Chosen Accountability and Shared Leadership: the Findings of One Cross-Institutional Self-Study Community of Practice

Neoliberal reforms in higher education have created 'siloed' environments for teaching and scholarly activity and discouraged collaboration. Cross-institutional self-study communities of practice (SSCoPs), which refer to groups of at least four members committed to working together to study their teacher education practices, are one antidote to this lack of mentorship that supports teacher educators in their research, service, and teaching. Despite the known benefits of SSCoPs, self-study experts continually call for more groups to share examples of their successes and challenges for others in the field to learn from. This manuscript answers this call by contributing how one multi-institutional longitudinal SSCoP functions, what has contributed to our collaboration, and lessons learned along the way. This self-study answered the question: What impacted our collaboration within our SSCoP? and provides findings based on group reflections, course assignment and syllabi annotations, and a focus group. The findings highlight the challenges and opportunities that encouraged our collaborative SSCoP. We describe how we created a safe space to be vulnerable, the chosen accountability this group provided, the professional growth we experienced, and how we developed a shared leadership approach over time. Ultimately, this research argues that the friendships developed, the professional networks established, and the larger sense of camaraderie amongst members of an SSCoP are essential to developing strong teachers in higher education. We advocate for other faculty to have opportunities to engage in similar professional development groups.