Chapter 9: Moving from Doctoral Student to Teacher Educator Faculty in Critical Collaboration: Carving Out an Expansive Learning Space for Innovation in Research and Practice

As hooks (1994) noted, “it is crucial that critical thinkers who want to change our teaching practices talk to one another, collaborate in a discussion that crosses boundaries and creates a space for intervention” (p. 129). Yet, teacher educators are rarely trained to create such spaces (Cohen et al., 2004) and often find themselves working in silos (Patton & Parker, 2017). Most teacher educators enter higher education as experienced preK–12 teachers, with limited professional learning opportunities to support their development as professors and scholars (Gallagher et al., 2011). Though teacher educators have prior experience teaching children and/or adolescents, they, like other new professors, often have limited experience teaching university students and need mentorship to navigate newfound responsibilities. The self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STTEP) emerged as one way to develop professional learning spaces for teacher educators (Vanassche & Berry, 2020).