Digital Storytelling for Professional Socialization Through Cartooning Preservice Working Experience: A Case Study

Abstract

New teachers are often shocked at real school situations such as rules of local schools, human relationships in an enclosed environment, and the reality of teaching children. Also, some teachers cannot adapt to the working situation and tend to leave the workforce within a few years. It has become necessary to educate student teachers in the universities with a focus on adaptive professional socialization of teachers to overcome this problem. In order to address this issue, we introduced digital storytelling so that student teachers can visualize the prospective image of their practicum before it begins, and then reflect on their working experiences at the school after their practicum, taking into consideration the school situations. This digital storytelling aims to broaden the student teachers' perspective on schools as a workplace, by having them describe and share their working experiences. As a result, the student teachers could direct one's attention to the different characteristics of various schools as well, rather than just focusing on their teaching experiences.