Twofold Opportunities for Learning in a Collaborative Self-Study

Overview & Synopsis

This paper details how collaborative self-study can contribute to instruction and learning in coaching and teacher education. The practice of self-study has gained much advocacy in Teacher Education Practice (TEP) and has been strongly promoted by Physical Education Teacher Educators (PETE). In this research, two teacher educators (from Science Education and Physical Education) participated in a collaborative self-study outside of their TEP. Both participants coached a university Gaelic football team. The collaborative self-study focused on improving their coaching practices and also developing empathy through learning experiences. The findings provide evidence of the dual value of collaborative self-study: as coach learners, they improved their understanding of their coaching practices; as TEPs, they developed empathy for their student teachers.