Engaging teacher identities in teacher education: Shifting notions of the “good teacher” to broaden teachers’ learning

Abstract

It is widely accepted that how teachers identify with the profession influences how they think about teaching. In this chapter, we synthesize two sets of interpretive case studies to theorize the relationship between teacher identity and teacher learning. First, we examine how pre-service and novice teachers’ conceptions of a “good teacher” activate particular motivational filters through which they weigh whether to learn instructional practices in constructing their emerging teacher identities. Second, we explore how interactions with actors playing a standardized parent in a simulation cycle influence pre-service teachers’ understanding of their social positioning in relation to other people. Foregrounding teachers’ positional identities in this way can lead teachers to revise the way they filter instructional practices and thus, what they choose to learn as they aspire to become “good teachers.”.