The role of critical reflexivity in the professional development of professional developers: A co-autoethnographic exploration

This manuscript shares findings from a collaborative autoethnography project during which two classroom teachers worked together with university researchers to develop and facilitate science education professional development workshops for elementary teachers in Luxembourg. Grounded in critical theoretical perspectives, we undertook a process of collaborative autoethnography grounded in dialogue and reflection, to examine our own professional development in the process of facilitating the professional development of our colleagues. First, we elaborate the cultural and historical importance of this project in the context of teacher professional development in Luxembourg, an education system that operates from a national primary school curriculum, but in which instructional decisions are made by teachers. Next, we describe how critical methodologies allowed us to examine working within this system from each of our unique perspectives, while critically analyzing the process of engaging in professional development with teachers. We then elaborate the two main claims that emerged from our collective processes of reflection, dialogue, and action, namely that undergoing this critical process in parallel with supporting teacher professional development facilitated changes in our perspectives and our positions towards the national curricula, and that our multiple roles coupled with the process of reflection-dialogue-action mediated taking agency and the adaptation of primary science curricula.