The pressure to improve preparation programs for teachers increasingly is evident in Australia, UK and the US. At Curtin University, the Faculty of Education is interested in the way in which preservice students perceive the teaching role and how these perceptions alter during their undergraduate experiences. First year undergraduates in the Faculty of Education were asked early in the year to give short written comments, in an informal situation, to the question "What is teaching?" At the end of their first year the same students were then asked "How have your ideas about teaching changed, and what influenced those changes?" An analysis of students' responses showed considerable changes in their views of the profession with the single most important factor in the change being the first practicum. Also many of the student teachers' views were expressed in strongly emotional terms. This paper reports the findings of the first year of a three year project planned to continue mapping students' conceptions of teaching.
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