Prior Experience and Initial Teacher Education

The relationship between prior field experience and professional development has been frequently documented in teacher education (Denton, 1982; Calderhead, 1988). There is less research, however, which has explored the relationship between students’ prior experiences and their initial images of teaching and professional development. This paper outlines some findings from a UFC research project into experiential learning in higher education. It concentrates specifically on teacher education and focuses primarily upon the experiences of student teachers prior to their professional training. The paper examines the extent to which prior experiences influence students’ images of teaching and professional development. It describes the nature of those experiences and explores the relationship between prior experience and students’ preconceptions about professional development.