A New Basis For Teacher Education

The Struggle for the Soul of Teacher Education is a much-needed exploration of the unprecedented current controversies and debates over teacher education and professionalism. Set within the context of neo-liberal education reforms across the globe, the book explores how the current struggles over teaching and teacher education in the US came about, as well as reflections on where we should head in the future. Zeichner provides specific examples of work that moves teacher education toward greater congruency between ideals and practices, while outlining the basis for a new form of community-based teacher education, where universities and other program providers, local communities, school districts, and teacher unions share responsibility for the preparation of teachers. Ultimately, Zeichner problematizes an uncritical shift to more practice and clinical experience, and discusses the enduring problems of clinical teacher education that need to be addressed for this shift to be educative. Readers are sure to gain insight on transforming teacher education so it more adequately addresses the need to prepare teachers capable of providing a high-quality education with access to a rich and broad curriculum, and culturally and community responsive teaching for everyone’s children.

This book focuses on current trends, potential challenges and further developments of teacher education and professional development from a theoretical, empirical and practical point of view. It intends to provide valuable and fresh insights from research studies and examples of best practices from Europe and all over the world. The authors deal with the strengths and limitations of different models, strategies, approaches and policies related to teacher education and professional development in and for changing times (digitization, multiculturalism, pressure to perform).

This fourth volume addresses teacher educators’ knowledge, learning and practice with teachers/instructors of mathematics. It provides practical, professional and theoretical perspectives of different approaches/activities/programmes to promote effective teacher education practice, with valuable implications for research.

This 544-page book has 22 chapters prepared by experienced and renowned scholars and researchers from different parts of the world. Grouped into three sections- "Information Technology, Science and Mathematics", "Social Sciences and General Studies", and "Languages" - the chapters represent an important collection of international endeavours committed to facilitate the much needed paradigm shift in subject curriculum and pedagogy and reinforce the quest for a new knowledge base that can support the search for new conceptions, models, perspectives, innovations, and practices for teaching effectiveness and teacher development in different parts of the world. The target audiences are teacher educators, educators, graduate students, researchers, policy makers and those interested to reform education and teacher education in the new century.

Serves to provide readers with an international understanding of how researchers and practitioners in different countries address some essential issues and initiatives in teacher education and development; what they have found from their known and applied research and what the implications are of which are crucial to coping with challenges from the ongoing developments in teacher education.

Based on rapid advances in what is known about how people learn andhow to teach effectively, this important book examines the coreconcepts and central pedagogies that should be at the heart of anyteacher education program. Stemming from the results of acommission sponsored by the National Academy of Education,Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends thecreation of an informed teacher education curriculum with thecommon elements that represent state-of-the-art standards for theprofession. Written for teacher educators in both traditional andalternative programs, university and school system leaders,teachers, staff development professionals, researchers, andeducational policymakers, the book addresses the key foundationalknowledge for teaching and discusses how to implement thatknowledge within the classroom. Preparing Teachers for a Changing World recommends that,in addition to strong subject matter knowledge, all new teachershave a basic understanding of how people learn and develop, as wellas how children acquire and use language, which is the currency ofeducation. In addition, the book suggests that teachingprofessionals must be able to apply that knowledge in developingcurriculum that attends to students' needs, the demands of thecontent, and the social purposes of education: in teaching specificsubject matter to diverse students, in managing the classroom,assessing student performance, and using technology in theclassroom.

The field of education generally, and teacher education particularly, is experiencing some general disquiet with traditional approaches to the identification and classification of knowledge. Formal research studies, long the source of the knowledge base of teaching, is discredited by new ideologies that are based in the women's movement, the multiculturalists, and persons taken up with newer research strategies called naturalistic, ethnographic, or case study approaches. The book is a collection of essays that rehearses the issues facing the field, and addresses them in forthright fashion.

Lifelong Education and the Training of Teachers: Developing a Curriculum for Teacher Education on the Basis of the Principles of Lifelong Education focuses on the role of teachers and their training relative to educational changes. The selection particularly explains the influence of teachers on the delivery of educational services and on the personal, social, and productive lives of their pupils. The book first discusses the defects in traditional education, practicability of lifelong education, and the relationship of lifelong education and the school. The manuscript also takes a look at lifelong education and training of teachers, including roles and responsibilities of teachers, implications for teacher training curriculum, concepts in teacher education, and implications for teaching practice. The text focuses on changes in theory courses and practice teaching, as well as teaching and learning processes, content of the changes, fostering educability, and broadened concept of practice teaching. The manuscript also reviews the changes in the institutions. Concerns include need for institutional changes, organizational changes, and relationship with other institutions. The book is a vital reference for readers interested in the education and training of teachers.