My presentation will focus on self-study as a tool for the professional development of teacher educators. For the last 12 years I work as an interns’ supervisor during their teaching internship year. I am also a member of a teacher educator's action research workshop that is supported by MOFET (The National Institute for Research and Development in Education) and led by Michal Zellermayer (2019). As part of my participation in the teacher educator's action research workshop, I have been writing a weekly diary journal following each internship workshop session, to be read and discussed by my colleagues in the action research group. In every meeting we discuss the practical and theoretical conceptualizations of the events described in our journals. Through my journal I have developed the kind of self-awareness that is not based solely on reflection, but also on observing the mutual interactions between myself and the social fields of my activity. This process made me reconsider my practice. I developed a passion for writing. I felt that writing stimulated me to deepen and expands my learning and helped me to proceed more accurately in my work with my students. That feeling was supported by the writing of Judy Williams that "journaling as a self-study method helps researchers to keep the focus on the self in a self-study, while also considering the range of contextual factors that influence the process of professional becoming" (Williams, 2021, p.61). 

The main issue that bothered me was how I should guide the interns in crossing the boundaries between the academy and the internship schools, in view of the fact that I do not see them in their schools. The interns cope with conflicts in their schools, with pupils, parents and staff. These conflicts lead them to be ambivalent about their decision to become a teacher. My challenge is to help them deal with these conflicts and to maintain their active participance in our workshop and in the internship schools.

In the action research group we were introduced to Cultural-historical-activity theory, a powerful tool for conceptualizing our practice. In my study I particularly focused on the writings of Etienne Wenger (1998/ 2010), who claims that engagement in a social practice is the fundamental process by which we learn and so develop our professional identity. From Wenger I learnt that knowledge is situated within the social practices of a community members, rather than something which exists “out there” in books. Wenger (1998), expresses the connections between two important concepts: participation and reification. Participation consists of the activity; the act of doing something or taking part, and the belonging that is established through connecting with other participants. Reification is the expression of knowledge though concrete artifacts, such as forms, symbols, stories, and concepts. These two concepts enabled me to discover the value of my practice and better understand how I can empower the intern’s participation in my workshop and their commitment to their school teaching. My self-study helped me identify the actions I take for reification and how they contribute to the participation of the interns in the workshop. I learnt that I tend to draw on my interns’ practical challenges. I try to strengthen their affiliation to the school by making them more aware of its culture and agenda. We go through problem-solving processes regarding administrative school demands. I urge them to initiate meaningful communication with their mentors and suggest that they rely more on horizontal collegial relationships with other schoolteachers. While doing so, I use reification. In my presentation I will demonstrate the acts of reification that I initiated and interns responses to them.

Participants include me and the interns who work in high schools around the country: 3 men and 10 women who are 25-56 years old. For 6 of them this is a second career. This self-study integrates recurring cycles of action and reflection, theory and practice, to solve authentic problems and promote personal growth (Zellermayer, 2019). For this research I used a qualitative research approach and research data collecting tools: 1. The diary journal, in which I report and reflect on activities that take place in the internship workshop and on the conversations that we in these sessions as well as in individual meetings with specific interns. 2 . Reflective journals written by interns that describe events in their work 3 . WhatsApp interactions with individuals interns and groups, containing dilemmas and instructions. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the college. From the data collected with the above tools, three research questions emerged: 1. How should I guide the interns in crossing the boundaries between the academy and the internship school, in view of the fact that I do not see them in their schools? 2. How can I reconceptualize my practice so that it becomes more coherent to me and to other academic audiences? 3. Which self-development circles did my action research lead to?

The present study makes visible the dialectics between reification and participation and how it became a support system for my students while crossing the boundaries between the academy and the internship schools. The self-study action research succeeded in promoting my understanding of the practices that enhance interns’ commitment to their internship schools and their engagement in the internship workshop. Writing the diary journal allowed me to better understand my role and responsibilities to my interns and how I can improve my practice. In my writing I often relate to the theoretical discussions that takes place in the action research community with illustrations from my own work. From my diary journal, I learnt that I use reification such as poems and videos that can help the interns develop a more positive attitude to their internship. I noticed that they take advantage of the tools that are available for them at their schools and in their communities. As their commitment to the school grows they expand their participation in the school’s activities: initiate interactions with parents, monitor matriculation exams. My purpose is to share insights and understandings from my self-study with other teacher educators interested in interns’ supervision, as well as to commend self-study as an important tool for teacher educators’ professional development. I began by sharing my diary journal with the other participants of my action research group who provided helpful response. As I progressed in my study, I expanded my audience: I shared my study with my college colleagues who responded by forming a community of practice where the interns’ needs were discussed and then with colleagues from other teacher education colleges in Israel. These presentations became the three cycles of my professional learning. I feel ready now to share this professional learning process with an international audience.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice; learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of Practice and social learning systems: The Career of a concept. In: C. Blackmore (Ed), Social learning systems and communities of practice. Springer (pp. 179-198). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-133-2_11 Williams, J (2021). Journal writing as a self-study method: Teacher educator professional learning and self-understanding. In J. Kitchen (Ed.), Writing as a method for the self-study of practice, (pp. 61-76).https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2498-8_4. Zellermayer, M. (2019). Teacher research: From Kurt Lewin to self-study and collaborative learning communities. Dapim, 71, 21-54.