Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century

Download or read book Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century written by Xudong Zhu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.