College of Education and Human Development
Permanent URI for this community
This community contains materials created by the faculty, students, and staff of College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University.
Browse
Browsing College of Education and Human Development by Author "Kosnik, Clare"
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Beginning with Trusted Friends: Venturing Out to Work Collaboratively in Our Institutions(2006) Kosnik, Clare; Freese, Anne; Samaras, Anastasia P.Aself-study community encourages the sharing of experiences and new insights, both positive and negative. The building of knowledge develops through dialogue in a personal-constructivist-collaborative approach (Beck, Freese, & Kosnik, 2004). Loughran and Northfield (1998) note that the individual perspective may be a significant paradox in self-study terminology. The term, self-study, suggests that the individual is the focus of the study, yet self-study is a collective task (Elijah, 2004; Ham & Kane, 2004). Samaras & Freese (2006) write of this paradox of self-study as both personal and interpersonal. It is as if the community leads (Vygotsky, 1978) or completes (Newman & Holzman, 1993) development. Collaboration does not mean harmony. Interactions may cause the individual to question his/her position or those of others as they develop new understandings. Beyond the cognitive level, self-study scholars have the emotional support of self-study colleagues who are invested in improving learning and teaching through selfstudy. Kosnik, Beck, and Freese (2004) state that an inclusive and equitable self-study community fosters personal and professional growth which impacts program development. LaBoskey (2004) affirms the need for a supportive and interactive community in the knowledge building process. This paper addresses the impact of our collaborative experiences in the self-study community. We discuss how it has supported and influenced our personal and professional thinking as well as our work in our home institutions.Item Searching for Integrity in our Research and Practice(2002) Kosnik, Clare; Freese, Anne; Samaras, Anastasia P.We are three teacher educators practicing selfstudy and reflecting on its value to our students while also exchanging our reflections with each other. As with artists who come together in schools of study in both individual and joint exploration, we hope that our collaborative inquiry will shed new light on our thinking and research in teacher education program reform efforts. Our intimacy and collaborative exchanges allowed us each to think more deeply about the personal as part of a community of self-study scholars. We are at a critical point in our careers where we strive for ethical and moral integrity in our research to practice efforts as we reflect and study our own teaching to better serve as a role model to our students. For a decade we have redesigned our teacher education programs. Although we do not work in the same university, each of us has tried to develop our research agenda based on a certain set of beliefs. To what degree has our research made a difference in our students’ learning? What challenges and changes are similar and dissimilar across our programs? Each of us is involved in teaching, administration, selfstudy, and the development of innovative programs. How have we changed our teaching to be congruent with the program goals?Item Self-Study Supports New Teachers’ Professional Development(2005) Samaras, Anastasia P.; Beck, Clive; Freese, Anne; Kosnik, ClareNew 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.