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.