This dissertation is a collective of three manuscripts that explore the relationships among teacher identity, knowledge, and practice through a holistic lens. Chapter 2 contains a review of literature that treats professional knowledge or teacher identity as the foundation for teachers' classroom practice. After reviewing related empirical studies published since 1985, this chapter advocates for holistic investigations of teacher practice, investigations that take into account what teachers know and who they are. This chapter also argues for bridging psychological and educational discussions of identity. In particular, it includes brief discussions of the theories of Erikson, Kotre, Levinson, and Kegan and the ways in which they might be helpful for understanding teachers' experiences.
Chapter 3 documents an empirical study exploring expert high school teachers' identities, knowledge, and practice. Using observation and interview methods, this study documented that expert teachers' identities are composed of many identities. Five were shared by the four participants: advocate for students, challenger, classroom manager, learner, and teacher leader and mentor. Despite these similarities, participants structured their identities and perceived their expertise differently depending on their teaching context. This study also identified three characteristics of expert teachers. The first was alignment between identity priorities and expenditure of time and energy in class. Second, these expert teachers were generative, and they talked about four channels of generativity: students, novice teachers, the teaching profession, and the community. Finally, participating teachers acted on the basis of integrated knowledge. However, their conception of this blended knowledge differed from pedagogical content knowledge as commonly described in the field. Whereas the field views the integration between pedagogical knowledge and subject matter knowledge to be primary, participating teachers emphasized the connection between pedagogy and knowledge of students. Moreover, this study documented the combination of teacher identity and knowledge provides a clearer picture of the foundation of teacher practice than either identity or knowledge alone.
Chapter 4 outlines a model for holistic dance teacher preparation. It begins with a review of the literature related to dance education, teacher education, and holistic education. It concludes with four tenets of holistic dance teacher preparation: focus on the whole person, integrated curriculum, explicit identity development, and apprenticeships in relevant communities of practice. Although written about the context of dance education, these four tenets are applicable to teacher education in general.