Linking research with teaching: Teacher educators’ perspectives

How do teacher educators make meaning of the research-teaching relationship through their experiences of knowledge creation and knowledge transfer? This paper explores the key research question through a critical analysis of narratives elicited from three teacher educators. Using a purposive sample that includes one pre-tenure and two tenured academics in a department of teacher education, the paper draws the three teacher educatorsí narratives from interviews and a knowledge transfer seminar to explore their experiences and perspectives associated with the key research question. The narratives centre on the three academicsí experiences of translating their research into teaching programmes or resources for student teachers as well as school teachers and leaders. The provision of such teaching programmes and resources through collaboration and dialogues with these stakeholders, in turn, offers new research opportunities that assisted in the expansive development of the research agendas and scholarly outputs of these teacher educators. What seemed crucial to the sustainable development of their research agendas and outputs were their intentions and initiatives to engage their identified key stakeholders in continuous participatory knowledge creation and transfer through different means. Inherent opportunities and tensions in building a positive research-teaching relationship within the institutional and local educational context (e.g. institutional guidelines on teaching and research performance; school reform policies and practices) - and the academic climate internationally - were also explored.