwell & Manke, 2009) to identify some strategies for, and features of, this research method. My discussion explores the nature and value of self-study drawing as a social research method as well as some potential challenges of using such a method.

Abstract Aboriginal/Indigenous education is being increasingly emphasized in Faculties of Education across Canada. Through self-study as an instructor of a mandatory course in Aboriginal education in a Faculty of Education, the author is exploring the use of local, ...

How do we get at the meanings of everyday (and not so everyday) objects, and how might these meanings enrich educational research? The study of objects is well established in fields such as archaeology, art history, communications, fine arts, museum studies, and sociology—but is still developing in education. Object Medleys: Interpretive Possibilities for Educational Research brings together 37 educational researchers from wide-ranging contexts and multiple knowledge fields to a dialogic space in which subjects and objects, living and nonliving, entangle as medleys to open up understandings of connections made with, between, and through objects. Object Medleys offers diverse, innovative modes and lenses for representing, interpreting, and theorising object studies. The book is distinctive within scholarship on object inquiry in that much of the research has been conducted within Southern African educational contexts. This is complemented by contributions from scholars based in Canada and the United Kingdom. The original research represented in each peer-reviewed chapter expands academic conversations about what counts as data and analysis in educational research. Overall, Object Medleys illuminates the applied and theoretical usefulness of objects in response to pressing educational and societal questions.

Many believe teacher leaders can play a central role in meeting the needs of students in schools, but it is presumptuous to think that teachers intuitively know how to lead their colleagues or schools without any focused support. This paper describes how one middle school mathematics teacher learned to enact leadership through an informal role as a teacher leader. The results of this autoethnographic study also reveal how the teacher's view of leadership changed during the year of the study. As that leadership identity tran-sitioned, the researcher found that adopting a lead-by-example and lead-learner stance supported her work with colleagues. A presentation of findings related factors that supported and hindered the transition from mathematics teacher to that of teacher leader are shared. Factors that supported teacher leadership included maintaining a disposition of continuous learning, developing a community of practice with colleagues, and developing a systems view of leading. The experiences and factors that hindered the process of becoming a teacher leader included confusion about one's leadership role, navigating the middle ground between colleague and leader, and the lack of communication with administration. The findings in this paper suggest several courses of action for supporting emergent teacher leaders.

En el marco de los desafíos profesionales que plantea hoy la docencia universitaria, en este artículo caracterizamos los procesos reflexivos que vivenciamos didactas de las ciencias experimentales y de la matemática, cuando desarrollamos un self-study colaborativo interinstitu-cional. Para ello, hemos adaptado el ciclo deweyniano según dos procesos reflexivos: el primero, de autoconfrontación con lo que ocurre en nuestras clases universitarias y lo que plantean los estudiantes mediante tickets de salida, y el segundo, de resignificación de la docencia univer-sitaria con los amigos críticos. Los resultados muestran que cada didacta experimentó distintos procesos de reflexión en cuanto a las dimensiones relacionadas con los estudiantes, el contexto, la didáctica específica y la profesionalidad; además, demostramos que el conocimiento didáctico permite la configuración de procesos reflexivos e identitarios diferenciadores que resultan claves en la comprensión y resignificación de las prácticas pedagógicas.

The following text is a self-report of my illnesses and fasting. It consists of three parts written in English and Russian. The self-study case report The Impact of Prolonged Periodic Fasting on Health and Well-being is the first part. This paper was prepared for publication. The second and third parts are mostly written in Russian. They include a description of my crises and attacks (second part) and my stay in Toronto hospitals where the diagnosis Myasthenia gravis was obtained for my illness (third part). Also in the text is discussed the influence of atmospheric pressure, whose rise and severe fluctuations often seem to trigger my crises and attacks. The final conclusions are written in both languages.

In today’s rapidly changing world, educational leaders are swamped by competing priorities that make inordinate demands on their time, energy and focus. They are consumed with operational matters such as teaching and learning activities, school management and administrative tasks and extra-curricular programmes, which leaves them with little time for reflection. As a consequence they put themselves and their schools at the risk of doing more of the same and achieving the same results. Drawing from the literature that suggests the value of reflection for leaders, I decided to undertake a reflexive study that interrogated my leadership practice. I searched for meaning to understand who I am and who I am as a leader. I desired knowledge on how and why I enacted leadership in the manner I did. Questions of what should be improved and how it should be improved were considered as my leadership practice was critically examined. I used self-study as a methodology to critique my leadership practice and generated data using the personal history narrative and memory work methods. Interviews with research participants using artefacts in a digital memory box, served as prompts to remember, reconstruct and re-story events as I co-constructed my personal history narrative. The multiple viewpoints that a research mentor, critical friends and research participants offered, challenged my assumptions, reframed my perspectives and validated the data in co-flexive conversations. Using the puzzle metaphor I describe the complexity, uncertainty, messiness and challenges I experienced in discovering who I was and how I enacted leadership. This study has equipped me with knowledge and skills to effect leadership transformation and get closer to the goal of self-actualisation through authentic conduct. Reflexive practices provided rich insights into my personal and leader self/selves and my leadership practice became visible to myself/selves and others for critique. Tacit knowledge became explicit and I was able to recognise good leadership practices that could be strengthened. I also became acutely aware of the weaknesses and gaps in my leadership practice, which led to the formulation of improvement strategies. This research suggests that for school leaders to become effective, they should engage in deep reflexive practice in order to explore their multiple selves to uncover the complexities, contradictions and nuances that explains their practice and at the same time serve as a catalyst for transformed practice.

Resumen Las Grandes Ideas de la Ciencia son parte de los actuales cambios a los currículos de ciencia a nivel internacional y en Chile. Experiencias sobre clases usando Grandes Ideas de la ciencia provienen principalmente desde la Academia, describiendo qué y cómo realizan clases otros profesores en sus aulas, dejando una brecha respecto de lo que ocurre en la práctica de los profesores desde su propia voz. Este trabajo explora, bajo la metodología de self-study colaborativo (Bullock & Russell, 2012), la práctica de una profesora de formación inicial con sus estudiantes de pedagogía en biología, a partir de la cual se gatilla la reflexión y el autoconocimiento, en torno a la exploración de la Gran Idea de ser vivo. Los resultados muestran que es posible construir con los estudiantes una Gran Idea a partir de ideas más pequeñas que emergen del análisis de ejemplos concretos. Para la docente, el orientarse por una Gran Idea facilita la enseñanza por cuanto permite mayor flexibilidad y confianza en el conocimiento de los estudiantes. Finalmente, el contar con un amigo crítico y compartir la experiencia contribuye a la reflexión sobre la práctica, generando un camino de aprendizaje conjunto que beneficia a todos.

Polyvocal Professional Learning through Self-Study Research illustrates the power of “we” for innovative and authentic professional learning. The 33 contributors to this book include experienced and emerging self-study researchers, writing in collaboration, across multiple professions, academic disciplines, contexts, and continents. These authors have noted and reviewed each other’s chapters and adapted their contributions to generate a polyvocal conversation that significantly advances scholarship on professional learning through self-study research. Building on, and extending, the existing body of work on self-study research, the book offers an extensive and in-depth scholarly exploration of the how, why, and impact of professional learning through context-specific, practitioner-led inquiry. The chapters illustrate polyvocal professional learning as both phenomenon and method, with the original research that is presented in every chapter adding to the forms of methodological inventiveness that have been developed and documented within the self-study research community.

This article questions some of the premises undergirding the discourse of self-study, particularly focusing on its treatment of "self". We examine the ontology, authority and ethics of self as they emerge from Oren's reading of self-study literature in light of his scholarship of and experience in contemplative education. Having focused on studying and teaching mindfulness in teacher education, Oren had been an insider to "the study of self" yet an outsider to "self-study" when he stumbled upon the S-STEP SIG during AERA 2018. His hopes of finally finding a SIG focused on the self were high; however, during the presentations he attended, he became perplexed and disappointed as "self" emerged as somewhat peripheral to the matter he had assumed to be at stake. Written as an autoethnography, this paper describes his search for the sources of his discontents aided by Jason, a self-study insider who shares some of his ideas. Responding to calls for self-study that advocate educational change in a broad sense, we point to some ontological, epistemological and ethical commitments centering around self that may have been limiting self-study. We suggest that some of them can be rethought and point to ways in which this can lead to new possibilities for self-study and its expanded impact.