Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the need for teacher educators’ – or those who teach the teachers – professional development became increasingly recognised in both policy and research literature. In this respect, a growing body of publications highly stress the teacher educators’ task of engaging in research and becoming a teacher educator-researcher. This article assumes that teacher educators’ professional development can be conceptualised as the development of a ‘researcherly disposition’. A researcherly disposition is defined as the tendency to engage in research, and involves an inclination towards research (affective aspect), an ability to engage in research (cognitive aspect) and a sensitivity for research opportunities (behavioural aspect). Twenty in-depth interviews with teacher educators were conducted and analysed in order to empirically explore the concept and assess differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. The findings indicate a typology with three types of teacher educators: ‘the enquiring teacher educator’ (Type 1), ‘the well-read teacher educator’ (Type 2) and ‘the teacher educator-researcher’ (Type 3). Based on the proposed definition of a teacher educator’s researcherly disposition, each type’s disposition towards research is presented. Finally, implications for further research and for future programmes that focus on teacher educators’ professional development are discussed.

Taking into account the pressing need to understand more about what teacher educators’ professional development characterises, this article adopts a mixed method approach to explore Flemish (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) teacher educators’ professional development needs and opportunities. Analysis results of a large-scale survey study with 611 teacher educators and analysis of five qualitative focus groups (with 24 teacher educators) are presented. The results confirm the lack of attention for teacher educators’ professional development in the Flemish teacher education system. Moreover, the findings indicate a structural need for participation in professional development activities that are linked to teacher educators’ own practices, organised as long-term sustainable professional development trajectories, and formally recognised. To conclude, a professional development agenda for research, policy and practices related to teacher educators’ professional development is discussed.

This chapter is contributed by InFo-TED, the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development. This newly established community brings together people from across the world to exchange research, policy, and practice related to teacher educators’ professional learning and development. We define teacher educators broadly as those who are professionally involved and engaged in the initial and on-going education of teachers. Our contention is that while there is general agreement about the important role played by teacher educators, their professional education is under-studied and under-supported. Here, we elaborate the rationale for this initiative, delineate our conceptual framework, and provide examples of steps taken in Belgium, Ireland, and Norway to develop the professional identities and knowledge bases of those who educate and support teachers, and conclude with implications for a implications for a scholarly study agenda having to do with research, policy, and practice relating to teacher educators’ professional development.

The practice of team teaching—how teachers deliver team teaching in the classroom—substantially determines its effect. The collaboration between the teachers and the level of shared responsibility between them are two important dimensions of the team teaching practice. To date, no instrument exists to measure these dimensions. However, in view of empirical research within the context of team teaching, such an instrument is important. Therefore, the Collaboration and Shared Responsibility in Team Teaching (CSTT) scale is developed, making it possible to assess these two important dimensions. The CSTT scale was used in a large-scale cross-sectional survey study (n = 555). Next to a validation of the scale, this study provides empirical evidence on the differences between groups of teachers regarding (a) teaching experience, (b) education type, and (c) frequency of team teaching. Results show that teachers overall report high scores on both dimensions. Further, this study indicates that there are no significant differences between the groups based on (a) teaching experience and (b) education type for both collaboration and shared responsibility. There are, however, significant differences between groups in terms of the (c) frequency of team teaching.

Grounded in the Self-Determination Theory, this study examines the relations between teacher educators’ experienced work pressure and opportunities for professional growth, their work related basic needs satisfaction (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness) and their researcherly disposition (i.e. being a smart consumer of research, being able to conduct research, conducting research and valuing research). A large-scale survey study was conducted, involving 944 teacher educators working within teaching-intensive teacher education institutions. The results of SEM-analyses show that teacher educators’ opportunities for growth as well as the experienced work pressure are significantly related to the satisfaction of teacher educators’ basic psychological needs at work. In turn, positive relations were identified between the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs and teacher educators’ researcherly disposition.