I was a good classroom teacher, why do I feel so lost now? Examining a doctoral student’s transition with becoming a teacher educator during and post pandemic

Abstract

Employing self-study methodology this work examines not only the transition from classroom teacher to teacher educator but also the increased complexity of this experience while teaching online during the pandemic, and the transition back to some sense of normalcy with teaching in person. Data sources include Author One’s reflective journal, recordings of meetings with critical friends providing feedback throughout the process, and student artifacts from different activities applied from year 1 to year 2. From our coding of the journal from year 1, several codes were identified about Author One’s identity as a teacher educator being tied to the types of interactions he fosters in his classroom.  As he transitions to teaching in person in year 2 (Fall 2021) we look to see how he takes what he learned about fostering these interactions in an online environment and applies them to his in-person teaching. Techniques learned from his semester 2 experience of online teaching guide him in this process and critical friend meetings will focus on attending to the transitional moments in his identity as he makes yet another shift in developing who he is as a teacher educator.