Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century

This book surveys challenges and dilemmas in teacher preparation faced by eastern countries, especially China, and western countries. The authors explore local factors, teacher education research, practice and policy, and offer insight on paths to improvement.

This book addresses two main questions, namely how to prepare high-quality teachers in the 21st century and how the East and the West can learn from each other. It addresses the different challenges and dilemmas that eastern countries, especially China, and western countries are facing with regard to teacher education. We explore the question by examining teacher education research, practice and policy in different countries, identifying both common problems and country-specific challenges. We then try to find valuable experiences, theories and practice which can solve specific problems in the process of teacher education, also addressing how local and global factors impact it.

In this regard, our approach does not strictly separate pre-service teacher education from teachers' in-service professional development, adopting an integrative perspective. Further, we believe the respective social and cultural contexts must also be taken into account. Lastly, we call for teachers' knowledge and individual character traits to be accounted for in the education of high-quality teachers.

This book provides a comparative perspective and different methodologies to answering the question how to prepare high quality teachers in the East and the West This book combines theoretical discussion, policy analysis and empirical studies in teacher preparation This book responses the common and different challenges of teacher preparation in the East and the West and how they can learn from each other

Inhalt
Part I Teacher Preparation and Teacher Quality 1.Two visions of teaching and teacher education for the 21st century.- 2. Teacher Quality in the Twenty-First Century: New Lives, Old Truths.- 3.The Continuing Problem of Teacher Education: Policy Driven Reforms and the Role of Teacher Educator.- 4.Evidence-based Teaching, Evidence-based Teacher Education.- 5.Practices, experience and policy orientation for Free Education in normal universities in China.- Part II Preparing Teachers and Teacher Educators Globally and Locally 1.Discussion of the reconstruction of rural teacher training configuration in China.- 2.Mary Lynn Hamilton and Stefinee Pinnegar, The International Terrain of Teaching and Teacher Education: How can teacher educators prepare teachers for a world we cannot envision?.- 3.Exploring the Interaction of Global and Local in Teacher Education: Circulating Notions of What Preparing a Good Teacher Entails.- 4.Preparing 21st century teacher-researchers for worldly intellectual interactions East/West, South/North, East/South: Uses of Chinese theoretical tools in Australian teacher education.- 5.Teacher Education in Hong Kong: Status, Contemporary Issues and prospects.- 6.Preparing Teacher Educators in US Doctoral Programs.- 7.Research on the Impact of Chinese Teacher Educational Reform on Teacher Candidates' Quality after 1999.- Part III Professional Development 1. Future of Teaching and Educational Change.- 2.Learning to Teach Against the Institutional Grain: A Professional Development Model for Teacher Empowerment.- 3.Teacher Education: A question of sustaining teachers.- 4.Professional learning as a moral drive from critical discourse.- Part IV Social and Cultural Perspectives of Teacher Education 1.Social Justice and Teacher Education: Where Do We Stand?.- 2.Gery Smyth, Who are the teachers and who are the learners? Teacher education for culturally responsive pedagogy.- 3.Ninetta Santoro, The making of teachers for the Twenty-firstCentury: Australian professional standards and the preparation of culturally responsive teachers.- Part V Teachers' Knowledge and Characteristics and the Quality of Teaching and Teacher Education 1.Chinese Elementary Teachers' Mathematics Knowledge for Teaching: Roles of Subject Related Training, Mathematics Teaching Experience, and Current Curriculum Study in Shaping Its Quality.- 2.Yucui Ju, Living with the Tensions: A Narrative Inquiry into Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge in the Midst of Chinese Curriculum Reform.- 3. Yueting Xu, Language Teacher Emotion in Relationships: A Multiple Case Study.- 4.Hongying Zheng, Exploring the dynamic relationship between Chinese secondary school EFL teachers' beliefs and practice.