The experience of learning to teach: changing student teachers' ways of understanding teaching

The experiences of several students enrolled in a 1 -year programme of postgraduate initial teacher education are examined using phenomenographic analysis of interview data. Three questions are considered: What does learning to teach mean to student teachers? To what extent do student teachers think of learning to teach as changing understanding of teaching, its constituents, and the relations among them? What is required for student teachers to learn to teach if learning to teach is defined as changing understanding of teaching! The categories which emerged from the interview data are used to assess the development of student teachers' understanding over the duration of the programme. The results show that the programme was successful in developing understanding, shed light on the factors influencing this development, and have implications for the design of initial teacher education programmes.