Skip to main content
Log in

Supporting the Professional Development of Science Teacher Educators Through Shadowing

  • Published:
International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Despite calls for more attention to the preparation of those who prepare teachers, there have been few examples of institutionally sanctioned and structured learning opportunities created to equip faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to become effective teacher educators. In this paper, we describe a cross-disciplinary and collaborative initiative that involves shadowing of colleagues as a means of supporting the professional learning of science teacher educators. We illustrate the unique affordance of this model and highlight our professional learning across multiple dimensions: cognitive, practical, relational, and emotional. We illustrate how shadowing can support the learning of faculty at different career stages and from different disciplinary backgrounds and entry points to teacher education through a series of vignettes of shadowing in a variety of course contexts. Finally, we offer considerations for the transferability of our model to other institutions and contexts, and how further research conducted in the context of shadowing could help deepen our understanding of the knowledge base of science teacher educators and how this knowledge is developed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abell, S. K., Rogers, M. A. P., Hanuscin, D. L., Lee, M. H., & Gagnon, M. J. (2009). Preparing the next generation of science teacher educators: A model for developing PCK for teaching science teachers. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 20(1), 77–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacharach, N., Heck, T., & Dahlberg, K. (2008). Co-teaching in higher education. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 5(3), 9–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berry, A., & Van Driel, J. H. (2013). Teaching about teaching science: Aims, strategies, and backgrounds of science teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(2), 117–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, A., & Bimrose, J. (2014). Model of learning for career and labour market transitions. Research in Comparative and International Education, 9(3), 270–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cite, S., Lee, E., Menon, D., & Hanuscin, D. (2017) Learning from ‘rookie mistakes’: Critical incidents in developing PCK for teaching teachers. Studying Teacher Education, 13(3), 275–293

  • Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  • Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, M. (2004). Knowledge, narrative and self-study. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. L. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices (pp. 575–600). Dordrecht: Springer.

  • Cochran-Smith, M. (2003). Learning and unlearning: The education of teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19(1), 5–28.

  • Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). Relationships of knowledge and practice: Teacher learning in communities. In G. Griffin (Ed.), Review of research in education (vol. 24, pp. 249–305). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

  • Connelly, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cordie, L. A., Brecke, T., Lin, X., & Wooten, M. C. (2020). Co-teaching in higher education: mentoring as faculty development. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 32(1), 149–158.

    Google Scholar 

  • Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dinkelman, T., Margolis, J., & Sikkenga, K. (2006). From teacher to teacher educator: Experiences, expectations, and expatriation. Studying Teacher Education, 2(1), 5–23.

  • Donovan, D. A., Borda, E. J., Hanley, D. M., & Landel, C. C. (2015). Participation in a multi-institutional curriculum development project changed science faculty knowledge and beliefs about teaching science. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 26(2), 193–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Etkina, E., Gregorcic, B., & Vokos, S. (2017). Organizing physics teacher professional education around productive habit development: A way to meet reform challenges. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 13(1), 010107.

  • Gess-Newsome, J., Southerland, S. A., Johnston, A., & Woodbury, S. (2003). Educational reform, personal practical theories, and dissatisfaction: The anatomy of change in college science teaching. American Educational Research Journal, 40(3), 731–767.

  • Graziano, K. J., & Navarette, L. A. (2012). Co-teacher education classroom: collaboration, comprimise, and creativity. Issues in Teacher Education, 21(1), 109–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grossman, P., Compton, C., Igra, D., Ronfeldt, M., Shahan, E., & Williamson, P. W. (2009). Teaching practice: A cross-professional perspective. Teachers College Record, 111(9), 2055–2100.

  • Henderson, C., & Dancy, M. H. (2007). Barriers to the use of research-based instructional strategies: The influence of both individual and situational characteristics. Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research, 3(2), 1–14.

  • Henderson, C., Beach, A., & Finkelstein, N. (2011). Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM instructional practices: An analytic review of the literature. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48(8), 952–984.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heron, J., & Reason, P. (2006). The practice of co-operative inquiry: Research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ people. Handbook of action research, 2, 144–154.

  • Hognestad, K., & Boe, M. (2016). Studying practices of leading – qualitative shadowing in early childhood research. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal., 24, 592–601.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LaBoskey, V. (2004). The methodology of self-study and theoretical underpinnings. In J. J. Loughran, M. L. Hamilton, V. K. LaBoskey, & T. Russell (Eds.), International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices, vol 2. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp 817–869

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1986). Naturalistic inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Little, J. W. (1990). The persistence of privacy: Autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations. Teachers College Record, 91(4), 509–536.

  • Lock, J., Clancy, T., Lisella, R., Rosenau, P., Ferreira, C., & Rainsbury, J. (2016). The lived experiences of instructors co-teaching in higher education. Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice, 26(1).

  • Loughran, J., & Berry, A. (2005). Modelling by teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education., 21, 193–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lund, T., & Stains, M. (2015). The importance of context: An exploration of factors influencing the adoption of student-centered teaching among chemistry, biology, and physics faculty. International Journal of STEM Education, 2(1), 1–21.

  • Morrison, J. A., Raab, F., & Ingram, D. (2009). Factors influencing elementary and secondary teachers' views on the nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(4), 384–403.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2015). Science teachers' learning: Enhancing opportunities, creating supportive contexts. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

  • Noel, P. (2006). The secret life of teacher educators: Becoming a teacher educator in the learning and skills sector. Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 58, 151–170.

  • Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2018). Teacher educators' professional learning: A literature review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 93–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reichenberg, R., Avissar, G., & Sagee, R. (2015). ‘I owe to my tutor much of my professional development’: looking at the benefits of tutoring as perceived by the tutees. Professional Development in Education, 41(1), 40–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shadle, S., Marker, A., & Earl, B. (2017). Faculty drivers and barriers: Laying the groundwork for undergraduate STEM education reform in academic departments. International Journal of STEM Education, 4(1), 1–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, T. (2006). Self-study through narrative inquiry: Fostering identity in mathematics teacher education. Identities, cultures and learning spaces, 471–478.

  • Strubbe, L. E., Stang, J., Holland, T., Sherman, S. B., & Code, W. J. (2019). Faculty adoption of active learning strategies via paired teaching: conclusions from two science departments. Journal of College Science Teaching, 49(1), 31–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanassche, E., & Kelchtermans, G. (2015). The state of the art in self-study of teacher education practices: A systematic literature review. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47(4), 508–528.

  • Wiebke, H., & Park Rogers, M. (2014). Transition to science teacher educator: Tensions experienced while learning to teach lesson sequencing. Studying Teacher Education, 10(3), 222–238.

  • Williams, J., & Ritter, J. K. (2010). Constructing new professional identities through self-study: From teacher to teacher educator. Professional Development in Education, 36(1–2), 77–92.

  • Wilson, S. M. (2006). Finding a canon and core: Meditations on the preparation of teacher educator-researchers. Journal of Teacher Education, 57, 315–325.

  • Zaragosa, N., Cruz, B. C., & Zaragoza, N. (1998). Team teaching in teacher education: Intra-college partnerships. Teacher Education Quarterly, 53–62.

  • Zeichner, K. (2005). Becoming a teacher educator: A personal perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 117–124.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Deborah Hanuscin.

Appendices

Practical Development

Shadowing also supports practical development that is the enculturation of faculty into particular ways of thinking about and practicing teacher education. For example, this might involve learning to use particular strategies and approaches, as in Debi’s case, or how to adapt existing approaches to new audiences as in Deb’s case.

When I shadowed the elementary science course, I observed the organization of the course around a particular research-based framework that I had not previously used. Rethinking how to approach teaching the course through this framework was one of the most beneficial aspects of the shadowing experience for me. Debi

As a scientist and former high school teacher, I was comfortable teaching the secondary methods course, which I had done for several years. However, I was much less comfortable with the elementary methods course. Observing Whitney helped me understand how to approach similar material (ie. the importance of eliciting preconceptions or helping students navigate the NGSS) with a different student audience. It became clear that, while there were some similarities, there were many differences in how our prospective elementary and secondary teachers approach teaching science. This understanding ultimately informed how I teach my secondary methods courses as well. Deb

Shadowing has afforded many SMATE faculty the opportunity to observe, practice, and develop new pedagogies. These are particularly important as the courses are intended to model the same pedagogical approaches that these future teachers will use with their own students.

Shortly after beginning at Western Washington University, I began to develop a chemistry curriculum for pre-service teachers. After several years of working on this curriculum, I shadowed a physics course in the same series. This experience taught me to think about energy in new ways, particularly using a modeling tool called energy diagrams that the physics curriculum uses. This allowed me to make major changes to the chemistry curriculum, not only inserting the energy diagrams, but applying and extending the ideas from the physics class to the small particle level in the chemistry class. Emily

As we build a common repertoire of tools and strategies, we are simultaneously contributing to greater coherence in the type of instruction our students encounter in our program.

Situating the experience within a course affords understanding practice in ways that are not possible through reading articles, or studying course syllabi, or simply discussing course goals and outcomes out of context. Similar to the experience of prospective teachers in practicum or student teaching placements, shadowing faculty can contextualize their knowledge in the classroom by observing teaching and learning in real time. That is, the structure provides opportunities for highly authentic representations of the practice of science teacher education, as well as for decomposition of that practice with colleagues (Grossman et al., 2009).

Relational Development

Relational development includes our interactions and learning from others, our socialization into the academic culture, and our identity work as teacher educators. Just as pre-service teachers learn best when they are immersed in a community that allows them to develop dispositions, knowledge, and practical skills and share with the community a strong vision of what good teaching entails (Etkina, Gregorcic, & Vokos, 2017), shadowing supported our learning as teacher educators by allowing us to step beyond the norms of privacy and isolation that faculty often experience, and to form a collective vision of effective science teaching and learning within our program.

As we recounted our experiences shadowing/being shadowed, we recognized the importance of the relational dimension of our learning. Successful shadowing depends on trust and the willingness for both faculty members to participate in frank and open discussions about teaching and learning. Shadowing pushes us to reconsider our roles as science teacher educators, but also challenges us to take on new roles as learners. This is illustrated in the experiences of Whitney and Alejandro, who have different disciplinary backgrounds and experiences.

As a marine biologist, not having any formal experience as an educator or awareness of the nuances of working with children made me feel a bit of an impostor. By shadowing Whitney, a former elementary teacher, I gained skills and the reassurance that I am capable of teaching pre-service teachers how to teach science. Not only did I learn pedagogical techniques that pre-service teachers can use in the classroom, but also I now understand their mindset and point of view. I observed Whitney model how to teach lessons for children, and also observed how the experiences of pre-service teachers at SMATE translate into their instruction with children in the schools. Shadowing was successful in my case because Whitney was a gracious, generous, and welcoming mentor. I was able to find my own rhythm: observing and taking notes at times, sharing the scientist’s point of view at other times, offering ideas on activities for the day in some cases, and taking over the class in a few others. I have become a better teacher than I was before I shadowed Whitney. Alejandro

Having Alejandro, a scientist, shadow my elementary science methods course allowed me to recognize how much I draw on my experience as an elementary teacher and how that knowledge is an inherent strength in my teaching. I loved being able to draw on Alejandro’s expertise as a scientist-- which addressed my own weaknesses in subject matter knowledge. However, the clarifying questions he asked in our debriefing sessions made me realize my own “expertise” related to the elementary classroom, and how that was worthwhile to his learning. Whitney

Shadowing experiences were particularly productive when both partners entered the experience with open rapport and a desire to learn from each other. This accounts for many of the benefits cited by shadowing partners such as refined knowledge of their own discipline, new ways to think about pedagogy, and enhanced perspectives of the student experience.

By deprivatizing teaching, shadowing helps build connections between people and courses. Individual faculty members have both shadowed and been shadowed by different colleagues and in different contexts. In this manner, shadowing provides mentoring opportunities and builds collegial relationships. However, these relationships also enable greater understanding and collective action across course contexts to promote the learning of future teachers in our program. This has resulted in continuous improvements to both individual courses and alignment of the curriculum across different courses through both teaching and research endeavors.

Emotional Development

Similar to relational learning, this type of development involves emotional learning; through engagement, we develop both self-understanding and awareness of the feelings and perspectives of others. Thus, in addition to providing significant understandings relevant for teaching new courses, the shadowing experience can contribute to an awareness of differences in the respective knowledge, assumptions, and perspectives, which can further contribute to professional development.

We find the relationship between shadowing partners can also lead to emotional development when the shadower and shadowee are different ranks and their roles invert the traditional hierarchies of seniority. Notably, many shadowing experiences have involved senior faculty shadowing junior faculty, or tenure track faculty shadowing non-tenure track faculty, as experienced by Josie and Debi:

Although I valued the resources and experiences Debi brought to our program, her expertise added to my own insecurities about being observed. This shadowing relationship was very different from my initial shadowing experience. Though differences in our background at first made it uncomfortable for me to respond to challenging questions, I gained so much by allowing myself to be vulnerable and willing to engage in discussion about my practice. We set aside a common weekly meeting time to debrief the week’s classes and discuss lesson plans for the upcoming week. In addition to debriefing and discussing upcoming lessons, our weekly meetings were also a time for my shadower to ask me questions about the course. Sometimes they were about course content or pedagogical choices, and other times they were deeper philosophical questions about my course goals and beliefs about teaching. What I thought would be time used to share information about my course and support the learning of my colleague emerged as a time for deep reflection on my own practice. Josie

I admit, it was a bit awkward being back in the learner seat. I asked a lot of questions of Josie, who was incredibly gracious and willing to allow me to interrogate her practice in this way. This can’t have been easy, given I was someone who had more experience as a teacher educator, and my questions could have easily been interpreted as criticism. I kept returning to the idea that I wasn’t there to evaluate her-- Working through these conversations allowed me to better understand her perspective, identify where we shared common ground, and strategize how we might collaborate as colleagues as I joined SMATE. Debi

Opening one’s classroom and shifting roles can be uncomfortable, but, as highlighted by Debi, we find the non-evaluative nature of the experience mitigates this to a large extent.

Discussion and Implications

Increasingly, there is recognition that PD efforts in both higher education and K-12 must also attend to the institutional and collegial contexts in which teachers work as a powerful influence on their learning (Lund & Stains, 2015; National Academies, 2015). The university climate may be unsupportive of the development of teacher educators, particularly at major research universities and offer “few institutionally sanctioned and structured learning opportunities” (Dinkelman et al., 2006, p. 120). Our work contributes to the field by offering a replicable model that is built on an inherent need for flexibility and grounded in knowledge of professional learning. Shadowing reflects many features of effective PD identified in the K-12 and higher education literature including establishing a common vision of teaching and learning (Shadle, Marker, & Earl, 2017), attending to the contexts in which teachers work (Lund & Stains, 2015; National Academies, 2015), opportunities for feedback, reflection, and collaboration (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017), and sustained/long-term engagement (Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011). Importantly, it is poised to meet the diverse needs and learning trajectories of teacher educators who vary in their entry points to teacher education, career stages, disciplinary backgrounds, and institutional contexts (Abell, Rogers, Hanuscin, Lee, & Gagnon, 2009; Berry & van Driel, 2013; Cochran-Smith, 2003).

This model adds to the existing literature on professional learning activities in which teacher educators engage (Ping et al., 2018); as to our knowledge, no study has outlined the type of institutionalized, cross-disciplinary, and collaborative venture we describe. Specifically, one in which professional learning is explicitly valued by being considered part of one’s teaching load. Additionally, while much of the current literature on teacher educator PD has emphasized learning in terms of the shifting identities of teacher educators (Ping et al., 2018), the stories of our personal experiences with shadowing transcend that focus and attest to the power of this model for supporting learning across the cognitive, practical, relational, and emotional domains (Brown & Bimrose, 2014), and across an entire program area faculty.

Wilson (2006) emphasized that beginning teacher educators are often thrown into the practice of teacher education as opposed to participating in structured or scholarly apprenticeships. Given the potential importance of teacher educators’ first experiences in establishing an initial trajectory of professional learning (Dinkelman et al., 2006), shadowing as a form of professional development can impact new faculty in powerful ways. However, the diversity of goals and types of learning across our stories underscores the variety of ways in which shadowing can fulfill the learning needs of teacher educators across the entire career span, as called for by Cochran-Smith (2003). Furthermore, our shadowing model affords learning opportunities for part-time, adjunct, or clinical faculty, for whom such PD is often not available (Cochran-Smith, 2003).

We propose that the model of shadowing implemented by SMATE can be useful to other science teacher educators and applicable to other institutions. In addition to the contextual information and rich descriptions we have included, we provide the following additional considerations to help readers judge the transferability of our shadowing model to their own contexts. Specifically, we highlight the importance of cultural, institutional, and structural supports to our implementation of shadowing.

To implement this shadowing model successfully, a collegial program culture and collaborative relationships among faculty members are essential. Faculty members must work productively with one another with the shared goal of improving each other’s practice and the ultimate aim of strengthening the program by having confident and effective teacher educators. This cultural support is crucial for success. Shadowing, as a form of science teacher educator professional learning, both reflects and impacts our program culture. SMATE continues to operate under the guiding principle that everyone is a learner, and this has laid the groundwork for collaborative relationships between shadowing partners. Shadowing supports the transmission of norms, values, and expectations—shaping the culture of our program through the construction of a shared vision of effective science instruction (Gess-Newsome, Southerland, Johnston, & Woodbury, 2003; Henderson & Dancy, 2007; Shadle et al., 2017). This vision guides not only our own teaching, but also reflects the vision we hope to foster in our teacher candidates. It is also a vision that is grounded in research on effective science teaching and learning—both from the literature and from our own scholarly inquiry into prospective teacher learning and the effectiveness of our programs. The fact that many of the SMATE faculty have research agendas tied to science teacher education plays a substantial role in this process. Our SMATE culture relies on shared values and equitable voice; however, we recognize that this has been strengthened and reaffirmed by our use of shadowing, which represents our shared commitment to learning from each other in ways that challenge expert/novice distinction, the hierarchy of seniority, and the norms of isolation and privacy that characterize teaching.

At this stage in its implementation, there is not a formal introduction to our shadowing program for new faculty, as the shadowing experience itself offers an enculturation into the norms and practices of SMATE by current faculty. That said, while shadowing has played a role in shaping and perpetuating a culture of collaboration and scholarly inquiry into our teaching and learning, it seems doubtful that such an undertaking would have succeeded without the cultural shift that NCOSP initiated. Our shadowing program has continued to thrive over a decade beyond the life of that particular grant. This is, in large part, due to the autonomy of SMATE to recognize the contribution of shadowing to our work as both teacher educators and researchers, and to count it as faculty workload. Our institution has a tradition of faculty governance that enables this, and SMATE has the financial and human resources for the program to be self-sustaining.

Engaging in professional learning opportunities can be challenging given that the workload of faculty includes a variety of activities related to teaching, research, and service. Additionally, research emphasizes that reflection time is most meaningful when it is a planned, intentional, and structured activity as part of faculty’s role (Dinkelman et al., 2006). Therefore, situating the experience shadowing experience within a course and counting it as part of the faculty member’s teaching load is an important institutional support that ensures both the time and space to make it possible for the kind of reflection and prolonged engagement that promotes professional learning. Counting shadowing as teaching load has been institutionalized as a practice within SMATE as it helps fulfill both personal (i.e., developing new knowledge and skills) and institutional goals (i.e., the need for qualified instructors to teach various courses). We note, however, shadowing was not counted as course load in several instances. This was particularly the case for adjunct faculty early in the shadowing program’s implementation, who were compensated for their teaching of a course, but not for the shadowing of a course. Identifying this discrepancy was an important step towards ensuring equity and opportunity for all faculty. At the institutional level, we recommend shadowing be included as faculty workload. The demands of participating in shadowing are likely to be prohibitive as an “overload” given the teaching, research, and service responsibilities of faculty members.

Importantly, SMATE is situated at the academic nexus of education and the sciences, involving faculty from both entry points into teacher education. Our teacher preparation program is structured such that there are numerous courses (both science content and science methods) taught by multiple faculty. This structural support offers multiple opportunities for shadowing to occur, given our collective ownership of the program and the courses within. As such, shadowing may be unlikely to work in a place where teaching responsibilities are structured such that faculty “own” a particular course or do not teach multiple courses. Furthermore, as Cite et al. (2017) emphasize, while science faculty are responsible for educating future teachers, they often have few opportunities to explore research on how people learn or scholarly literature related to teacher education. As such, the contrast between what is expected of teachers in their K-12 classrooms and what they experience in content and instruction at the university can be strikingly different. Zeichner emphasized that if “teacher educators [go] into their roles with knowledge of the scholarly literature related to the work of teacher education and with the dispositions and skills to study their practice it will make it better for novice teachers and their pupils will benefit” (2005, p. 118). The reciprocal learning that occurs through shadowing is substantially enriched by the structure of SMATE, which allows for faculty to cross these disciplinary boundaries and find common ground as teacher educators. We recognize that institutions that are structured so that education and the sciences work in silos may not be afforded the same opportunities for learning of the nature we experienced if shadowing is implemented within their respective academic units.

We acknowledge that shadowing is but one means for teacher educators to engage in professional learning as they develop their practice and advance in their careers. It is not meant as a panacea. We recognize that since our shadowing program is driven by programmatic needs to cover particular courses, it is possible faculty may be asked to teach courses that are far enough outside of their areas of expertise such that even well-designed shadowing experiences may be insufficient preparation for doing so. As such, shadowing should be a complement to, rather than the sole mechanism for, the education of those who prepare teachers.

While we have presented our shadowing model in this paper, we believe this effort lays the groundwork for generating questions and developing hypotheses about teacher educator development and professional learning across the career span. We believe the shadowing experience could provide a context for learning about teacher educators’ knowledge and practice in situ, and suggest that future research conducted in this setting could yield fruitful insights about the knowledge base of science teacher education, and the learning needs of science teacher educators across the career span, as well as how the professional learning accomplished by shadowing impacts the subsequent learning of prospective teachers. Additionally, replication of this model in other contexts might shed further light on the critical elements necessary for and circumstances under which shadowing can be successfully implemented. Faculty members described finding mentors within the academia, developing collaborative research projects, and enhancing programmatic coherence. Taken together, our stories demonstrate the development and transmission of our institutional culture. As such, we believe it is worth exploring the impacts of shadowing at not just the individual, but also programmatic levels, in terms of its potential for shaping the culture and pedagogy of science teacher education.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hanuscin, D., Donovan, D., Acevedo-Gutiérrez, A. et al. Supporting the Professional Development of Science Teacher Educators Through Shadowing. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 19 (Suppl 1), 145–165 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-021-10154-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-021-10154-5

Keywords

Navigation