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Teachers develop and use a special kind of knowledge. This knowledge is neither theoretical, in the sense of theories of learning, teaching, and curriculum, nor merely practical, in the sense of knowing children. If either of these were the essential ingredient of what teachers know, then it would be easy to see that others have a better knowledge of both; academics with better knowledge of the theoretical and parents and others with better knowledge of the practical. A teacher’s special knowledge is composed of both kinds of knowledge, blended by the personal background and characteristics of the teacher, and expressed by her in particular situations. The idea of “image” is one form of personal practical knowledge, the name given to this special practical knowledge of teachers (Clandinin, 1985; Connelly & Dienes, 1982). In this chapter I show how one teacher’s image of the “classroom as home” embodies her personal and professional experience and how, in turn, the image is expressed in her classroom practices and in her practices in her personal life. Using a variety of classroom episodes gathered over two years with two teachers, I offer a theoretical outline of the experiential dimensions of an image and, in so doing, present image as a knowledge term which resides at the nexus of the theoretical, the practical, the objective, and the subjective.

The chapter examines the storied experiences of a preservice teacher in India who transitioned to become a beginning year teacher over the course of this study. Multiple threads unraveled the complex interweaving of her personal and professional selves in her scholarship of teaching, further suggesting that teachers teach who they are. Through the course of this research, I explored the following questions about my participant: What was the source of her energy and passion for working with her students? What did her story reveal about the development of her personal practical knowledge? What were those experiences in the teacher education program which enabled her to intervene and connect with her students at a deeper level? As the inquiry travels back and forth on the temporal dimension, including various social spaces and interactions, my participant demonstrated an evolving understanding of her self-as-a-thinking being with an agency and social justice perspective.

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.

Different images of teacher knowledge and of teaching are described using the conceptual structure of Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999a), in which knowledge and practice are viewed as either formal, practical, or transformative. Instructional design (ID) represents a formal image of knowledge and frames the teacher as a problem-solver. Teachers, however, have been resistant to the use of ID. In a graduate ID course, students were given the task of drawing their own representation of the ID process. Two research questions framed the study, including How might these models be categorized? and What views of teaching were found in the models? From 13 deliveries of the course, 123 models and explanatory narratives were analyzed from students who were teachers. The course and ID model task are described. A recursive cycle of categorization and theme-building were used. Types of models included those characterized by Human Activity (51 models), Components (23), Artifacts (20), Organic (15), and Flow Charts (14). Views of teaching included Teacher-centered (47 models), Designer-centered (36 models), Co-centered (18), Learner-centered (16), and De-centered (6). Analysis revealed that for teachers ID activity is a human activity and the principal focus for design activity is teacher needs. Implications are summarized in terms of teacher knowledge and expertise, as well as limitations to our methodology.

Teacher researcher pedagogy (TRP) is a national-based pedagogy in Iran. This pedagogy has been introduced and adopted to Iran’s teacher education system from 1996. In line with this pedagogy, we studied the narratives of the teachers who were already involved in TRP to understand how it helped them reconstruct their professional identity. We found this pedagogy helped teachers improve their professional consciousness. The teachers with good manners and methods could take obviously significant advantage of TRP and involve in reflective practical research. As a consequence, an epistemological shift happened in the professional life of such caring teachers where they no longer only use the knowledge of a third-party person. Such conditions recovered teachers’ professional identity and put them in power position.