Critical Friends Research Articles

Using the metaphor of orchestration to make sense of facilitating teacher educator professional development

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research was to examine the ways that a metaphor could help describe and make sense of the facilitation practices of a teacher educator who collaborated in a self-study of teacher education practice project with colleagues in Norway, and an international critical friend. Our research question was: ‘How does the metaphor of orchestration offer an understanding and elaboration of the complex and dynamic processes of facilitating teacher educator professional development through self-study of teacher education practices?’ Data generation involved three layers composed of reflective diaries written troughout and at the end of the data generation, and audio records of pair and group meetings. The metaphor of orchestration provided insight into the ways the facilitator initiated and tried to steer dynamic and uncontrollable teaching and research practices while providing some concrete examples of how metaphors might be manifested in the practices of facilitators of professional development.

Uncovering missing links in collegial learning conversations

This article is the result of an international collaboration between two academics who work closely with local schools as critical friends, each in their own PLC setting. This exploratory study aims to apply an analytical model in order to illustrate possibilities and clarify silences or missing links in collegial learning conversations. The analytical model is applied to analyse collegial learning conversations from two PLC settings, along with collegial conversations between the two researchers. The analysis was guided by three core considerations: What? Why? How? Two purposely selected transcripts of conversations with two separate PLCs, along with anecdotal notes from our conversations as research colleagues, provided the base for analysis. Findings generated by the application of the analytical model indicated that teachers’ PLC conversations were most explicit in relation to identifying what elements of practice to improve and how to improve teaching and learning, rather than articulating why change initiatives to develop professional knowledge were needed or on what basis they were chosen. In turn, this prompted the researchers to become more aware of ‘why’ considerations in their own work as researchers.

The (im)possibilities of praxis in online health and physical education teacher education

Over the past three decades, a body of research has highlighted the benefits and challenges of what might collectively be referred to as critical pedagogical approaches to Health and Physical Education Teacher Education (HPETE). This research shows that praxis facilitated through critical pedagogies can challenge dominant accountability regimes in HPETE, by animating the discourse of democracy and interrogating and denaturalizing the conditions of oppression. The aim of this study was to explore the (im)possibilities of praxis when the lead author attempted to transition to online teaching. Theoretically, we are guided by the work of bell hooks, and specifically her ‘engaged pedagogy’. Participatory action research framed this study. Participants included the lead author (a teacher educator), a critical friend, and two additional teacher educators. Data collected included: (a) lead researcher observations; (b) collaborative group meetings between the lead author and the two other teacher educators; (c) meetings between the lead author and the critical friend; (d) teacher educator focus group; and (e) artefacts. Findings are discussed under two themes. First, building relationships as a foundation to cultivating a learning community; this theme relates to the challenges and facilitators to getting to know our ‘faceless students’ and building an interactive relationship with them in an online environment. The second theme constructed from the data was commitment to a process of self-actualization that promotes teachers’ and students’ wellbeing; under this theme we describe and interrogate how mutual participation, vulnerability and risk taking were cultivated in challenging university and pedagogical contexts.

Better Together: The Role of Critical Friendship in Empowering Early Career Academics

Starting a career in academia is often fraught with uncertainty, turbulence, and isolation, as aspiring professors manage multiple, often contract-based roles in order to advance their curriculum vitae and secure a livelihood. In this research study, we use narrative inquiry to illuminate the role our critical friendship has played in our academic experience. Turning to the ethic of care (Noddings, 2006) as a theoretical and conceptual framework, we reveal to ourselves, and to the academic landscape, the common themes that contextualize academia for emerging scholars, including seeking employment, managing our roles as graduate students, dealing with tensions in the workplace, and managing the logistics of personal life events as they pertain to the workplace. The ethic of care was steeped into the continued development of each cyclical phase of our critical friendship (Wideman-Johnston & Brewer, 2014). Furthermore, our critical friendship provided empowerment, an overarching theme in our data, as we engaged with the joys and pains of being emerging academics through continued unguarded conversations (Baskerville & Goldblatt, 2009; Wideman-Johnston & Brewer, 2014). As our critical friendship grew more trusting and empowering, the fulfillment of “natural care” (Noddings, 2006) was realized. We share our findings to offer a new way forward, whereby authentic critical friendships provide the care necessary to empowering emerging academics. 
 Keywords: Critical friendship; emerging academic; narrative inquiry; ethic of care; incivility; precarious academic.

Building leadership capacity in school leadership groups: an action research project

ABSTRACT This research study focuses on school leadership groups taking part in an action research project (AR project) within schools in a Norwegian municipality. The study aims to show and discuss how action research (AR) adopted in school change can help build collective leadership capacity in school leadership groups. Combined with the theory of expansive learning, the theories of critical participatory action research and practice architectures frame the study. The study identified two essential actions for building leadership capacity in school leadership groups: performing an empirical and historical analysis of the problem space worked on and conducting collective reflections regarding their experiences in the development work process. Furthermore, the study shows how external leadership supervisors can contribute as critical friends in ways that may be significant for capacity building in school leadership groups. The study concludes with two implications related to collective capacity building for school leadership groups and one methodological implication for performing action research.

Identifying learning in a coaching community of practice: a collaborative self-study

Collaboration through coaching communities of practice (CCoPs) has been proposed as a means to support coaches’ learning (Culver & Trudel, 2006, p. 5). Building on earlier research that used a value creation framework (VCF) to document the “individual and collective benefits” that can accrue from participation in a CCoP (Bertram et al., 2017, p. 289), this paper explores the experiences of two coach-researchers coaching a university Gaelic football team for two seasons. During this time we reflected on our coaching actions and developed a greater understanding of how participation in a CCoP supported our practice. Data generation included the completion of individual and collaborative reflections, and engagement with critical friends. Each coach perceived that learning had occurred, but in different ways due to differing levels of prior experience. This longitudinal research provides evidence of the potential for a CCoP to help coaches to learn about their practice while developing their expertise informally and meaningfully. It extends existing research on how coaches learn in non-elite settings, and illustrates how the most recent version of the VCF (Wenger-Trayner et al., 2019) can help to exemplify this learning. In doing so, it highlights the importance of acknowledging the social context of a coach’s learning journey.

Finding Our Way Through a Pandemic: Teaching in Alternate Modes of Delivery

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a dramatic pivot to online learning and has forced teachers to critically re-evaluate teaching strategies. Thus, the questions, framing this self-study were: 1) How will I be able to do the learning activities I normally do in the classroom online including individual work, group activities, debates, and whole class discussions? and 2) How will I be able to pivot my signature lessons to the alternate delivery model? This self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (S-STTEP) builds on previous research to transformtraditionalface-to-face lessons into effective online lessons using alternate modes of delivery. In this paper, Ted shares some of his signature lessons including ice-breakers, critical response questions, discussions, group activities, and jigsaws, utilizing Moodle, Big Blue Button, Padlet, Google Docs, and other online tools. With Georgann’s help as a critical friend, Ted critically analyzed his teaching of Master of Education graduate students through S-STTEP. In addition, he exploredcomparative ethnographic narrative(CEN) as another way of knowing within the S-STTEP space. Data included detailed weekly reflections. In addition, students provided written feedback at the end of each class, and at the end of term through a survey and course evaluation. Ted shared weekly electronic journal reflections and student feedback with Georgann, via email and teleconferences. Then, together Ted and Georgann made meaning from these field texts. The research text evolved fromteacher-to-teacher conversations. Promising pedagogies for synchronous and face to face learning were identified with several signature lessons the focus. Georgann, as Ted’s critical friend helped confirm and verify the most significant results amongst the many interesting reflections made.

Getting There from Here in a Timely and Effective Manner

In this editorial for the latest issue of the journal, the Editor-in-Chief offers some advice to first time authors approaching publication for the first time. In particular, he stresses the need to consider your audience, engage with editors ahead of submission, the facility of critical academic friends and steps to dealing with peer-review in a timely and non-emotive manner. The article continues with a correction and then an overview of the articles contained within the main body of the journal. Following a reminder of the various formats in which authors can contribute work for consideration in future issues. Finally, the editorial closes with a look forward to future regular and special issues, alongside highlighting the various ways readers and potential authors can engage with the journal's wider activities.

Pandemic Pivots: The Impact of a Global Health Crisis on the Dissertation in Practice

Five scholarly practitioners in an educational leadership for social justice doctoral program share their intentional, community-minded pivots during a global pandemic that disrupted their Dissertations in Practice (DiP). Embodying their Ed.D. program’s CPED framework (Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, 2019), the authors, at varying stages in the dissertation process, sought inventive solutions to COVID-19-related challenges that included the development of a new topic and research questions, adjusting study settings and participant pools, and embracing new methodologies to account for virtual-only approaches. Although uncertain how the global health crises would impact their DiP, by fostering a shared sense of community, the authors became critical friends, supporting each other in their personal, professional, and academic lives. Each narrative highlights the potential of oppositional praxis of threading identities of practice, reflection, and research–to respond creatively to the needs of their diverse research communities with compassion, vision, and agility.

Mentoring mechanisms to improve the efficiency Of youth work

The problem of youth passivity is one of the main ones, according to experts who work with youth in Ukraine. Increasing the involvement of young people in the social and economic life of society is a priority of the youth policy of Ukraine.
 These tasks can be implemented more effectively with the introduction of mentoring as the most sensitive to the needs and problems of young people format of interaction. In Ukraine, the term
 “mentoring” is mainly used in social work with children and adolescents from vulnerable categories and in education. At the same time, professionals who work with young people and implement youth policy at the local level use extensively the various forms of mentoring and act on the principles of mentoring.
 But mentoring as long-term relationships with young people is not practised in Ukraine in youth work. It is a long-term relationship that gives a positive effect for a young person - in self-realization, in behaviour, concerning others and the community.
 In Ukraine, the term “mentoring in youth work” is not officially enshrined in any document, and is not actively used, although this term is found in texts about youth work as one of its forms of work with youth at the individual or group level. The United States and Europe have extensive experience in implementing, evaluating, and analyzing youth mentoring programs. The article analyzes the tools of mentoring as a format of effective interaction between mentor and ward, such as the role of mentor (learning consultant, coach, counsellor, information resource, role model, critical friend) in the process of interaction with young people based on US youth experience and developed European countries. The article also analyzes the functions of mentors in building relationships with wards, and areas of mentoring identified based on these functions.
 The analysis of the experience of mentoring helps to raise awareness of professionals working with young people about the mechanisms of building effective relationships with young people and, ultimately, greater inclusion of young people in public life and promote their self-realization.

Taiwanese novice elementary school English teachers’ perceptions of critical friends

ABSTRACT This survey research with follow-up interviews explored sixty-two Taiwanese novice elementary school English teachers’ perceptions of critical friendship models as an avenue for professional development. The major conclusions were drawn. First, these participants had consistent and static perceptions of critical friends as ‘sharing ideas and knowledge’ and ‘supporting each other’. Secondly, external factors such as teaching hours and teaching status affected these novice English teachers’ perceptions of critical friends and their motivation to be involved in this type of professional development activity. Suggestions on implications for practice on critical friendship models as an avenue for professional development were provided in terms of attributes and factors of critical friends as well as extended circles of critical friends.

Negotiating tensions in identity: from physical education teacher educator to academic leader

ABSTRACT Academics in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE), similar to their counterparts in other disciplines, receive little formal preparation when they take on academic leadership positions. Yet such career changes require different skill sets and expose academics to complex challenges of leadership. We (three academics) initiated this study to explore the implications of academic leadership positions for our PETE identities. We wished to unpack the consequences of taking on these leadership roles, or our ‘desire to become more’ and ‘to better understand’ (Ovens, A., & Fletcher, T. (2014). Doing self-study: The art of turning inquiry on yourself. In A. Ovens & T. Fletcher (Eds.), Self-study in physical education teacher education: Exploring the interplay of practice and scholarship (Vol. 13, pp. 3–14). London: Springer, p. 7). This research used a collective self-study methodology and drew on Skype meetings, reflections, critical friend prompts and emails. We present our findings as coming to view identity changes as tensions: bridging between roles; competing identities; identity as stable or malleable; and educator or fiscal manager. Gee’s four identity perspectives including natural, institutional, discursive and affinity are used to unpack these tensions. While challenges associated with our role change persist, collective S-STEP was critical to understanding ourselves, the tensions experienced, and navigating the gaps between PETE and academic leadership.

Facilitation as an Act of Love: A Self-Study of How a Facilitator’s Pedagogy Changed Over Time in the Process of Supporting a Community of Learners

Purpose: This study aims to understand how a facilitator’s pedagogy changed over time in the process of supporting a community of learners to teach using an activist sport approach. Methods: Self-study framed this four-semester research project. Participants included the lead author, two critical friends, 10 preservice teachers, and 110 youth. Data collected included lead researcher’s field notes and debriefing meetings between the lead author and the two critical friends. Results: Findings identified the facilitator’s: (a) struggles to create a democratic learning space in a university context, (b) discomfort with giving up control and allowing for various degrees of preservice teachers’ engagement, and (c) negotiation of feeling of saudade (the love that remains after someone is gone) while creating a group identity. Discussion/Conclusion: A pedagogy of facilitation as an act of love offers genuine possibilities for decolonizing and reinventing reality by naming, critiquing, and challenging/negotiating forms of oppression.

Learning to Breathe Again: Found Poems and Critical Friendship as Methodological Tools in Self-Study of Teaching Practices

ABSTRACT This self-study demonstrates how crafting found poems and critical friendship facilitated unstitching and (re)stitching narrative understanding for purposes of learning from pedagogy for improving practice. Findings extend existing literature by documenting how composing found poems from previous, dissertation research is a tool for inquiry, analysis, and representation for meaning-making within self-study methodology. Two sets of artifacts included the researchers’ dissertations framed as composite stories and drafts of found poems; these data were positioned and repositioned, woven as artifacts, field texts, and representations. We inquired how we might reposition ourselves to hear the multivoicedness of our temporal, personal-professional, and conceptual (con)texts. We asked, how might we utilize a familiar teaching practice to inquire into our lived experiences? How might found poems be positioned as both a methodological tool for analyzing completed research and representing meaning-making from deeply constructed narrative experiences? Found poetry enabled the researchers to evoke the fourth and fifth envisionment-building stances (Langer, 2011a), enabling them to ‘step back’ and reconsider what they know, and to develop deeper understandings that disrupted and transformed understanding. Through self-study with a critical friend, the poem as meaning-making event unfolded before us, weaving new threads, in the space of new tensions, resulting in new understandings. Analyzing and representing data through the process of composing found poems with a critical friend generates the vulnerable-confident; self-other; vision-revision; reading-composing; critiquing-discovering; powerful-empowering; learning-teaching; textual-intertextual; aesthetic-efferent; three-dimensional spaces for ongoing transformation where silent voices are liberated and heard through collaborative self-study methodology.

Being a fish inside and outside the waters of self-study

ABSTRACT Opinions on the value of self-study in teacher education are fierce. Utilising our relative perspectives as insider and outsider to this methodological approach to researching one’s own teaching, the authors promote the value of self-study while simultaneously questioning certain assumptions associated with how it is typically enacted. To engage in this critique, Jason steps back from his understanding of self-study by writing analytical notes on his past, as a novice self-study researcher, and on his present, attempting to teach self-study to others, that together with his regular conversations with Oren yield an autoethnography of discontent. Analysis of this autoethnography highlights certain problematic issues with self-study, and suggests reframing its key tenets of being self-focused, seeking external validation through relationality and critical friendship, and focusing on improvement. Making these broad allowances will contribute to a more robust and inclusive paradigm, enabling self-study practitioners to professionally develop as teacher educators and researchers, and to thrive as certain kinds of fish in the academic waters.

Fostering a Critical Friendship between a Program Coordinator and an Online Adjunct to Achieve Reciprocal Mentoring

ABSTRACT In this article we explore how engaging in collaborative self-study resulted in a reciprocal mentorship platform for a mathematics specialist program coordinator and online adjunct instructor. Through the use of our mutually developed norms and a reflective dialogue protocol we examined how we were able to bridge our contexts so that we could equally engage in a graduate mathematics teacher leadership course that only one was teaching. Employing a self-study methodology centered on dialogue, we co-planned and designed learning opportunities in which data was collected using synchronous online tools, agendas, notes and audio recordings from our weekly phone conversations. This ultimately influenced our understanding of what it takes to communicate clearly when conducting a self-study that spans both physical distance, heirarchial rank, and context. The pivotal learning experiences through the implementation of a reflective protocol and collaborative norms will provide other teacher educators who engage in self-study with tools to support their own learning, advance their practice, and promote critical reflection. This study also adds to the literature on adjunct professors in both higher education and self-study.

Kertarajasa Buddhist College Inter-religious Learning from the Perspective of Self-Study of Teaching Practice

Using the self-study of teaching practice (S-STP), this research examines the process of inter-religious learning at Kertarajasa Buddhist College. The S-STP applied to this study is a potential alternative to answer many teaching challenges that were left out by other educational research approaches. Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the courses of inter-religious learning were offered online. These courses were designed and taught by the first author who is a non-Buddhist teacher-educator works in a Buddhist teaching institution. The courses were delivered using various online learning tools, assisted with scaffold learning, and included guest lectures. In the learning process, students were given opportunity to interact with the instructor and guest lectures. The guest lectures are liyan (the others) and subject-matter experts. The interactions mean to develop students’ awareness of other religious communities and the room for them to experience the religious moderation. This study reveals that the S-STP provides scientific method for the instructor to study own teaching practices. The S-STP as a research approach enables the course instructor to reflect on opportunities and challenges on teaching. The research approach also enables the instructor to self-assess the professional development as a teacher-educator. Moreover, feedback from the critical friend unveiled strengths and weaknesses of the teaching that were possible unseen by the instructor.

“I’m valuing the journey as much as the destination”: Exploring shared reflection to support novice coach learning

This paper provides an insight into the trajectory of coach learning over two seasons through a shared reflective process. It describes how a collaborative process in a volunteer, amateur coach setting was supported and sustained. The coach-researchers had coached a university sports team together for two years prior to formalising the collaborative process. They adopted a collaborative self-study methodology to support and structure their reflective practice and learning throughout the study. Weekly individual and collaborative reflections were written by both coaches. They engaged with a critical friend to offer alternative perspectives on their reflections, and they planned their coaching strategies together. This paper illustrates the collaborative reflective process that supported the trajectory of the novice coach learning. This journey is represented using Fuller’s concern based model to map concern for self, concern for the task and concern for the learners. The reflective process and learning trajectory are outlined to exemplify the value of informal collaborative reflection to support coach learning. Implications are outlined for shared reflective practice to enhance learning opportunities for other coaching partners and small groups or in other educational domains.

A figura do “amigo crítico” no desenvolvimento de culturas de autoavaliação e melhoria de escolas

Resumo Recorrendo ao conceito de “amigo crítico”, foi realizado um estudo que teve por objetivos identificar e caracterizar a importância que é atribuída à figura do “amigo crítico” como agente promotor de melhoria escolar. Os dados foram recolhidos em três escolas de Educação Básica envolvidas em um projeto de autoavaliação, apoiado por um assessor externo, por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas aos gestores e de aplicação de um questionário aos elementos das comissões de autoavaliação. A análise de conteúdo das respostas aponta para um reconhecimento da ação do “amigo crítico”, nomeadamente por trazer uma visão crítica das situações e por promover oportunidades de refletir e de debater decisões que apoiam mudanças. O estudo permitiu concluir que as assessorias desenvolvidas na lógica do “amigo crítico” podem fortalecer culturas de autoavaliação de escolas geradoras de melhorias e oportunidades de construção de comunidades de aprendizagem transformacionais.

‘We united to defend ourselves and face our struggles’: nurturing a physical education teachers’ community of practice in a precarious context

ABSTRACT Background: Physical Education (PE) teachers around the world often struggle with different experiences of precarity such as job insecurity, high workloads, lack of infrastructure in schools, and others. Communities of practice (CoP) are recognised as an important democratic strategy for teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). A democratic CoP seeks to promote spaces where teachers can empower themselves by taking risks and collectively struggle to overcome their challenges. The majority of studies regarding CoPs and PE have, however, been conducted in privileged, global north countries with PE teachers who were predominantly white and middle-class. Much less attention has been paid to critically examining PE-CoPs with teachers in precarious contexts in the global south countries. Purpose: This study investigated the process of nurturing a democratic PE-CoP in a precarious, Brazilian school context. Methods: Ethnography and action research framed this 2-semester study. Participants included six PE teachers, a facilitator, and a critical friend. Data collection/analysis: Data sources included: (a) lead researcher observations collected as field notes; (b) weekly teachers’ meetings and researchers’ meetings; and (c) teachers’ interviews. Data were analysed using an inductive and iterative thematic process. Findings: Results indicated the development of a democratic PE-CoP in a precarious situation through an ongoing and dynamic progression where teachers built their own practice to overcome the marginalisation of PE and were supported to exist. In this untenable context, the nurturing of a democratic CoP focused on teachers’ survival and ‘defending themselves’ while learning to struggle together to change their micro-context. Implications: Nurturing a democratic CoP created a space for the negotiation of what was meaningful and useful for these teachers in their reality. In these contexts, we suggest that teachers’ CPD must include not only content knowledge but also the quest for better professional conditions.