Student Teachers' Experiences of Using Photos in Teacher Reflection

This article explores teacher reflection that is done through a photo reflection report instead of a traditional written report in initial subject teacher education. Teacher reflection is considered an essential component of teacher development in teacher education programmes worldwide. As student teachers are often burdened with numerous writing assignments, a photo reflection report was invented as an innovative pedagogical tool that would offer student teachers a new approach to process and describe their feelings and considerations of their teacherhood. During teaching practice, student teachers are asked to compile a report with photos that are meaningful and that make visible important issues or aspects of their teacher identity and teacher development. The photo reflection report is inspired by the idea of Empowering Photography (Savolainen, 2009). This study examines student teachers’ experiences of using a photo reflection report in considering their emerging teacher identity and their teacher development during their one year of pedagogical studies.