Exploring the fourth-year Sol Plaatje University student teachers’ professional identities development during teaching practice

Abstract

Professional identities are important because they guide teachers’ perceptions, decisions, and actions. Most initial teacher education research focuses on student teachers’ acquisition of subject and pedagogical knowledge. During teaching practice (TP), student teachers reflect on experiences in authentic schooling contexts to develop their professional identities. Most research focuses on South African student teachers’ experiences at schools instead of their development of professional identities during TP. This study contributes to the research by exploring how eight fourth-year student teachers developed their professional identities during TP. The theoretical lenses for the study were Community of Practice Theory and Positioning Theory while the research design was narrative inquiry. The participants told their stories in different journals during TP and during one-on-one follow-up interviews. The findings showed that student teachers developed two main professional identities during TP: relational and collegial. The participants developed their relational and collegial professional identities through the rapport that they built with learners, and staff members, mostly their assigned mentor teachers. They developed these identities through reflection on prior teaching and learning experiences, and participation in the school communities through mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoires. The factors that influenced their professional identities development were personal, social, and temporal conditions. It is recommended that teacher trainers and teacher educators assist student teachers to surface and reflect as individuals and in groups on their relational and collegial professional identities prior to and during TP. These reflections could include student teachers’ motivations for choosing teaching as a career, past teacher role models, and classroom management, including the regulation of emotions. Through their professional identities development during school visits, the student teachers developed and enhanced their professional skills, including, classroom management, learner- centred teaching and 21st century teaching skills, and provision of care through pedagogies associated with love, freedom, and hope.