Teacher Learning and Development: The Mirror Maze (Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices)

This series in teacher education, Self-study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP), is designed to capture and portray a range of approaches to se- study of teaching and teacher education practices. In so doing, it is anti- pated that the work of teachers and teacher educators might come to be better understood and valued as the complexity of the work of teaching and teaching about teaching is articulated and described for others. The series was initiated in order to complement the International Handbook of Self-study of Teaching and Teacher Education Practices (Loughran et al., 2004) so that the diversity in approaches to self-study could be highlighted for all those involved in the teaching and researching of professional practice. Pinnegar (1998) described self-study as a methodology for studying the s- tings in which professional practice takes place and, as such, suggested that self-study should lead to improvements in teaching and teacher education by uncovering and articulating insights in the processes of teaching and learning. In this way, a clear intention of self-study is that it might ultimately enhance s- dents’learning and teacher and teacher educators’understanding of practice.