Developing a Virtual Oral Inquiry Community for Teacher Educator Professional Learning: A Case Analysis

Amid an international turn toward clinically based initial teacher preparation, the field of teacher education needs promising mechanisms to drive the professional learning of the teacher educators enacting the turn. This article introduces an example of one such mechanism by presenting and analyzing the case of a virtual oral inquiry community that supported the professional learning of three clinically based teacher educators affiliated with separate teacher preparation programs. Informed by the principles of andragogy, the inquiry community reformulated practitioner inquiry (the systematic, intentional study by educators of their own professional practices) into a new cycle of oral inquiry that teacher educators used to learn together across contexts. Practices associated with the teacher educators' inquiry cycle (selecting common texts, returning to local practice, reconnecting, sharing problems of practice, and analyzing common texts in relation to local problems) generated both personal and collective impacts significant to their learning. The teacher educators developed a strong sense of interpersonal trust that made it possible for them to become vulnerable about their practices. Together, they developed shared understandings of problems of practice affecting clinically based teacher educators, which addressed a shared problem of professional isolation and enhanced their ability to sustain their professional learning over time.