Policies around the world increasingly call for teachers to become 'agents of change', often linked to social justice agendas. However, there is little clarity about the kind of competencies such agency involves or how it can be developed in teacher education. This paper draws on theories of teacher agency and inclusive pedagogy to clarify the…

Historically, educators and philosophers have struggled with defining the role and the value of formal curriculum and its impact on classroom praxis. As the current accountability movement dominates discussions in education, educators are pressured to implement increasingly standardized curricula. The authors of this work consider these tensions,…

In order to improve one's teaching in the long run, reflection on the lessons makes up an integral part in the process of developing a sufficient reflection competence. The problem, however, is how this reflection competence can be established in student teachers already and if that concept is compatible with current systems of teacher education…

This article draws on reflections offered by 80 post-compulsory education and training initial teacher training (PCET ITT) mentors on a mentor-training programme that has been designed by a UK higher education institution and delivered to its four partner colleges since October 2009. The findings are based on questionnaire data that has been…

This article examines the ways in which Rousseau's "Emile" continues to speak to us in the twenty-first century. In the first part, I examine the concept at the heart of Rousseau's theory of education: "negative education" or the process of de- or unsocializing individuals and of putting them in touch with the nature of things…

We investigated secondary science and mathematics teachers engaged in a two-and-a-half-year professional development effort focused on equity. We examined how teachers conducting research on their own instructional practices--a central learning strategy of the professional development project--informed and/or constrained their views related to…

In this article, the collection of articles in this issue are synthesized to discuss conceptualizations of adaptive teaching as a means to foster spaces for adaptive teaching in today's complex educational system. Themes that exist across this collection of articles include adaptive teachers as constructivists, adaptive teachers as knowledgeable…

Evidence suggests that increasingly young adolescents are finishing school with poor literacy skills limiting their access to further education, training and employment. This has lifelong effects in terms of their economic participation and health and wellbeing. This paper examines the spatial practices of one school's approach to improving…

Preparing the next generation of teachers to prepare students for the 21st Century is a challenging endeavor. Teacher candidates need to possess critical thinking and evidence-based pedagogical skills. It is believed that teacher reflection is the cornerstone to making informed decisions and timely modifications to daily instruction…

The objective of this paper is to describe the design case of a web-based system that aims to facilitate the collective reflective practice of a learning group in an academic setting. The technical infrastructure of the system is fully implemented using free web services, which requires minimum technical knowledge or expertise. A key technical…

This paper describes a case study research project carried out in a public school in Bogotá, Colombia, with four unlicensed teachers of English as a foreign language. Although the institutional guidelines in the school suggest that teachers should collectively propose changes to shape pedagogical realities, there is evidence of little…

This study involves the design of an online course on oral corrective feedback (ONOCEF) and its implementation through flipped classroom with a view to finding out if it exerts any impact on ELT student teachers' competencies regarding oral corrective feedback (OCF). Having conducted a needs analysis, the ONOCEF was developed and then administered…

Reflection is a key component of teacher quality assessment and a venue for professional development. Among many tools for teacher reflection, keeping blogs as a user-friendly, technology-enhanced tool has recently come to the forefront in teacher education. To contribute to the body of literature on the potentiality of blogs for teacher…

Professional development is central to teacher competence and, with particular attention to larger-scale, structured and formal professional development interventions (PDIs), this article discusses how the impact of professional development can be conceptualized and evaluated. Various kinds of impacts on teachers, organizations and systems, and…

Asia is the world's largest continent, both in terms of land mass and human population; yet, many of the schools in the United States still embrace a Eurocentric curriculum, and resultantly, U.S. citizens remain largely ignorant about topics pertaining to Asian nations including their geography, histories, politics, economics, religions, and…