Laura Brudvik

Date of Award

January 2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

First Advisor

Bonni Gourneau

Abstract

Novice teacher educators can provide valuable insight into the question of professional identity and how it informs practice. Collaboration through interviews using self-study highlight how the experiences of their novice teacher educator years contribute to their identities. The self-study method provides an integrative approach, bridging research and practice, with the goal of ultimately improving practice. This self-study identifies specific qualities possessed by teacher educators who are former classroom teachers, and analyzes those qualities to determine possible benefits to teacher education. A corollary study is a self-study of my personal construction of professional identity as a novice teacher educator. The self-study method provides a direct avenue from which to explore possible answers to the questions; how have my unique experiences shaped my professional identity, and how do those experiences contribute to the well-being of my students and colleagues, and how do lived experiences of the classroom teacher shape identity as a teacher educator? Most importantly, how can these lived experiences help rather than hinder to enrich the teacher education program as a whole? Responses are coded and categorized using Wenger’s (1998) Modes of Belonging model. Careful consideration is given to each response, to see how and when the novice teacher educator crafts an identity. By understanding how their identity are defined, it is the researcher's hope that the knowledge gained brings confidence and competence to novice teacher educators.

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