ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how teacher educators are committed to understanding their teaching from the perspective of the dilemmas they encounter in practicing their teaching. The focal point of this research is finding ways to assess teacher educators' experienced conflicts between their personal and professional beliefs on teaching and the opportunities they have to prepare their students for teaching. It is argued that teacher educators' personal epistemologies can be interpreted (and assessed) from the dilemmas they encounter. Dilemmas, which represent inconsistencies between personal epistemologies and practices, therefore provide a powerful way in which to measure personal epistemologies and choices the teacher educator makes with regard to teaching actions. In this chapter, we measured teacher educators' personal epistemologies and practices through an instrument that investigated how teacher educators: (a) reconstructed conditions in teaching practice, and (b) re-conceptualized their thinking. The mixed-method approach revealed how the underlying professional dilemmas of teacher educators can be highlighted to reveal their personal epistemologies. It is noted that teacher educators as professionals struggle with practicing what they conceptualize as well as with conceptualizing what they practice.
