Initiatives have been taken in various countries to support teacher educators in studying their own practices (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2015). Studies into these initiatives offer insights into productive ways of supporting teacher educators as researchers of their own practice and also possible pitfalls in the process. This paper introduces a project conducted in The Netherlands with a small group of volunteer teacher educators, “Teacher educators study their own practices”. The project began in 2007 and was carried out twice. The project design built on Hoban’s (2007) framework for ‘Creating a Self-study Group’. The project was researched and the results were presented in the form of guidelines for supporting self-study research (Lunenberg, Korthagen, & Zwart, 2010). However, although these guidelines for supporting self-study research now exist, an important question remains: how can we use these guidelines and insights from other studies to further promote self-studies by teacher educators? The authors take up this issue and examine the barriers and opportunities to promoting and sustaining a self-study community of practice through a collaborative re-examination of the guidelines from their different perspectives of project participant, project facilitator, and ‘outsider’ self-study researcher/critical friend. Through collaborative study, we aimed to broaden our own learning about supporting the professional learning and development of teacher educators and contribute to knowledge about how to recognise opportunities and work towards removing obstacles for the growth of self-study research by teacher educators in The Netherlands and elsewhere.

Hoban, G. (2007). Creating a self-study group. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. April 9-13. Lunenberg, M.L., Korthagen, F. & Zwart, R.C. (2010).Critical issues in supporting self-study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(6), 1280-1289. Vanassche, E. & Kelchtermans, G. (2015). Facilitating self-study of teacher education practices: toward a pedagogy of teacher educator professional development, Professional Development in Education. DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2014.986813