Abstract:
New teachers face incredible challenges, and often alone, forcing nearly half of all newly
hired teachers to leave the profession within their first five years (Darling-Hammond, 1997). As
teacher educators, we believe one of the key ingredients in teacher education is self-study of
one’s teaching practices with systematic collegial support. We have each witnessed and
researched the power of the self-study tool for teachers’ professional development in the
programs we have directed (Freese, 1999; Kosnik & Beck, 2000; Samaras, 2002). In each of our
programs, students are expected to reflect regularly on their teaching and their students’ learning
through journals, action research projects, related life histories, evolving philosophies of
education, and ongoing quarterly and semester self-evaluations. Some students engage in
systematic self-study in a final master’s paper or portfolio.
Zeichner wrote that “the birth of the self-study in teacher education movement around
1990 has been probably the single most significant development ever in the field of teacher
education research” (Zeichner, 1999, p. 8). Although there have been numerous writings about
self-study for teacher educators (Cole, Elijah, & Knowles, 1998; Hamilton, Pinnegar, Russell,
Loughran, & LaBoskey, 1998; Kosnik, Beck, Freese, & Samaras, 2005), little attention has been
given to what self-study can do to support new teachers. In this article, we discuss what teachers
need to know about self-study and then offer three examples of teacher self-study and the
difference it made for the teachers and their students.
