MONITORING TEACHERS REFERENTS FOR CLASSROOM PRACTICE USING METAPHORS

In this research, teachers were asked to provide metaphors which they used to describe their teaching practices prior to, upon completion of , and four months after, participating in an extended inservice progra mme aimed at promoting constructivist teaching/learning approaches. Se ven of the eight teachers on the science staff of a junior high school were able to generate metaphors to describe their teaching and six of these teachers put forward metaphors that were indicative of a facili tator role within the classroom. The findings of the research illustra te that metaphors can be a useful means of monitoring change in teachi ng approaches.