Teachers' professional self-understanding and its reception by prospective teachers through digital storytelling

The purpose of this study is to examine the professional self-understanding processes of teachers and prospective teachers. For this purpose, firstly, six digital storytelling workshops were performed with 28 Information and Communication Technology teachers regarding their professional lives. The study then examined how prospective teachers' receive the digital stories (DSs) created in these workshops. 15 prospective teachers studying in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology were involved in the process of reception. With regard to the data collection, ethnographic techniques were employed; semi-structured focus group interviews, audio records, DSs, and observation notes. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. As a result of analysis, it was revealed that the problems encountered by the teachers in their professional lives substantially shaped their professional self-understanding. Especially, it was unveiled that teachers have self-images of struggling, exploring and self-enhancing against the problems of to be treated like a technical staff, asked to deal with something else by interrupting their lecture, high expectations towards them and inadequate curricula. Further, the study revealed that they experience frustration and boredom regarding their self-esteem; they take a dislike to their jobs regarding their job motivation, and questioned their task perceptions; regarding future perspective, they consider changing their field of study. The prospective teachers reported that the DSs were instructive for them to find solutions to the problems they may encounter in their professional lives and informative about classroom management in real-life. In this regard, DSs appear to linking theory to practice in teacher education.