Designing the ideal school as a transformative process: an approach to promoting teacher identity in pre-service teachers

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an approach to planning academic courses for pre-service teachers and for researching development of teacher identity. The approach was implemented in a course, conducted in an Israeli Master Teach program, designed to foster pre-service teacher identity transformation. The research described here addresses two questions: (1) To what extent does the approach contribute to the understanding of teacher identity formation? (2) Using this approach, how can pre-service teacher educators support teacher identity transformation? Using a metaphorical tool, students designed their ‘ideal school’ at the beginning and at the end of the course. Identity transformation was evaluated by comparing their designs. Demonstration of this approach methodology is presented through an analysis of the designs of one female student. Findings highlight the potential of this approach to reveal and cope with obstacles inhibiting transformative learning: narrow, imbalanced, inconsistent, and shallow perspective; rigid patterns of thinking; and lack of emotional awareness.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformative learning
• teacher identity
• teacher education
• school environment
• research tool

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Further details of the task are addressed in Zur and Eisikovits (2011).

2 A learning suite is a large space that replaces the classrooms and includes a variety of places: areas designed for group learning, for plenary discussion, for meetings with teacher-mentors, and for learning in the yard; a kitchenette; and so forth (Nair, Fielding, and Lackney 2009).

3 A collective community unique to Israel.