From Planning to Pedagogical Reasoning: Teacher Educators’ Collaborative Autoethnographic Inquiry into Pre-Service Teachers’ Learning to Plan in Australia

Abstract Learning to plan is central to teacher education, yet producing structured lesson plans does not necessarily demonstrate pedagogical reasoning. This study employed collaborative autoethnography with four teacher educators in an Australian initial teacher education program, drawing on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and Vygotsky’s Genetic Method. Three tensions emerged between assessment completion and purposeful planning, procedural tool use and context-sensitive reasoning, and community support and independent judgement. Teacher educators interpreted pedagogical reasoning development as uneven and recursive, shaped by these tensions. The findings suggest that such development involves increasingly purposeful engagement with planning tools and social support, highlighting the need to look beyond completed lesson plans when evaluating and supporting pedagogical reasoning.