Orchestrating assemblages and self-initiated teacher educator professional learning

This paper argues that teacher educator self-initiated professional learning can be a powerful site for innovation and contextual responsiveness. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987/2016) concept of assemblage, the paper conceptualises self-initiated learning as a dynamic, non-linear process shaped by diverse influences, relationships, and contexts. The paper develops a conceptual argument that interrogates how self-initiated professional learning can be assembled through an on-going process of blending, adapting and reworking heterogeneous elements in response to shifting contextual conditions. For illustrative purposes, the analysis traces how one teacher educator, who described working at the edges of their practice, assembled theoretical perspectives, practicum experiences, student responses, and personal pedagogical commitments to create an innovative pedagogical response to their curricular area. Cultural artefacts, exemplified by Martyn Bennett’s GRIT and Greg Lawson’s later reworking as an orchestral arrangement, are used to highlight how self-initiated professional learning can proceed through processes akin to musical recomposition.