Teacher and teacher educator: understanding the development needs of practitioners who operate in hybrid roles

Teacher educators are crucial for the quality of the teaching workforce and therefore to the outcomes of learners (European Commission 2013; Gurria 2012). Yet it is frequently the case that teachers become teacher educators, supporting new and experienced colleagues, with little or no formal training, and few opportunities for continuing professional development focussed on developing the skills of second-order teaching. In this presentation we report on a project funded by the Education and Training Foundation which aimed to address this gap in provision. We delivered and evaluated a programme of professional development for practitioners operating in the dual role of teacher and teacher educator in the FE sector. The participating ‘hybrid teacher leaders’ (Margolis, 2012) were experienced, new and aspiring teacher educators, drawn from across a range of organisations and curriculum areas representing the diversity of the sector. Here, we report on the programme, describing its content, and examining findings from its evaluation. We analyse the motivations of the participants to engage with the programme, and the ways in which they benefited from participation, exploring for example the value in feeling a sense of belonging to a community of practice in which they could learn with and from each other. Given their dual roles we also consider how the programme supported not just the participants' learning, but also that of their students. The learning from this project is applicable to practitioners across education, suggesting ways in which teacher educators working in hybrid roles can be supported in all phases.