Pursuing New Possibilities for Online Teaching Through a Flipped Critical Friends Protocol

This chapter describes the experiences of six faculty members engaged in self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) methodology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following scholarship on S-STEP methodology (e.g., Bullough and Pinnegar, Educ Res 30:13–21, 2001; Fletcher, Self-study as hybrid methodology. In: Kitchen J, Berry A, Bullock SM, Crowe AR, Taylor M, Guðjónsdóttir H, Thomas L (eds) International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Springer Nature Singapore, Singapore, pp 269–297, 2020; Hamilton and Pinnegar, Conclusion: the value and promise of self-study. In: Hamilton ML (ed) Reconceptualizing teaching practice: self-study in teacher education. Falmer, London, pp 264–277, 1998; LaBoskey, The methodology of self-study and its theoretical underpinnings. In: Loughran, JJ, Hamilton ML, LaBoskey, VK, Russell T (eds) International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Kluwer, pp 817–869, 2004; Loughran, A history and context of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. In: Loughran J, Hamilton ML, LaBoskey VK, Russell T (eds) International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Kluwer, pp 7–39, 2004; Samaras and Freese, Self-study of teaching practices primer. Peter Lang, New York, 2011), we conceptualize self-study as a collaborative enterprise located at the crossroads of theory and practice. Our group, which formed around 2017, seeks knowledge in our own and each other’s teaching experiences; cultivates insight about the values, beliefs, and actions in our pedagogical stances; and pursues inquiries fitting our shared interest in socially just educational practices. Critical friendship is foundational to our approach. By critical friendship, we refer to the collaborative efforts of the group to share teaching experiences and unpack their multiple and sometimes paradoxical meanings to understand what to do next. This type of critical friendship aligns with Bullock’s (Navigating the pressures of self-study methodology: constraints, invitations, and future directions. In: Kitchen J, Berry A, Bullock SM, Crowe AR, Taylor M, Guðjónsdóttir H, Thomas L (eds) International handbook of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices. Springer Nature Singapore, pp 245–267, 2020) description of critical friends as being those who listen, and, through dialogue, make meaning of teaching experiences by offering their own experiences and theoretical framings, thereby constraining and opening lines of inquiry. Our group has used many techniques to support this process, one of which is a critical friends protocol. The protocol, while in practice is quite flexible, is helpful in providing structure and movement for our dialogue. In this chapter, we describe the protocol we have used in the past, provide a rationale for “flipping” the protocol, and make visible how this flipped critical friends protocol helped us work through our experiences with online teaching.