Crafting visual autoethnography to develop preservice art teachers’ reflexivity and teaching philosophies

In this article the author presents examples of visual autoethnographic journals that were part of an assignment she developed to foster preservice art teachers’ reflexivity and support the development of their teaching philosophies. This study analyses two preservice art teachers’ visual autoethnographic journals and reports on interviews conducted during the participants’ student teaching programme and post-graduation. The findings indicate that (1) teacher identities were formed by their past personal experiences, (2) past personal experiences influenced their teaching philosophies, (3) making art helped to synthesize ideas for future teaching and (4) developing reflexivity and clarifying teaching philosophies influenced future teaching. The results support an arts-based autoethnographic approach as a valuable method to foster preservice teachers’ reflexivity and the building of teaching philosophies.