Shaping professional identity in the early days of teacher education

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe and discuss an introductory program for all new student teachers in a five-year integrated teacher education program at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The program was designed to focus on the students’ motivation for becoming teachers and to stimulate their desire and motivation to learn. The program lasted for one week and consisted of workshops, discussions, subject presentations, school visits, and social activities. The main idea was for students to get a first impression of the course content of the program, to get to know more about the teaching profession by meeting teachers and pupils in schools, and to meet fellow student teachers. We present and discuss some findings from research on a selected part of the program. The chapter contributes new knowledge about how to establish a process of developing teacher identity already in the first week of teacher education. The findings suggest that an introductory program for new student teachers may contribute to raising awareness of the teaching profession and that effort is required to become good teachers.