Pre-Service Teachers’ Intentions to Teach: Developing Understanding through Textual Narratives and Drawings

In 2014, a United Kingdom inquiry into the role of research in teacher education concluded that teachers are insufficiently research-informed (British Educational Research Association, 2014). This chapter argues that teachers are also insufficiently career-informed, and that this lack of career preview enhances praxis shock and the attrition of both students and graduates (Boe et al., 1997; Kim & Cho, 2014). The chapter contributes to transforming teacher thinking and practice in the 21st century by considering how teacher research can enable pre-service teachers to own their learning, and how teacher identity can be enhanced through reflection. It describes a teaching initiative in which graduate-level pre-service teachers visualised reflected on their perceptions of their future work and career. Using textbased narratives and participant drawings, the chapter aims to highlight pre-service teachers’ thinking about teaching and to examine the extent to which the combination of narrative and visual data might enhance understanding. The chapter asserts that the practice of teachers researching teaching should commence with pre-service teachers, such that reflexive and scholarly practice is embedded prior to graduation.