My journey to become a teacher educator

Purpose: Social theory of learning speaks to the social nature of our lives and our attempts to understand both what and how we learn from it. My experiences are built upon and reside with the social context in which they evolved. In this lecture, I will focus on my own experiences and how I interpreted them through social theory of learning that resulted from my collaboration between colleagues, mentoring that I received and shared and the pedagogical communities within which I grew.Main outcomes and results: Within each of these contexts my experiences resulted from the dialogue in which I took part. Johnston-Parsons suggests that dialogue of pedagogies provides a means of coming to know yourself and your teaching. She describes a mirror as one way of describing dialogue-as-learning' as when dialogue occurred we were sharing ideas at the same time we were, as a group and as individuals, recognizing and changing our minds' (69). The types of dialogue experienced by this teacher educator have taken place over four decades in several contexts and have resulted in my own interpretations that have shaped my practices and pedagogies.Conclusion: Through my own developing and changing teaching metaphor I will tell the story of my development as a teacher educator and the lessons I have learned that shape my practices and interactions with prospective and practising teachers.