Education is the most important investment in the long haul and the quality of education impacts on nation building, people's capacity for adaptation, value creation and innovation. The anchoring factor in successful education is the quality of the teacher. This edition on teacher education addresses the development of new teacher competencies in light of global changes. Teacher education must focus on producing thinking and innovative teachers - those who are not only good at classroom practices but also courageous in engaging the environment for real world learning. Recent international studies on the impact of educational reforms on student learning and achievement also point to the importance of focusing on teacher recruitment, teacher education and teacher development. What can we learn from the teacher policies and practices of some of the world's best performing education systems? How do some of the best systems cope with and envisage the future? What insights can policy makers, researchers and practitioners gain from the values paradigms, pedagogical, psychological and technological perspectives in innovating teacher education?The views presented in Teacher Education Frontiers: International Perspectives on Policy and Practice for Building New Teacher Competencies will help fill the gap for a much needed source of reference for policy leaders, researchers and practitioners to innovate and improve teacher education research, policy and practice.Also available in the Gale Virtual Reference Library (eBook).eBook pricing varies according to the size of your institution. Please contact us for details.eBook ISBN-13: 9789814392792

If countless books and movies are to be believed, America's Wild West was, at heart, a world of cowboys and Indians, sheriffs and gunslingers, scruffy settlers and mountain men—a man's world. Here, Chris Enss, in the latest of her popular books to take on this stereotype, tells the stories of twelve courageous women who faced down schoolrooms full of children on the open prairies and in the mining towns of the Old West. Between 1847 and 1858, more than 600 women teachers traveled across the untamed frontier to provide youngsters with an education, and the numbers grew rapidly in the decades to come, as women took advantage of one of the few career opportunities for respectable work for ladies of the era. Enduring hardship, the dozen women whose stories are movingly told in the pages of Frontier Teachers demonstrated the utmost dedication and sacrifice necessary to bring formal education to the Wild West. As immortalized in works of art and literature, for many students their women teachers were heroic figures who introduced them to a world of possibilities—and changed America forever.

This book explores the topic of teacher cognition, making use of sociocultural theory as a framework to understand what teachers know, think, believe and do in their professional contexts through ‘applied’ conversation analysis. The author examines what teaching and learning mean to teachers by analyzing the interactional work they do with their students, considering when and why teachers make interactive decisions as well as how they utilize new technological tools to address their pedagogical objectives. After discussing how teachers construct identities and display emotions in the classroom, she presents suggestions for language teacher education and development, pedagogy improvement and teacher knowledge. This book will be of interest to language teachers and teacher trainers, as well as students and scholars of applied linguistics and sociocultural theory.

The contributions to this volume explore several focal issues related to the global spread of English and their implications for English language teaching, providing both theoretical and empirical perspectives on recent research and implications in educational terms. The volume is divided into three thematic sections, namely "Developments in ELF research and pedagogic implications", "Raising teachers' awareness of ELF", and "ELF and ELT practices". The book provides up-to-date perspectives on the issues, implications and repercussions that findings in ELF research can have for ELT practices. The contributors are all scholars and researchers who have long been engaged in ELF-related research, and who have undertaken operational and practical work in the field, and, as such, offer novel perspectives on the effects of EFL research on the teaching and learning of English. The volume also presents the findings of innovative projects in teacher education, involving pre- and in-service teachers, providing exemplificative good practices of possible new routes into pluralistic, ELF-aware and ELF-oriented didactic perspectives.

Get the tools, resources and insights you need to explore artificial intelligence in the classroom and explore what students need to know about living in a world with AI. For many, artificial intelligence, or AI, may seem like science fiction, or inherently overwhelming. The reality is that AI is already being applied in industry and, for many of us, in our daily lives as well. A better understanding of AI can help you make informed decisions in the classroom that will impact the future of your students. Drawing from a broad variety of expert voices from countries including Australia, Japan, and South Africa, as well as educators from around the world and underrepresented student voices, this book explores some of the ways AI can improve education. These include educating learners about AI, teaching them about living in a world where they will be surrounded by AI and helping educators understand how they can use AI to augment human ability. Each chapter offers activities and questions to help you deepen your understanding, try out new concepts and reflect on the information presented. Links to media artifacts from trusted sources will help make your learning experience more dynamic while also providing additional resources to use in your classroom. This book: • Offers a unique approach to the topic, with chapter opening scenes, case studies, and featured student voices. • Discusses a variety of ways to teach students about AI, through design thinking, project-based learning and STEM connections. • Includes lesson ideas, activities and tools for exploring AI with your students. • Includes references to films and other media you can use in class to start discussions on AI or inspire design thinking and STEM projects. In Teaching AI, you’ll learn what AI is, how it works and how to use it to better prepare students in a world with increased human-computer interaction.

This book demonstrates teachers’ and learners’ experiences with big data in education; education and cloud computing; and new technologies for teacher support. It also discusses the advantages of using these frontier technologies in teaching and learning and predicts the future challenges. As such, it enables readers to better understand how technologies can improve learning and teaching experiences. It is intended for graduates and scholars in educational technology disciplines and anyone interested in the applications of frontier technologies in education.