Belonging, Re-Belonging And Re-Becoming: A Science Teacher Educator’s Self-Study of Using Pedagogical Tensions to Explore The Shaping of One’s Pedagogical Approaches

The education landscape continues to change as perpetuated by crises like COVID-19 propelling teachers to adapt and change their pedagogical approaches. As a mid-career science teacher educator, having developed ways of teaching, I experienced pedagogical tensions that were unsettling during COVID-19, thus threatening what I already knew about teaching pre-service teachers. In this self-study, I used the construct of pedagogical equilibrium as a theoretical lens to understand how these pedagogical tensions shape my pedagogical approaches to teaching pre-service teachers in the present time. Data were collected through journaling and discussions with critical friends. These data sets were transformed into narratives and subjected to narrative and thematic analysis. While pedagogical tensions appear unsettling and threaten what one already knows about teaching, taking them as an opportunity to engage in critical reflection may yield a better understanding of one’s pedagogical approaches. I, therefore, recommend the use of pedagogical tensions as a way of developing and advancing one’s scholarship of teaching and learning especially in science teacher education.