Abstract
This chapter draws on theoretical, literary, and artistic thinking to describe a multifaceted conceptualization of polyvocality in self-study research. It offers exemplars of enactments of polyvocal self-study research enacted across disciplines, institutions, and continents in large-scale faculty self-study higher education communities in the USA and South Africa. They serve as models that validate the self-study methodology more broadly outside of teacher education in polyvocal transdisciplinary faculty self-study groups. More specifically, the exemplars serve as ways to illustrate design elements of PaidiĆ”: guideposts for facilitating and enacting polyvocal self-study research in transdisciplinary higher education communities and the positive impact for learning. Finally, the chapter circles back to the important foundations created by the S-STEP community for teacher educators, with its continued development in polyvocal self-study transdisciplinary higher education communities. To end, it looks forward to the upcoming developments and contributions by the global self-study community for future work in self-study research.
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Acknowledgments
We thank each of the sponsors who courageously supported our work at GMU: the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence and especially Kim Eby, Associate Provost Faculty Affairs and Development, for her guidance and encouragement; the Office of the Provost; Office of Distance Education; and 4-VA, supporting innovative faculty development projects in the state.
We gratefully acknowledge grant funding for the TES project from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Education Research in South Africa, grant numbers 74007 and 90380; Incentive Funding for Rated Researchers, grant number 90832), Durban University of Technologyās Research Office, University of KwaZulu-Natalās University Learning and Teaching Office, and Walter Sisulu Universityās Research Office. We further acknowledge that any opinion, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors, and, therefore, the funders of TES project activities do not accept any liability in regard thereto.
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Samaras, A.P., Pithouse-Morgan, K. (2019). Polyvocal Self-Study in Transdisciplinary Higher Education Communities. In: Kitchen, J., Berry, A., GuĆ°jĆ³nsdĆ³ttir, H., Bullock, S., Taylor, M., Crowe, A. (eds) 2nd International Handbook of Self-Study of Teaching and Teacher Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1710-1_43-1
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