This study aims to investigate the current mental health supports available to teachers in underserved urban schools and identify potential interventions to address burnout and improve teacher retention. The focus is on understanding the specific challenges faced by educators, particularly those from marginalized communities, and proposing pathways to promote educational equity through mental health initiatives.

Grounded in Social Support Theory, the study examines how emotional, informational, and practical support systems can mitigate the impact of burnout among teachers. The framework highlights the importance of equitable mental health support, particularly for Black women educators, as a critical factor in fostering resilience and sustaining teacher engagement in urban school settings (Marcionetti & Castelli, 2022).

This preliminary study employs qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with teachers to explore the mental health supports they currently receive and the gaps that exist. Teachers will share their experiences of burnout, stress, and coping mechanisms, providing insights into the types of interventions that could be most beneficial. Data will be analyzed to identify trends in teacher well-being and offer recommendations for targeted mental health support systems (Bottiani et al., 2019). Although student outcomes will not be measured, the study will provide a foundation for future research on the broader impacts of these interventions.

Initial findings are expected to shed light on the mental health challenges faced by teachers and highlight the need for systemic reforms. These insights will help inform the development of effective mental health interventions that can improve teacher retention in underserved schools.

The study aligns with the conference strands characteristics of quality teaching and equity and inclusion in teacher education, by emphasizing the role of mental health supports in promoting teacher sustainability and educational equity in urban schools.

The research aims to understand to what extent the Scottish Government’s Pupil Equity Funding reduced the poverty related attainment gap for a cohort of urban pupils from 2017/18 to 2020/21. Pupil Equity Funding is where schools are given additional funding per deprived student to increase equity in attainment. A positivist approach is utilised to understand the interplay between the variables of interest (such as poverty, attendance, ethnicity etc.) and changes in attainment.

The methods for this research involved combining datasets on school attainment, student and teacher statistics and deprivation. The attainment data was then compared to create a change variable for each attainment measure (Reading, Listening and Talking, Numeracy and Writing). These change measures were then used as dependent variables in four models (one for each measure) and were then analysed for statistical significance.

Overall, the research showed that the attainment gap had increased over the cohort period. The findings built on previous research and showed how variables such as class size had a negligible impact on attainment. However, it also showed the interconnectedness and nuances between the different attainment measures. It illustrated how the impact of variables such as attendance and parental qualifications changes based on which measure of attainment you are using. Furthermore, it illustrated how variables such as ethnicity, additional support needs etc. were statistically significant in relation to base attainment but not in relation to changes in attainment over time.

Pupil Equity Funding focuses on addressing equity and inclusion through giving school leaders’ autonomy in how to spend additional funds. The research contributes to understanding where Pupil Equity Funding should be targeted to increase equity. Building on this research schools could establish greater partnerships with one another and with the third sector to utilise funding to increase joint curriculum offers or increase shared student support options.

This paper presents a study on quality teaching (Hollins, 2011; Lovat & Toomey, 2009) in rural schools characterised by age heterogeneity. The focus on Italy provides useful reflections on school systems with similar characteristics and problems.

The research fits into the discourse on equity in education (Griffiths, 2003; Hackman, 2005), understood as a commitment to guarantee quality schooling to all students by responding to their specific educational needs and valuing heterogeneity without reducing it to a non-existent standard (Pica-Smith & Contini, 2020). In this sense, multi-age classes are a challenge in rural contexts (Cornish, 2009; Fargas-Malet & Bagley, 2022; Lund & Karlberg-Granlund, 2023): they are often viewed with concern by families and by teachers, who feel more comfortable in age-homogeneous classes. Conversely, age homogeneity represents a cultural trait (Rogoff, 2004) that does not allow for an appreciation of the benefits of different ages and learning styles in the classroom (Gray, 2012).

The paper aims to answer these questions:

• how can equity and quality be promoted in rural schools?
• how is quality teaching in multi-age classrooms designed in terms of organisational and pedagogical practises?

An action research was conducted in a K-8 rural school in Italy. A qualitative approach was used; data were collected through focus groups, logbooks and a final open-ended questionnaire and thematically analysed (Braun & Clarke, 2021).

Teachers and leaders reviewed school organisation and pedagogical methods. The actions concerned three areas: synergy with the territory and the community; reorganisation of school time; creative use of professional resources. In this way, it was possible to improve the quality of teaching and consequently students’ school experience through a design that consciously takes into account the age heterogeneity.

This paper aims to contribute to the reflection on quality teaching by highlighting its importance in contexts characterised by age heterogeneity.

With an average of about 10 million out of school children in Nigeria, the country not only ranks very low in school enrolment but also disproportionately positioned in the attainment of the global goal of education for all. The objective of this paper is to examine how the implementation of equity and inclusion clauses in teacher education could improve school enrolment and achieve education for all (EFA) in the country within the shortest possible time. The theoretical framework adopted is the relative deprivation theory. The paper focused on the three geo-political zones that make up Northern Nigeria which has the largest number of out of school children. The paper adopted the qualitative research method and relied on secondary data to examine the phenomenon and analyze the issues therein and make appropriate deductions. The findings of the paper are that the misapplication of the teacher education policy which is responsible for the out of school children syndrome contributes significantly to the failure to achieve education for all in Nigeria. To that effect, the paper concludes that the poorly conceptualized teacher education programme was largely responsible for the failure to achieve the universal goal. It hereby recommends among others the inclusion of equity and inclusion clauses in teacher education programme as strategy to addressing the out of school children syndrome as well as the attainment of Education for All (EFA) in Nigeria. This abstract/paper is relevant to the conference theme in the sense that an improved teacher education programme has the propensity to boost enrolment and also ensure that education for all is achieved within the framework of social justice and sustainable development. Specifically, the abstract is specifically tied to the sub-theme on Equity and inclusion in teacher education

In this Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Educator Practice (S-STTEP), the researchers address a significant gap in the knowledge of one non-Indigenous teacher educator regarding Indigenous History, Culture, Pedagogies, and Ways of Knowing. Grounded in the concept of settler colonial ignorance this study aims to uncover and confront such ignorance within teacher educator practices. The study is part of a broader investigation focused on collaborative curriculum development between an Indigenous researcher and a non-Indigenous researcher, each contributing their distinct perspectives. The emergence of settler colonial ignorance as a theoretical framework prompted a critical examination of how this ignorance serves as a barrier to Decolonization efforts in education. Findings highlight the transformative potential of S-STTEP research in challenging and dismantling settler colonial ignorance. The study underscores the importance of non-Indigenous teacher educators engaging deeply with Indigenous perspectives, histories, and pedagogies to foster educational practices that are inclusive, respectful, and supportive of Indigenous learners. Implications for teacher educator practice emphasize the urgent need for ongoing professional development that addresses and rectifies gaps in knowledge regarding Indigenous issues. By integrating Indigenous perspectives into curriculum development and pedagogical practices, teacher educators can contribute to educational environments that promote cultural understanding, equity, and the principles of Decolonization and Indigenization.

The aim of this research is to understand how teacher educators can engage in complex conversations about race in literacy education settings. Reviewing multiple data points on our self-study research dealing with anti-racist teaching has demonstrated that for multiple reasons, including socialized niceness, power structures at institutions, and norms of white supremacy culture, we often are challenged by the difficult conversations necessary to move toward justice. This research follows 7 cis-female-white teacher educators as they engage in a critical reading of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man (2022) to both learn new perspectives and to better understand the structures of these conversations for their own classrooms. We use the lenses of critical racial literacy, sociocultural perspectives on learning and intersectional positionality to help us to uncover the complexity of socialized niceness in this self-study. Data includes journal entries, recordings of zoom meetings for book discussions, and common assignments/discussions in our teacher preparation courses. Preliminary findings indicate that we are making progress with initiating these conversations, but continue to work on sustaining and/or deepening them and giving teacher candidates (TCs) more access points to join us in the work. We had to get comfortable with our own discomfort to engage in these conversations and the self-study group was a significant support for moving from conceptual understanding and intentions to concrete enactment. We found that examining the world beyond education through the eyes of someone else’s experiences aided in identifying why the conversations were often uncomfortable and thus gave a structure for these conversations with TCs. We entered, negotiated, and retreated from conversations related to justice and inclusion. The group, coupled with the readings, provided simultaneous sources of support, problem solving, knowledge construction, and accountability. Interrupting niceness and whiteness to engage in uncomfortable conversations built critical racial literacy.

This paper explores the challenges faced by teacher-educators in their planning and support for pre-service teachers’ development and learning. Specifically, the authors examined their own capacity to address these challenges while using the Meaningful Physical Education (MPE) approach.

MPE articulates a rationale for teaching physical education, based on the idea of prioritising meaningful experiences, thereby identifying potential and desired outcomes for participants in physical education. MPE is grounded in democratic and reflective pedagogical approaches, with a clear focus on student voice.

Over the course of an entire semester, one of the researchers taught a physical education module on an initial teacher education programme. Using a collaborative self-study approach, written weekly reflections were completed and shared with the second researcher, who was a faculty colleague. The second researcher adopted the role of critical friend, commenting on the reflections and posing questions. The whole dataset comprised eleven written and annotated reflections, and three recorded and transcribed conversations.

The data were analysed thematically, leading to the development of two central themes. Firstly, decisions relating to implicit and explicit instruction were highlighted in the context of the authors’ intention to prioritise the students’ meaningful experiences. It was challenging to retain a clear focus on the creation of a democratic teaching and learning environment, due to the novelty of this approach to the students and, to a lesser extent, to the researchers. The second theme described how the authors balanced teaching a set curriculum, with their intention to teach with a focus on their students’ meaningful experiences. This challenged them to provide enough time and space for sufficient discussion and reflection.

This paper shares how the adoption of a self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) approach can support teacher educators’ own professional development, while also scaffolding a positive and meaningful learning environment for their students.

Over the past decade, we have co-written articles on the ways in which we have supported, reflected, and connected with each other as critical friends and teacher educators (Laboskey, 2004). Grounded in the belief that self-study (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 2009), collaboration, and regular critical reflection are essential components to sustaining a teaching career, we have established a research methodology that involves regular check-ins over the phone and penpal-like letters in a shared journal (Authors, 2018, 2020). When the pandemic struck, we struggled to stay in touch and found our work taking a necessary aesthetic turn (Authors, 2021).

In “Watchfulness,” we take our reflective methods to a new place, exploring what it means to co-create a piece of folk art as a dyad. We take turns working on a piece, sending it back and forth in the post, with the trust that there is freedom in the process of co-creation. We have documented our processes and our products through photography and journaling, which will be shared during this presentation, alongside our folk art. Folk art is a purposeful term for us: the “material culture” in which “objects do not exist in a vacuum...[they are] made and used by people, artifacts relate to human values, concerns, needs and desires both past and present” (Jones, 1987, p.4).

We explore how this co-creation, this arts-based research, introduces a new kind of framing for the humanities. Veering away from a positivistic approach towards understanding a phenomena which leads to stability in knowledge-building, arts-based research introduces a kind of “revisiting.”(Barone & Eisner, 2011, p. 16).

We aim for this “watchfulness” – to peer beneath the surface of things, ideas, and practices. What does our craft say about our minds, thoughts, and experiences? In our experiences, teaching during this moment in time, what is true for us?

The crucial tensions that emerge in a pedagogy of teacher education—the theory/practice gap, the struggles to represent the rich complexities of practice, the challenge to “teach” relational practice, and the preparation of a largely white, female teaching force for diverse communities and populations––often seem more elusive despite decades of research, and tinkering in innovation. The intractableness of these tensions is, in large part, emergent from the ways the pedagogy of teacher education is situated within the neoliberal agenda of the university, centered on patriarchal academic notions that favor individualistic, hierarchical, and logical ways of knowing with little, if any, attention to the limitations of such ways of being. As decades long doctoral faculty in teacher education, we take up and model a feminist teacher education pedagogy to prepare teacher educators to navigate these critical tensions in their work with the next generations of teachers.

Specifically, we describe our feminist embodied co/autoethnographic self-study where we examine the blurring principles of our feminist friendship epistemology as a model of teacher education pedagogy. We define this framework as a stance focused on building relationships with and mentoring our doctoral students through caring collaboration, co-construction of knowledge, and embodied self-reflection. We explore how our own learning to be teacher educators and scholars has shaped this work. We emphasize a blurring of boundaries between the individual and the collective, authority and dialogic negotiation, and the creative and the practical. We share some of the principles of our feminist friendship epistemology. Then we briefly describe our co/autoethnographic methodology to provide insight into our process of self-reflection and f analyze our narratives of becoming teacher educators and co-mentoring of doctoral students as teacher educators. We offer a vision for how feminist teacher education pedagogy invites a radical re-imagining for how we prepare and mentor teacher educators.

Research Aim

This S-STEP research engaged diffractive readings of Jane Eyre (Brönte, 1943), Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon, 1952), and The Racial Contract (Mills, 1997). Diffractive readings revealed insights about (white) women’s education, (white) women’s roles as teachers, and the way in which colonialism frames and shapes expectations for how (white) women can/should act as disruptive agents.

Theoretical Framework

Women teach and learn in Jane Eyre; they also mentor each other about working with children and responding to controlling men. Jane Eyre draws on and shapes colonizing discourse—yet interpretations often focus on white feminism (Hanley, 2009; Mohanty, 2003; Spivak, 1985, 1993). Since Jane Eyre contains plot elements from the Caribbean (Jamaica), Fanon’s (1952) and Mills’ (1952) work provides insights through observations as raced/gendered Afro-Caribbean people. Reading multiple texts through one another is a critical posthumanist strategy. For example, Jackson (2020) read philosophical works about Black(end) peoples through Toni Morrison’s work.

Methods

My diffractive reading responded relations of differences that mattered (Barad, 2007). Over a 4-month period, I read Jane Eyre, then Fanon, then Mills. Simultaneously, I was part of a reading group focused on decoloniality, which supported reflective practice (Berry, 2004). Using notetaking, I cross-read for consistent ideas and insights (Thomas, 2018). Reading group members provided opportunities for sharing emerging thinking. I solidified thoughts into findings through word art (Samaras, 2010).

Findings

First, Jane Eyre brought forward women’s solidarity in disrupting colonizing educational structures while Fanon (1952) and Mills (1997) argued that issues of race/gender separate women by worthiness, complicating noticing of shared problems. Second, lauded feminist strategies of demurring followed by defiance is more complex when applied cross-contextually.

Relevance

(White) women teacher educators may use diffractive activities with pre/in-service teachers to promote de/colonial noticing; it also enables a turn-to-self for difficult-to-recognize insights about applying feminisms for social justice.

As teachers and teacher educators committed to equity and inclusion in education, we [the authors] aim to consistently examine our teaching practices and act upon what we uncover through critical reflection. While we have engaged in this work individually, we have found that the dialogue and collaboration grounded in our feminist partnership is a powerful tool for teacher reflection and development (Authors, 2024; Klein & Taylor, 2023; Tillmann-Healy, 2003). Through partnership, we worked (and continue to work) to support one another as we move from reflection, to decision making, and ultimately, to action. We drew on our feminist friendship to engage in collaborative self-study via an ongoing dialogic journal through which we analyze critical incidents from our teaching—often moments of tension that challenged our commitment to social justice and equity. We turned to our queer feminist foundation (Kuzmic, 2014; Marinucci, 2010; Murray & Kalayji, 2018) as we examined the ways we disrupted our pedagogical choices and our evolving feelings about those actions. To spark our dialogic journaling, we used analytic questions including:

• How does our queer feminist stance inform our reflective practices?

• What barriers get in the way of fostering our commitments to equity and justice?

• How does collaboration support our practice?

Our data included iterations of individual journaling, written responses to each other’s reflections, and transcripts from our dialogues via Zoom. Each of these data points guided our analysis of the critical incidents we examined. Our collaborative self-study deepened our investigations as we questioned, challenged, and co-constructed meaning in partnership. Through it, we were able to make sense out of difficult moments, challenge ourselves to grow in our dedication to equitable teaching practices, take transformative action, and support one another as we navigated the barriers that we often face as we disrupt oppressive systems.

In our self-study analyses of our student evaluations of teaching, read through the lens of critical discourse analysis, we found a predominant theme: white students found discomfort in being challenged, particularly by professors of color. Despite the increasing diversity of our K-12 student population, the vast majority of the K-12 teaching force remains white; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019), there are currently 9,313,000 teachers, 81.5% of whom are white. We must, as teacher educators, continue to critically reflect on our material conditions, and our own cultural contexts—and insist that our teacher education students do the same—engaging in a dialectic between theory and practice. Freire reminds us to challenge our students to read the world critically especially when it becomes uncomfortable to those who find power from the innocence of the exploited (Freire, 1998a).

Building a theoretical framework that incorporates culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-racist pedagogy, critical race theory, and self-study, can assist teacher educators in developing more critically conscious teachers. This framework aims to equip educators and teacher candidates with the tools and mindset necessary to engage in critical self-examination, develop a critical consciousness, and, ultimately, transform their praxis in a way that positively impacts not just themselves, but their students as well. Decades of research on teacher education illustrates the need for teachers to involve themselves in their students’ worlds (Delpit, 2009), reject deficit notions of their students (Emdin, 2016), build and sustain relationships with their students and communities (Milner, 2018), and develop a critical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2009).

Our self-study process relates to the anti-oppressive education approach (Kumashiro, 2004). The anti-oppressive education approach seeks to disrupt traditional paradigms in the field of education for social justice, encouraging us to discover what oppression is and what changes need to be made in our field.

Research aim – To provide evidence that a Living Educational Theory Research approach, to the professional learning of self-study, teacher-education researchers, has generated original contributions to the global knowledge base of teacher education. The originality includes a unit of appraisal, standards of judgement and logic that determines the rationality of explanations of educational influences in learning.

Theoretical frameworks – These are provided by the original contributions to knowledge provided in over 50 Living Theory doctorates of self-study researchers who have explored the implications of asking, researching and answering questions of the kind, ‘How do I improve my professional practice?’. These explanations include insights from other theoretical frameworks such as the philosophy, psychology, sociology and history of education.

Methods – These include the methods described by Tidwell et al. (2009) in research for the Self-Study of Practice. An addition to these methods is defined as empathetic resonance with digital visual data. This was developed for Living Educational Theory Research. It enabled the clarification and communication of the embodied values used by self-study researchers as explanatory principles in their explanations of educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations within which the professional practice is located.

Findings – These are focused on a definition of professionalism that includes both meeting criteria set by the professional’s professional body, and the acceptance of a professional responsibility for researching one’s own professional learning in inquiries of the kind, ‘How do I improve the educational influences in my professional practice?’, and making public the valid, evidence-based and values-laden explanations of educational influences in learning.

Relevance - The embodied values of the self-study researchers include and explain connections between quality teaching, equity, and socially just classrooms in the generation of each individual’s living-educational-theory.

Academic writing can be daunting for teacher educators juggling heavy teaching loads, institutional service, and research. The competitive peer review process can be discouraging and frustrating. To address these challenges, I established a voluntary writing community for my teacher-educator colleagues at an Israeli college of education. Two years after I began leading the community, I adopted self-study methodology to critically scrutinise my motives for forming the group and explore the impact of community membership and leadership on my working life and the lives of my colleagues. Theories of community and writing as a means of inquiry informed the research. Data for this qualitative study included my ninety-page reflective research journal written in community sessions and interviews with twelve teacher educators in the group. Self-study allowed me to explore the assumptions and values behind my actions and shed light on the significant role of the writing community in my professional identity and well-being and the learning experience I provide for my students. Findings reveal how confronting my own vulnerabilities as a writer and educator, in writing and conversation with my peers, heightened my sensitivity to the unique needs of individuals in my multicultural classrooms. These developing understandings led me to respond differently as an educator to my department's Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druse, and Circassian pre-service teachers. Additionally, leading and belonging to a diverse community of professionals empowered me to strive for safe, inclusive environments for my pre-service teachers and inspired me to advocate for a more conducive work environment for my peers. This self-study explores a particular educational setting and invites educators and institutional leadership in other professional contexts to consider how writing communities might contribute to developing equity and inclusion in their organisations.

Improving clinical practice is an important step in preparing the next generation of educators to feel respected and connected in the profession. Although U.S. schools of education may aim to innovate, many teacher preparation programs continue to work within the traditional hierarchy of university expertise being valued over school-based experience. One way to level the hierarchy is to deeply value mentor teachers’ experiences as assets for learning, bringing mentor teachers and university supervisors together for mutual growth. In this self-study combined with qualitative inquiry, I explore my efforts to engage a multidisciplinary group of mentor teachers in a five-session professional learning series designed to leverage their assets while sharing resources and collaboratively refining coaching, feedback and reflection practices. As a self-study, I explore to what extent my facilitation practices engage mentor teachers in future-focused mentoring (Larsen et al., 2023), a form of holistic mentoring that prompts teachers to engage in intellectual work which guides them toward personal, relational and contextual transformation. For qualitative inquiry, I explore how mentor teachers engage in conscious intellectual work (Larsen et al., 2023) that invites self- and practice-oriented reflection, builds community, and calls for collaborative clinical practice. Lastly, I seek to explore the potential for TESOL teacher educators to facilitate future-focused mentoring with multidisciplinary mentor teacher groups. Since TESOL teacher educators work with teachers who may teach in an integrated content and language teaching setting in any discipline, the possibilities are expansive. Findings illuminate open sharing of mentor teachers’ experiences in coaching student teachers, facilitator-guided resource sharing with mentor teacher-led critique, collaborative mentoring practice work, and mentor teacher-led ideas for collaborative teacher induction support. This study illustrates an innovative approach to leveraging the expertise of mentor teachers for collaborative sharing, discussion, and growth, promoting equity in teacher education in which mentor teachers are properly respected.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of in-school seminars designed as hybrid spaces to help our teacher candidates grapple with social, political, and cultural realities of the educational context within an integrated, school-based, and professionally-oriented semester in a teacher education program. The backdrop to this self-study is our attempt to facilitate hybrid spaces within school-university partnerships that help our teacher candidates integrate theory and practice. Drawing on Zeichner’s (2010) examples of boundary crossings in the creation of hybrid spaces we have investigated teacher candidates’ experiences of boundary crossings that include school-based courses, seminars, faculty supervision, and integrated assignments within the context of school-university partnerships.

Research suggests that hybrid spaces help link academic and practitioner knowledge, thus addressing a perennial problem in teacher education where teacher candidates struggle to use the research-based guidelines offered to them in their courses when they subsequently engage in their practicum placements (Clift & Brady, 2005). Attending to hybrid spaces can reduce such tensions between academic visions of teachers as professionals and school-based technical practices (Zeichner, 2012) by fostering critical deliberation focused on democratic ways of knowing (Kincheloe, 2001).

For the purposes of this paper, we focus on S-STEP data related to program alumni (18 new/early-career teachers), 9 faculty supervisors/course instructors and most specifically, 2 faculty and 1 staff member’s experiences of the 4th year practicum in-school seminars.

We recognized, through hybrid spaces, 1. the application of academic and practitioner knowledge, 2. the tensions and counterscipts that arose, and 3. the positive impact of the cohort model emerged as themes from our data collection.

Following Korthagen (2011) ‘realistic’ teacher education approach and Zeichner’s attention to the ‘hybrid space’, we believe teacher education programs can benefit by intentionally and systematically providing teacher candidates with the realities of teaching through school-university partnerships.

The European Commission places a strong focus on the lifeloná learning of teacher educators as they áare a key factor in determining the quality of teachers and the calibre of teaching in the classroom. We are a collective of four teacher educators at Dublin City University who came together at a time of national curriculum change to decipher what constitutes quality teaching of Arts and Physical Education. We wanted to explore and make accessible to others including our students, colleagues and contemporaries the knowledge gained through our participation in APEX - a self-initiated project exploring quality teaching in the aforementioned curriculum areas. Framed by theory relating to teacher educator professional development and our new primary curriculum framework, we adopted a self-study approach utilising memory and dialogic inquiry methods. We investigated our motivations to participate in the project, our professional development gains, and to what project affordances we ascribe these benefits. Data analysis is currently underway using a thematic analytical approach. Data primarily comprised our four individual written memory tasks. Four themes emerged in relation to our motivation to participate in APEX. These include professional frustrations and disappointments, a motivation for greater awareness and understanding, an appetite to learn, clarify and resolve issues, and a longing to connect, belong and exchange. We hypothesise findings regarding our professional takeaways from APEX will resolve some frustrations, reconcile some curriculum tensions and benefit integration opportunities between Arts and PE in our programme. We speculate the project affordances to which we attribute our professional learning will relate the setting, the format, the direction, the atmosphere, the exchange, the aesthetics and the outcome. This paper will be of interest to primary school teachers, teaching Arts and PE specialists or teacher educators from any discipline who supervise and support preservice teachers on their school placements.

The need to address social justice issues in education has gained global interest, putting us teachers and teacher educators at the centre. As a result, research on socially just education has gained traction. This growing interest in and increasing conversations on social justice specifically diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), have recently started to make me uncomfortable as until then, I had not consciously and explicitly engaged with this subject as part of my teaching practices. The literature reports silence in research regarding how us science teacher educators teach for social justice, and how we can prepare pre-service teachers in matters of social justice teaching. However, considering that social justice issues vary contextually, the aim of this study is to investigate the presence of (and/or missed opportunities for) social justice teaching in my teaching practices at a South African university. My teaching is guided by the Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK) framework which is known to promote quality teaching and meaningful learning. It is in this TSPCK –guided teaching that I, with two critical friends, who are co-authors in this paper, use the self-study methodology and the critical incident technique (CIT) to explore the manifestation and/or recognition of social justice (if at all), in my teaching. Data is in the form of the teacher educator’s journal entries, lecture videos and audio transcripts of our discussions and reflections. We wish to bring to light, social justice issues in our contexts and the opportunities that leveraging TSPCK, a framework that explains teacher professional knowledge, can provide for science teacher educators to teach for and equip preservice teachers for socially just and inclusive teaching. Implications of these findings to the role of science teacher education in preparing teachers for socially just teaching, especially in diverse contexts like South Africa will be discussed.

Leaving Certificate Physical Education (LCPE), a certificate examination subject in a high-stakes environment in the final two-years of Irish post-primary schooling, has two explicit bodies of knowledge: theoretical and practical knowledge. The curriculum promotes the notion of ‘integrated learning experiences’ which blends both forms of knowledge. Through a community of learners, two teacher educators and two teachers worked together as a research team to construct and enact teaching resources for ‘integrated learning experiences’. We aimed to explore how teachers teach integrated learning experiences for LCPE and the possibilities of such experiences. A secondary aim of this project was to sustain a community of learners between the research team which spans across the teacher education continuum to establish the characteristics of quality teaching from different perspectives.

This research adopted a collaborative self-study approach and took place over one year as (i) the teachers examined their own practices, (ii) the research team constructed the teaching resources, (iii) the teachers enacted and reflected on such teaching resources/practices with the teacher educators, and (iv) the research team evaluated and modified the teaching resources. This was underpinned by an exploration of ‘self’ on behalf of all community members, each acting as each other’s critical friend in this exploration.

The findings highlighted the challenges in teaching integrated learning experiences given the school context, e.g., timetabling issues, and teacher pre-dispositions, e.g., assumptions of practice. The teachers reflected positively on the possibilities of integrated learning experiences and the potential of increased student learning through such experiences. The collaborative self-study approach allowed for collaborative interrogation of ‘self’ in ‘practice’, encouraged the sharing of differing perspectives on quality teaching (and the effect on the richness of student learning), and the challenging of assumptions in the processes of changing practice. This presentation advocates for collaborative self-study across the teacher education continuum.

Physical education lessons foster experiences, reflections, and arguments that students make explicit as language practices that, in turn, are different from the statements of other school curriculum subjects. Thus, curriculum making in physical education is complex and linked to space, activity and relationship. When we add technological considerations to the mix, there is a “pedagogically necessary time” that needs to be socially just for all students within physical education classes. Furthermore, for Charlot (2020), advocacy for education is the ongoing choice we all should make to confront prejudice, discrimination and social injustice. In this sense, during recent years, how can physical education effectively contribute to promoting social justice when schooling is forced to go online? How can physical education contribute to a socially just present and a future worth living in world facing global pandemic and regional conflicts? These questions critically direct this self-study and draws on the reflections and perceptions of two university professors for preservice and in-service teacher education of teachers working in basic education (K-12). The objective is to problematize the relationships to knowledge and the best-loved self of the two university professors – as teacher educators – and their (self)educative experiences shared within a collective of teachers from public schools in Fortaleza, the capital city of Ceará, in northeastern Brazil. The context includes remote teaching (synchronous and asynchronous) in a school site linked to two institutional programs of preservice teacher induction – PIBID and Pedagogical Residency.

In this self-study, we examine my (author-A) experience designing and implementing a roundtable at the conference of Japanese language education for Japanese (JLEJ) in 2024 that triggered the spread of self-study in JLEJ.

I am a teacher educator of JLEJ. I encountered self-study in 2020 and tried to introduce it among JLEJ colleagues. However, the concept of “Kotai-Shi-Kenkyu”(KK) already existed in this field. I found KK is quite similar to self-study. KK practitioners keep records of themselves and analyze them to improve their practices. With a tradition of KK in JLEJ, introducing self-study can cause conflicts. Therefore, I analyzed our conference experience with critical friends (author-B and C).

The roundtable preparation began in April 2023 and was implemented in May 2024. Data included my reflective notes, SNS and e-mail exchanged with critical friends, and Zoom meeting recordings. I analyzed my experience through a collaborative dialogue with critical friends.

Findings revealed my awareness of always standing back and not taking sides in either self-study and KK. I tried to remain a calm researcher. I thought that if I took sides with one, I would not be able to compare and examine both objectively. Even though I was dealing with self-study and KK, both involve “self,” I was trying to remain in a neutral position.

Through this roundtable, I could verbalize my worries and struggles in the team. In addition, I saw a speaker (author-C) analyzing and verbalizing her own conflict between self-study and KK. Through these experiences, I learned that expressing my own struggles and realizations as a participant in the discussion was not a hindrance to the comparison and examination of self-study and KK, but rather led to a dialogue that reconciled cultural and linguistic differences.

The context of this self-study is a fully online asynchronous Master’s and PhD program focused on the value-creating approaches to education, which is an Eastern philosophy expounded by three Japanese educators, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Josei Toda, and Daisaku Ikeda. The theoretical framework of this study is Makiguchi’s (1981-1996, Vol. 5) theory of value, which considers the purpose of education as cultivating students’ ability to apply knowledge in order to create value in terms of beauty (what is pleasant when perceived by the five senses), gain (what benefits the entirety of an individual), and good (what benefits the larger community or society) (Goulah, 2021; Goulah & Gebert, 2009). Creating value can also be understood as making meaning (Garrison, 2019; Garrison et al., 2014; Goulah, 2021). I conducted a self-study (LaBoskey, 2004; Samaras, 2011) to examine how I could be more intentional in helping my students create positive value through my course materials, assignments, and teaching practices. The primary data consisted of journal entries from Spring 2022, Spring 2023, and Winter 2024 quarters, as well as course materials and formal and informal student feedback. I gradually identified and developed teaching practices that were value-creative, such as assessments that are enjoyable (value of beauty), lead to personal growth (value of gain), and benefit those around them (value of good). An example of this was having students create an imaginary dialogue with one of the authors so that students can create concrete changes in their practice to address certain issues within their own context. The framework of value creation can contribute to the conversation on what constitutes quality education. Doing this in an fully online asynchronous program that serves a global student body can address the issue of equity in terms of access to quality education.

As settler teacher educators, the authors have embarked on a journey of self-reflection regarding their teaching practices. Teaching foundational courses in literacies and educational law, we reflect on fostering decolonizing pedagogies. McGregor (2012) defines decolonizing pedagogies as “teaching and learning approaches that both acknowledge and deconstruct structures of power associated with colonization in an effort to create space for, and give legitimacy to, Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing” (p. 13). Making connections between quality teaching and equity in socially just classrooms mirrors our responsibilities as settler educators to pursue our commitment to decolonization practices (Battiste, 2013; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). Our guiding question is: How can decolonizing pedagogies in teacher education amplify social justice in classrooms?

As allies in education (Morcom & Freeman, 2018), we challenge ourselves to integrate “relational accountability” (Wilson, 2008) while designing our curriculum. We are informed by culturally responsive pedagogies (Alim & Paris, 2017; Battiste, 2013; Brayboy & Maughan, 2009) and Indigenous education (Nardozi & Restoule, 2020; Nardozi et al., 2014; Toulouse, 2018). Madden (2015) suggests when teacher educators are exposed to an Indigenous worldview, it “opens up space within the academy and schools to conceptualize education differently” (p. 4).

This study is grounded in action research (Gravett, 2004; Ross, 2020) to improve our practices in a teacher education program. This reflective self-study brings the authors together as dialogic partners (Bakhtin, 1991; Gravett, 2005) towards transformative action to improve our own teaching, the curriculum we design, and as a model for settler teacher educators. Transdisciplinary journals (Marshall, 2014) will act as catalysts for our conversations.

Our work will illuminate Madden’s (2015) “pedagogical pathways” as deep learning and understanding occur. Findings, both action-oriented and reflective, will be presented during our session.

This proposal meets the sub-themes of Curriculum design for equitable teaching and Equity and inclusion in teacher education.

Research Aim

Quality teaching and learning is predicated upon teachers' skills, knowledge, and dispositions like adaptability and self-reflection. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has been markedly increasing and will lead to significant transformations in the teaching and learning processes. In this study, as educators/researchers we explored AIs transformative impact on teaching practices in our classrooms while maintaining skepticism about AI’s ability to support critical thinking, given the complexities and ethical tensions.

Theoretical Framework

This self-study leverages posthuman perspectives (Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2013) to examine and reflect upon teaching/learning complexities, thereby providing a lens to better understand how AI can be ethically harnessed to impact classroom environments, students’ knowledge, and teachers’ pedagogical practices (Paris, 2012; Muhammad & Mosley, 2021).

Methods

We engaged in self-study (LaBoskey, 2004; Pinnegar & Hamilton, 2009) to examine our teaching pedagogies using AI in our courses. Our data sources included reflective journals, course artifacts, and transcribed recordings of self-study meetings. Providing constructive feedback and support, these data sources reflect our perspectives as critical friends.

Findings

Our findings suggest that AI can increase students' awareness of the importance of using critical thinking and reflexivity. For this, first, the instructor/mentor must have an understanding of AI and self awareness of one’s capabilities for successful incorporation into the classroom. Second, engaging in AI learning activities prompted and engaged students critically. Third, educators’ self-mentoring practices guided proactive student application and learning. Distinct stages of self-mentoring emerged: (Level1/Reflection; Level2/Practice; Level 3/Guiding others).

Conclusion & Relevance

Engaging in self-study transformed unfamiliarity and challenges into opportunities for growth and empowerment and reduced anxiety of AI usage. Collaborative mentoring with critical friends created a space to explore ethical tensions while incorporating new technologies that enhanced practices, fostered students to think critically, develop resilience, and encouraged continuous learning.

Aim

This study explores why early childhood education (ECE) faculty at different institutions joined and sustained their involvement in a Self-Study Community of Practice (SSCoP). The aim is to understand the conditions that promote long-term engagement in an innovative form of online professional development.

Theoretical Framework:

The study is grounded in the self-study of teaching, a research methodology that fosters professional development by combining reflective practice with scholarly inquiry. Self-study is characterized by five key elements: it is self-initiated, improvement-focused, interactive, employs qualitative methods, and relies on trustworthiness for validity. This methodology provides a space for educators to critically examine their teaching practices, offering a structured yet flexible approach to professional growth and collaboration.

Methods:
Four ECE faculty members from various institutions participated in the SSCoP. Collaborative qualitative data analysis of personal journals and reflective discussions was conducted to identify the factors that influenced participants' sustained engagement in the SSCoP. These reflective data points were thematically coded and analyzed.

Findings:
The study identified key factors driving sustained engagement in the SSCoP, including strong interpersonal relationships, a desire to improve teaching practices, shared goals and expectations, and opportunities for professional advancement. The SSCoP served not only as a platform for individual growth but also as a supportive, collaborative network that fostered a sense of belonging and accountability among members.

Relevance to Conference Theme and Specific Strand:

This study is highly relevant to the conference self-study theme, added to the ISATT conference in place of the Castle Conference in 2024. Specifically, the presentation addresses faculty reasons for participating in a SSCoP and for sustaining their engagement. The findings demonstrate how cross-institutional SSCoPs can support ECE faculty in higher education, addressing both their unique challenges and the broader need for effective, ongoing professional development.

Teachers and teacher educators report uncertainties about the ‘how’ of integrating social justice content into (physical education) teacher education [(PE)TE]. As one possibility for addressing this challenge, Scanlon et al. (2022) re-imagined the existing Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model through a social justice lens and implemented the teaching and learning of social justice matters in (PE)TE. The purpose of this research was to understand and improve our PETE practice enacting the SJ-TPSR approach across diverse modules in three countries (Ireland, Australia, and Canada). There were 8 PETEs involved in this exploration, organised into 3 micro collaborative self-studies (Ireland [3], Australia [2], and Canada [2]) within one macro collaborative self-study with a macro critical friend.

Collaborative self-study methodology informed by LaBoskey’s characteristics of quality self-study guided this research. Members from each community enacted the approach, while the other member(s) acted as micro critical friends. Self-study occurred within the micro learning communities and across the macro learning community: emphasising a layered notion of self-study. Data included: teacher educator reflections; whole group interrogations of reflections with teacher educator responses; recorded weekly or fortnightly micro critical friend meetings; and recorded monthly macro meetings. Results from this research share the realities of translating a theoretically informed vision into practice in ways that support the next generation of teachers’ learning about and through innovative pedagogy.

We suggest that colleagues from the (PE)TE community may consider these findings in their endeavour to reconsider existing pedagogical models through a social justice lens, and as they strive to work toward social justice. This presentation will also show how a layered approach to self-study can encourage deep interrogation of teacher education practice.

Research Aim

Trauma-informed teaching is an essential component of preparing preservice teachers’ education. Trauma-informed teaching requires teacher-educator vulnerability. This study sought to investigate the following question: How can a teacher educator work to create a safe space for students to unpack trauma?

Theoretical Framework

A trauma-informed curriculum supports preservice teachers’ educational development (Perfect et al.,2016). Teacher educators need to work to create spaces where preservice teachers are supported and facilitated.

Methods

This self-study was conducted in a Guiding the Young Child’s Behavior class with four undergraduate preservice teachers and myself, a teacher educator. I role-modeled and supported students in class as they unpacked emotional memories and centered guidance strategies. Data included the teacher educator’s field notes and journal, as well as correspondence with a critical friend. Data was coded using the constant comparative method of analysis (Merriam, 2009).

Findings

This study found that the process of supporting preservice teachers as they unpacked childhood trauma was filled with barriers. I found that I struggled with role-modeling trauma and balancing my identities. In my journal, I wrote, “It is hard to share the painful memories of my childhood. It brings back painful feelings I am not ready for” (Journal, Fall 2023).

I processed my feelings by receiving support from a critical friend. She wrote, “You only need to share enough to get them started. You can then focus on listening and asking questions. You cannot center yourself or your identities. (Correspondence, fall 2023).” As we continued through the semester, sharing to open up the conversation and listening created a space for students to begin unpacking their trauma.

Relevance to the Conference

The study is relevant because it documents my struggles and barriers as I worked to create a space for trauma-informed teaching and productive strategies for quality teaching.

Teacher education plays an important role in preparing teachers for active participation in knowledge generation for their profession. In developing quality education within teacher education, we draw on art-based methods to create humanizing and dialogic spaces that encourage students to pursue their own lines of inquiry in our course on action research.

We are a team of four teacher educators at the University of Iceland infusing art-based methods in an action research course to enrich the learning experience of students, emphasizing empowerment and creativity to reveal dynamic patterns, and encourage the co-construction of students’ living educational theories.

The purpose of the study is how we as educators empower students to theorize their practice. The aim of the study is to explore how art-based methods in different modules of our course encourage students to co-construct their living educational theories.

Data were collected through spring semester 2023 (from January through May) and includes students’ art-based artifacts, research report and self-reflection on their research process, ticket out of the classroom, our research journals and recordings of preparation and analytical meetings.

The findings indicate that applying art-based methods disrupts students' presumptions about research. It increases students’ awareness of their potential as researchers and facilitates new and often deeper and unexpected perspectives on the value of researching own practice. We argue, that using self-study to explore living moments within our practice we identify how art-based methods allow students to develop the professional courage to articulate and reposition themselves towards knowledge generation.

This research project is relevant to the conference theme and specific strand - characteristics of quality teaching. It informs how using art-based methods as a pedagogy creates a structure for providing students with opportunities for developing their living educational theories. Thus, adds a piece in the puzzle of what qualifies as quality teaching.

Self-study, particularly through collaborative practitioner inquiry, offers teacher educators a meaningful form of professional learning by allowing them to investigate their practices while engaging with educational praxis—an intentional, morally guided enactment of theory (Kemmis & Smith, 2008). Given limited opportunities for formal learning opportunities for teacher educators, self-study of teacher education practices (S-STEP) provides a pathway for continuous development and critical reflection.

Research aim: To examine an ongoing collaborative practitioner inquiry - focusing on the democratisation of physical education teacher education (PETE) - involving four teacher educators who currently work in Canada and Australia.

Theoretical framework: Educational praxis (Kemmis & Smith, 2008) provides a foundation for examining how we, teacher educators, can bridge theory and practice to promote democratisation within our teaching contexts.

Methods: Over two years, we engaged in a collaborative practitioner inquiry to examine our experiences. Data included individual reflections on relevant topics (e.g. our positionalities, our personal definitions of democratic education), and group meetings. Analysis was primarily inductive, whereby codes and themes were identified within the data.

Findings: Collaborative and dialogic processes provided an enriching space for sense-making of concepts and actions associated with democratising PETE. Although we did not arrive at a point where we felt we had found ‘the’ answers to our problems of practice, we felt we engaged in a sustainable form of professional learning that addressed challenges we were facing in our respective practices. Our process and focus on democratising PETE helped us to better enable educational praxis and navigate ways to address broader societal issues in our classes.

This research offers insight into the value of collaborative practitioner inquiry for the professional learning of teacher educators, while also offering suggestions for ways that teacher educators can work toward understanding and enacting democratisation in their classes.

In the first semester of 2024, the course program for the English Language and Literature major at the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil) was updated. The present work is a self-study that critically analyzes the teaching practices carried out at the first offering of the mandatory subject “Comprehension and Production of Written Texts in English”. More specifically, the focus is on discussing the assessment methods that were carried out, as well as the pedagogical diagnosis they were able to reveal, by having the students' feedback as the main data source. The assessment method for the subject was divided into two fronts, simultaneous and continuous: one, aiming to work on reading skills (written comprehension), was developed from expository-dialogue classes, guided readings, and pedagogical practices, mostly carried out in groups; the other, aiming to work on writing skills (written production), was developed in three blocks, each with a writing proposal that was first produced by each student, then read and commented on by the professor, and, finally, rewritten by the students. As a result of such evaluative proposals, students' development could be closely monitored throughout the entire semester. At the end of the course, the professor asked for anonymous feedback from the students themselves, through an electronic form, and the results showed how important this continuous evaluation was during their learning process, as well as highlighted the relevance of teaching practices that can make collective assignments feel personally meaningful to each student. In conclusion, this work serves the discussion of how teachers can create a classroom where each student feels seen and heard, inspiring fruitful reflections upon more inclusive teaching practices in general.

The Centers for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies have proven to be central in federal education institutes. They hold the responsibility of systematizing knowledge that contributes to the promotion of racial equity and education for ethnic-racial relations, with the perspective of overcoming racism, consolidating citizenship. The objective of this work was to share educational experiences, highlighting the context of coordinating the center at IFCE. Methodologically, we based our approach on two fields of biographical research: the (auto)biographical narrative, which allows the subject, through multiple languages, to establish meaning with their own existence; and “escrevivência” (writing life) in which each trajectory carries the community and ancestral history (Evaristo, 2008). An educational experience of a black teacher-researcher who coordinated the center from 2019 to 2021 was narrated. Regarding the theoretical framework, in his experiences, the teacher explains the view on how whiteness produces epistemicide (Carneiro, 2005) through daily demeaning discourses about the knowledge originating from black populations. The teacher narrates the silencing posture of non-black teachers against other black colleagues, aligning with hooks (2017) in highlighting the complicity among oppressors, reinforcing the narcissistic pact of whiteness (Bento, 2002). In the presentation and discussion of the results, we align with Ferreira and Coelho (2019) on the strengthening of affirmative action policies to increase the number of research projects focused on the theme. Through these projects, it becomes possible to disseminate experiences while contributing to the production of scientific knowledge. However, even after the teacher cited one of the reports developed by the IFCE extension pro-rectory, which points out the need for more than one pro-rectory to collaborate for the work to be truly significant, silence remains the policy that prevails among those who hold key positions in the institution. As final considerations, the teacher’s narrative dialogues with Carneiro (2023) about the device of raciality.

The Global Network of Deans of Education (GNDE) is an association of Deans of Education bringing together leaders of teacher education to facilitate cooperation and exchanges of information and knowledge among national and regional associations of Deans of Education, as well as convey the views of teacher educators to various global initiatives and UN agencies. In this roundtable, GNDE members will discuss aspects of the recently published UNESCO (2024) Global Report on Teachers: Adressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession. Selected case studies will be introduced by participating Deans outlining how issues of teacher recruitment and retention; curricula for teacher education; accreditation, scrutiny and inspection of teacher education are being addressed in their contexts. These will be used to facilitate dialogue and interaction amongst attendees which is a key purpose of this roundtable.

Relevant links

https://www.education-deans.org

https://teachertaskforce.org/what-we-do/Knowledge-production-and-dissemination/global-report-teachers