In this systematic review, we explore the contribution of S-STEP research to the larger conversations in teacher education research. We seek to synthesize the assertions for action and understanding that have emerged in response to the Zeichner paradox (Berry & Loughran, 2004), identifying how S-STEP methodology integrates with other research on teacher education, and the unique contributions it is poised to make. This project reviews and synthesizes evidence that S-STEP research can and does contribute to the empirically-based knowledge of teacher education. In this review of studies reported in Studying Teacher Education, we explore the knowledge contributions of S-STEP to the field of teacher education and integrate the results of S-STEP studies with other research on teacher education.

Past research has clearly indicated that teachers’ metaphors can serve as a framework that moves our understanding of teaching forward by making more explicit the intuitive knowledge teachers hold about themselves, their classrooms, and their practice. Making explicit how metaphors uncover the understandings that guide the practices of inservice teachers, individually and collectively, can provide insight into the assumptions they hold about teaching and teaching practice. The purpose of this study was to explore how inservice teachers’ self-constructed metaphors revealed their perceptions of their roles, obligations, and assumptions about teaching and learning and consider the implications of such exploration for teacher education and development. The four experienced teachers who participated in this study constructed personal teaching metaphors for which they provided an explanation. Analysis of the metaphors using positioning theory provided evidence that teaching metaphors capture the individual identity and specify the plotlines of teaching and the obligations, duties, and responsibilities of the teacher as well as the role of the teacher and others in the teacher’s practice. We found that each metaphor brought elements of identity and teaching practice together in unique and divergent ways. A subsequent cross-case analysis reveled common discourses of teaching: responsibility, nurturing and caring, and teacher and student learning. Both the individual and cross-case analysis suggest the potential value of metaphor work for informing teacher education and professional development to advise teachers, teacher educators, school leaders, and policy makers.

This study examined how our non-personhood experiences (NPHEs) contributed to our teacher educator identity process. We took up exploration of these experiences, which were very painful for us, not as entrée into victimhood, but because we wanted to learn something about how, in the face of such experiences, we could engage with these troubling interactions in order to renew our commitment to our work as teacher educators in the academe. During the analysis process, we considered our stories along four overlapping dimensions (1) our Selves in our own story, 2) others in the story, 3) colleagues not in the story, and 4) non-colleagues and others not in the story. A framework for looking at our NPHEs resulted that allows teacher educators to attend to students’ needs while simultaneously reasserting their own teacher educator identities in more honest and vulnerable ways. Analyzing NPHEs has the potential to help teacher educators engage and invite students to recognize teacher educators’ personhood and therefore better position them to recognize the personhood of their future students.

While past research has suggested that undergraduate peer mentors benefit from mentoring their peers, little research has examined how this experience is associated with transformative learning. This study uses narrative analysis of authentic mentoring stories to explore how particular types of mentoring experience contribute to transformative learning for the peer mentors of first-year students. We find that transformation is more likely when PMs 2 engage in meaningful routines and everyday practices; practice purposeful “pretending” in the unfamiliar aspects of their role; embrace challenge and surprise in their practice; regularly reflect on their experiences; and are mentored by supportive faculty and staff. Findings have implications for peer mentor selection and training, as well as peer mentoring program design.