Conference Agenda

My presentation will focus on self-study as a tool for the professional development of teacher educators. For the last 12 years I work as an interns’ supervisor during their teaching internship year. I am also a member of a teacher educator's action research workshop that is supported by MOFET (The National Institute for Research and Development in Education) and led by Michal Zellermayer (2019). As part of my participation in the teacher educator's action research workshop, I have been writing a weekly diary journal following each internship workshop session, to be read and discussed by my colleagues in the action research group. In every meeting we discuss the practical and theoretical conceptualizations of the events described in our journals. Through my journal I have developed the kind of self-awareness that is not based solely on reflection, but also on observing the mutual interactions between myself and the social fields of my activity. This process made me reconsider my practice. I developed a passion for writing. I felt that writing stimulated me to deepen and expands my learning and helped me to proceed more accurately in my work with my students. That feeling was supported by the writing of Judy Williams that "journaling as a self-study method helps researchers to keep the focus on the self in a self-study, while also considering the range of contextual factors that influence the process of professional becoming" (Williams, 2021, p.61).

The main issue that bothered me was how I should guide the interns in crossing the boundaries between the academy and the internship schools, in view of the fact that I do not see them in their schools. The interns cope with conflicts in their schools, with pupils, parents and staff. These conflicts lead them to be ambivalent about their decision to become a teacher. My challenge is to help them deal with these conflicts and to maintain their active participance in our workshop and in the internship schools.

In the action research group we were introduced to Cultural-historical-activity theory, a powerful tool for conceptualizing our practice. In my study I particularly focused on the writings of Etienne Wenger (1998/ 2010), who claims that engagement in a social practice is the fundamental process by which we learn and so develop our professional identity. From Wenger I learnt that knowledge is situated within the social practices of a community members, rather than something which exists “out there” in books. Wenger (1998), expresses the connections between two important concepts: participation and reification. Participation consists of the activity; the act of doing something or taking part, and the belonging that is established through connecting with other participants. Reification is the expression of knowledge though concrete artifacts, such as forms, symbols, stories, and concepts. These two concepts enabled me to discover the value of my practice and better understand how I can empower the intern’s participation in my workshop and their commitment to their school teaching. My self-study helped me identify the actions I take for reification and how they contribute to the participation of the interns in the workshop. I learnt that I tend to draw on my interns’ practical challenges. I try to strengthen their affiliation to the school by making them more aware of its culture and agenda. We go through problem-solving processes regarding administrative school demands. I urge them to initiate meaningful communication with their mentors and suggest that they rely more on horizontal collegial relationships with other schoolteachers. While doing so, I use reification. In my presentation I will demonstrate the acts of reification that I initiated and interns responses to them.

Research on the development of research capacity for teacher educators is limited and mixed. Kelchtermans et al. (2018) argue based on their study of teacher educators from Belgium, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, and the USA that professional development (PD) for teacher educators should emphasize real research activities. However, a recent study in Israel (Guberman & Zuzovsky, 2022) found that in research capacity development among teacher educators, “the unintended result was the separation of teaching from research” (p. 369). In Kazakhstan, scholars have documented efforts and challenges at transforming research and publication capacity over the past thirty years in national policy and institutional practice among university science professors and students (Kuzhabekova, 2022) and schoolteachers (Ayubayeva & McLaughlin, 2023), but not teacher educators to date.

Along with research reform in higher education, the Kazakhstani government has actively supported reform in STEM education. Moreover, as part of trilingual education reforms, the English language is viewed as a science language that facilitates integration into the global economy, and STEM subjects are to be taught through the English language. However, recent research shows that STEM teachers neither display high-quality or innovative skills in lesson planning and implementation of STEM (Goodman et al., 2023), nor are fully ready to teach STEM subjects in English (Manan et al., 2023). Whether teacher educators are prepared to support future STEM teachers in English in Kazakhstan remains an empirical question.

To address the twin issues of research capacity and pedagogical capacity building of teacher educators in Kazakhstani pedagogical universities, the authors present a study designed to answer the following main research question: How can action research contribute to development of new STEM and multilingual education practices in Kazakhstani teacher education institutions?

The data collection and analysis are framed through the combined lenses of action research and self-efficacy theory. Action research (Pine, 2009) consists of four phases of professional inquiry: 1) planning a change in practice and a means of documenting the change; 2) implementing the change; 3) observe the changes and consequences of the change; 4) reflecting on the process and consequences in order to consider new changes and action research designs. Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997, as cited in Usher et al., 2023) refers to one’s beliefs about their capacity to perform tasks or skills, beliefs which are shaped by internal and external factors. Previous research has found the utility of using action research to promote self-efficacy of pre-service teachers (e.g., Cabaroglu, 2014) and in-service teachers (e.g., Kinskey, 2018) as part of their professional development. However, it has not been documented whether action research may facilitate self-efficacy in Kazakhstani teacher educators for whom both research methods and pedagogical practices may be relatively new.

Education policy reforms in Armenia enacted in 2021 have established a new state curriculum, a new structure and content of continued professional development (CPD) process which has a mandatory and voluntary options, and a qualification ranking system. These reforms have incorporated the notion of the ‘teacher as a researcher’ into the educational discourse in Armenia. This study examines how the notion of ‘teacher-researcher’ is conceptualised in the new education policy documents and how education policymakers plan to operationalise that concept.

Lawrence Stenhouse (1975), who is credited for developing the concept of teacher as researcher, asks teachers to engage in a ‘process model’ of curriculum innovation where professional and curricular development become the same enterprise. Stenhouse’s seminal conception of a ‘researching teacher’ will inform our examination of the Armenian education reforms. The central principle in Stenhouse’s work in curriculum development and research is his view of teachers as practitioners who, like artists, can improve their art through the practice of that art and whose professional judgment and imagination are strengthened by careful scrutiny of themselves and other artists at work. Curriculum development is a way of focusing the teacher’s inquiry in an experimental manner on important problems in teaching and learning; research is the process of inquiry by which teachers analyse and learn from practice. In Stenhouse's world, the right to play a part in the criticism and construction of professional knowledge is returned to the teacher, and students are persuaded to accept some responsibility for the authority of their knowing and their right to know.

Countries that have succeeded in making teaching an attractive profession have often done so not just through pay, but by raising the status of teaching, offering real career prospects, and giving teachers responsibility as professionals and leaders of reform. This requires teacher education that helps teachers become innovators and researchers in education, not just ‘deliverers’ of a curriculum (Schleicher, 2011). However, teacher research by itself is not enough to improve education, a more reflective and interpretive stance is required to enhance teacher professionalism (Leeman and Wardekker (2014), together with regaining a space for professional judgment (Biesta, 2015).

The most successful countries educationally make teaching an attractive, high-status profession and provide training for teachers to become educational innovators and researchers who have responsibility for reform. There is a need for professionalism in teaching and the professionalisation process by which one becomes a professional. Teacher research is an important element of both processes (Hollingsworth, 1992).

The lens that this research is looking at teachers and their professionalism is different from the “what works”, agenda that is to say, telling teachers what to do (e.g., Hattie, 2008). “What works” or evidence-based education limits the opportunities for educational practitioners to make judgments in a way that is sensitive to and relevant to their own contextualised settings (Biesta, 2007). Therefore, the lens that we look at in this research deals with teacher professionalism including its core elements such as agency and autonomy so that teachers are seen as content developers, creators, researchers, and artists (Stenhouse, 1975, 1983, 1985; Ruduck, 1988; Eisner, 1975a, b).

The research questions are as follows:

1. How is the concept of ‘teacher as a researcher’ conceptualised in education policy documents?
2. How Armenian educational policies are in line with European policy trends regarding teacher as a researcher concept?
3. How do the policy makers see the concept and its operationalisation?