Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of teachers’ images for "collaborative learning" and "teachers who support it" between teaching experiences. This study included 87 elementary school teachers and 83 teacher trainee students. They were asked to answer three metaphor-making tasks: "learning each other", "group learning", and "teachers supporting collaborative learning". The results indicated that teacher trainee students had images for "collaborative learning" and "teachers supporting it" from the students’ view, and that it was easy for them to imagine "teachers’ roles" because this was visible from students while it was hard to imagine "effect" and "character" because these were including teachers’ view. On the other hand, teachers had specific images for "collaborative learning" and "teachers supporting it" and related each other. In particular, they imagined "teachers who support it" as "how teachers exist" or "abilities required of teachers" which mean meta-images rather than "teachers’ roles" which means behavioral images.
