Directing the Action: Learning to Focus on the Self to Develop My Pedagogy of Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter traces my first decade as a teacher educator within a theoretical framework increasingly informed from theatre literature, particularly the literature of directing and the literature of improvisational theatre. In so doing, I will trace transitions in identity and understanding of professional knowledge that I have experienced in my journey from teacher to teacher educator, from doctoral candidate who received a considerable amount of mentoring into teacher education to assistant professor, from a scholar informed by Donald Sch{ö}n's views on reflective practice to one increasingly informed by literature based in the performing arts, and from a pedagogy of teacher education grounded in prior assumptions gained as a K-12 teacher to a pedagogy of teacher education grounded in trying to develop a principled understanding of teaching and learning. A significant part of how I understand teaching and learning has been informed by careful analysis of major transitions in the various professional roles I have had in education.