‘Let’s focus on us’: recounting educators’ facilitation practices in improving collaborative commitments of learner-teachers during an action research course

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ABSTRACT This article explores situations for improving the collaborative commitments of a group of learner-teachers undertaking action research projects about their own learning processes in a teacher education setting. The encounters are recounted based on the 16-week experience of educators (the first two authors) while facilitating, guiding, and supporting an action research course offered at a college of education for senior undergraduate learner-teachers in Eritrea in the academic year 2018–2019. We have employed the theory of practice architectures to identify conditions that constituted our facilitation practices. We analysed transcriptions of our practice-based series of discussions and course artefacts, including diary entries, learner-teachers’ action research reports, and interactions on the WhatsApp group page created for the course. Problematizing processes of learning, proactive guidance approaches, and modelling collaborative initiatives were among the facilitation practices that we argue have significantly influenced the collaborative commitments of the learners in their action research projects. We also discuss the implications of our facilitation practices that sought to model the qualitatively loaded terms that constitute the course, i.e. collaboration, action, and research. Some implications for teacher education practices are highlighted.