Dr Jennifer Yamin-Ali launches new book that looks at their 'invisible work'
When asked what prompted her interest in teacher educators, Dr Jennifer Yamin-Ali, a senior lecturer at UWI St Augustine's School of Education, says, “When you start a journey, you don’t know where you’re going to end up. In my case, it was simply about following my heart and putting my nose to the wheel, as they say.”
The result is the publication of Teacher Educator Experiences and Professional Development: Perspectives from the Caribbean, an in-depth look at the profession that includes the experiences of teacher educators, students, and the author herself. The book was launched virtually on March 26.
“My interest in teacher educators began with the diploma in education (DipEd) programme and our work as teacher educators,” says Dr Yamin-Ali. “Apart from lecturing, tutoring and marking scripts, much of what we do seems to be invisible work, a term that is sometimes used in the literature.”
Consisting of five chapters, Teacher Educator Experiences has been endorsed by experts in the field from the University of Cumbria, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and The Jan Kochanowski University of Kielce (UJK) in Poland. It delves into “the hidden work” of teacher educators, looks at their professional development, provides the narratives of four teacher educators, and even gives the author’s personal journey.
The book also includes the perspectives of the main recipients of their work, she says:
“I think one of the strengths [of Teacher Educator Experiences] is that I was able to include the voices of students in terms of how teacher educators may either sustain good practice or enhance current practice. While there are some conflicting views as to the validity of using student feedback to determine professional needs of teaching staff at any level, I do think that such feedback can be a wake-up call or a signal, at the least, for considering the quality of our work.”
Teacher Educator Experiences is Dr Yamin-Ali’s second book, following Data Driven Decision-Making in Schools: Lessons from Trinidad. Her areas of specialisation include foreign language teacher education, teacher education in general, and micropolitics in educational organisations.
