What examining teaching metaphors tells us about pre-service teachers' developing beliefs about teaching and learning

Abstract

Pre-service teachers (PSTs) typically do not change their beliefs about teaching and learning during teacher education unless they are confronted with, and challenged about, their held beliefs through powerful and meaningful experiences that cause them to recognise and value the change process and its consequences for themselves and their learners. It has been suggested that examining teaching narratives and metaphors might be one way for teacher education to help PSTs in recognising their pre-existing beliefs about teaching and learning. Such practices assist PSTs to reflect on and examine these beliefs and how they impact both their teaching and the learning of their students. The purpose of this study was to understand how the process of examining metaphors influences PSTs' development of beliefs about teaching and learning.