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In this chapter, the authors discuss the use of various kinds of images, namely photographs, drawings and verbal metaphors, as research data. These, perhaps less conventional forms of data, have been used to identify and probe deeper into beliefs and conceptions that are closely connected with identities, but which might not be obvious to the research participants themselves. The purpose of this chapter is to provide examples of how images can be used in research, and to identify some of the features particularly pertinent or specific to the use of images. The authors draw on their own research using these forms of data in studies on teaching and learning in higher education. The authors describe key issues related to data collection and analysis, and identify challenges in these processes. They also discuss trustworthiness of images as data and dependability of interpretations in the process of analysing photographs, drawings and metaphors, and identify ethical perspectives specific to research utilising these data.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the exploration of metaphors of learning and teaching can contribute to the professional development of teacher candidates and teacher educators.

Approach – The chapter draws on the author's experiences as a teacher and teacher educator to illustrate ways in which metaphors of teaching offer deeper understandings of the personal and social dimensions of teaching and teacher education practices.

Findings – Metaphors and other artifacts by the author and teacher candidates are examined to illustrate how metaphors have been be used to story experience in teacher education.

Research implications – Imagining and re-imagining metaphors provide a solid foundation for the preparation and development of teachers. Engaging teacher candidates in the identification and development of their metaphors of learning and teaching contributes to their development into teachers able to understand the experiences of their students and adapt their teaching to enhance student learning. The exploration of metaphor can also help teacher educators to better understand their professional identities and practices.

Value – Teacher educators are uniquely positioned to help teachers explore how their teacher images inform practice and to analyze these images to enhance personal professional knowledge and teaching practices.

Special education teachers and paraeducators who generated and analyzed metaphors to describe their relationships uncovered insights into how they perceive their roles and responsibilities, and identified models for a more effective collaboration. The metaphors generated by 67 special education teachers and paraeducators indicate that they value relationships characterized by compatibility (e.g., “peanut butter and jelly”) and coordination of effort (e.g., “well-oiled machine”) and have diverse views on the relative contributions paraeducators make to the instructional program (e.g., “my right arm” vs. “icing on the cake”). Notably absent is acknowledgment of the teacher’s critical role as team leader, responsible for directing the work of paraeducators; metaphors like “two peas in a pod” far outnumber those like “architect and builder.” The chapter includes a description of a process that teachers and paraeducators can use to generate and analyze metaphors to serve as models for a more effective collaboration; examples are provided.

Metaphor is a powerful change agent when applied to course redesign. In this chapter, we examine the influence mental models have on our thinking and the potential consequences they have for our learners. By choosing a metaphor to frame our redesign process, we reveal our ideas about our content, our learners, and our instructional style and how they fit together. This all-important first step in the redesign process can be a game changer; leading us to create the kind of learning experience we seek for our students and for ourselves. Metaphor provides means to break away from default patterns of thinking, inspiring us to play and develop new approaches to teaching and learning – facilitating the redesign necessary to bring about learning in an online context. We examine real examples of courses redesigned using metaphor, and then we embark on an exploration of other metaphors and their likely influence on decisions related to course redesign. In the end, we revise the course redesign model to include metaphor.

The purpose of this article is to offer a new perspective on library instruction by examining its relationship with various aspects of theatrical performance.

The author uses personal observations as inspiration to examine what has been written in scholarly literature about various theatrical practices in instruction, applying the conversation to the library instruction context. Additionally, research from business and professional literature is also incorporated into the discussion. This literature review focuses on three general areas. First, a review on how to use tools and perspectives from the theater to help librarians prepare their lessons; second, an examination of the librarian as performer; and third, a discussion on how theater might help librarians deal with repetition and burnout.

The literature on this subject has been extensive and includes an all-encompassing range of practical suggestions, research findings and theoretical analyses.

This article looks at this subject through the lens of scholarly literature. Empirical research on this topic is still needed.

The author presents a number of theatrical practices librarians might consider incorporating into their instruction sessions.

Much has been written about the connection between teaching and theatrical performance, but seldom from a librarian’s point of view. This article is of value to librarians looking to develop a memorable one-shot instruction session and those looking to examine the connection between teaching and performance.

To explore how student teachers (re)construct their professional identities, this chapter contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China. The overarching question is how the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums, especially where their teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge meet. By analyzing a flexible matrix of paired stories, the research highlights the collective influences of the multiple instructional contexts: nation-wide Free Teacher Education program policy, recent national curriculum reform in China, and the characteristics of the placement schools. The chapter finds that the student teachers’ professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the professional knowledge landscape. The (re)construction of professional identities involves developing practical knowledge and metaphors by negotiating the tensions the student teachers encountered in the practicums. Meanwhile, the student teachers experienced reflective turns (Schön, 1991) in the practicums, which caused the tension between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge and contributed to the formation of their professional identities.

Interest in supporting the development of teachers’ professional identity in preservice and in-service teacher education programs has increased in recent decades considerably, given that teachers’ sense of their professional identity manifests itself in job satisfaction, occupational commitment, self-efficacy, and changes in their levels of motivation (i.e., Day, 2002). In this chapter, we present different pedagogies that have been enacted in the Estonian context to support the development of preservice and novice teachers’ professional identity. The pedagogies have been divided into three groups: pedagogies that facilitate the professional aspect of teacher identity, pedagogies that address the personal aspect of teacher identity, and pedagogies that support the interaction of the professional and personal aspects of teacher identity.

To describe how a digital storytelling project used in preservice elementary literacy methods courses expands the notion of video reflection and offers an intentional zone of contact in which preservice teachers create their own idealized vision of their future classroom.

Using the multimodal text as a point of departure, each researcher used a different analytical method to approach the data, allowing for examination of different aspects of the product and process of digital storytelling. These analysis methods include theoretically driven analysis based upon theories of Bakhtin (1981) and Vygotsky (1978), metaphor analysis, and performative analysis. This chapter describes the findings from each analytic lens, as well as the affordances of the multiple research lenses.

The results of the study shed light on how preservice teachers constructed a dialogue around their beliefs about themselves as teachers and visions of their future classrooms. The space between the real and the imagined provided a critical writing space where preservice teachers were able to vision their evolving identity and make visible their negotiation of intellectual, social, cultural, and institutional discourses they encountered. These artfully communicated stories engaged preservice teachers in creating new meanings, practices, and experiences as they explored possibilities and imagined themselves in their future classrooms. In these compositions, the preservice teachers maintained, disrupted, and/or reinvented classroom contexts to accommodate their own understandings of literacy teaching and learning.

The zones of contact that were consciously created in this digital storytelling assignment allowed teacher educators to provide the cognitive dissonance which research shows makes teacher beliefs more amenable. Additionally, asking preservice teachers to engage in the type of analysis described in this chapter may prove to be a useful avenue for helping to make the negotiation that took place during the composing of the digital stories more explicit for the preservice teachers.

Identity is a disputed concept. A clear-cut, unitary definition of identity is impossible as it “bears a multivalent, even contradictory theoretical burden” (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000, p. 8). Existing literature shows that teacher identity or teacher professional identity is defined differently. In some cases, there is no definition at all. This chapter summarizes how research on teacher identity evolved in the last two decades. A total of 33 papers on teacher identity were reviewed. To analyze the data, we developed a conceptual framework on teacher identity based on the reviewed papers. In reviewing the literature, we found four lines of studies that have attracted more attention from educational researchers: (1) research on factors shaping teachers' professional identities, (2) studies highlighting the tensions and crises in teachers' professional identities, (3) approaches and models to the construction of teachers' professional identities, and (4) research on students' and beginning teachers' identities. Two different conceptions of teacher identity were found in these lines of research: strong and soft approaches. Strong conception of identity emphasizes sameness over time or across persons. Soft or weak conception of teacher identity, in contrast, is based on the premise that identity is flexible and unstable over time and across persons. Most of the research adopted the soft conception. Thus, the strong conception of teacher identity was understudied. Hence, we do not know what counts as the core professional values or meaning in strong conception of teacher identity. Relying on general pedagogy, we propose a framework based on moral, aesthetic, and rational foundations for developing a strong conception of teacher identity.