On Deconstructing Folk Theory While Developing as a Teacher Educator: A Disorienting Transition as a Reorienting Opportunity

Abstract

Through a reflexive process of examining data and synthesizing findings from 11 previously conducted self-studies, this book chapter presents a metanarrative that details pivotal features of my professional learning and development as a former classroom teacher making the transition to teacher educator. Specifically this chapter describes how my personal professional journey involved several transformational `turns' that deeply impacted on my developing identity and practice as a teacher educator over the course of the last 10 years. These are discussed in terms of taking a reflective turn, an epistemological turn, an ideological turn, and an instructional turn. By situating the narrative in a cultural psychology theoretical framework, this chapter focuses on explaining what prompted each of the turns, and why they were significant in my process of becoming a teacher educator.