Rethinking the Frameworks that Guide Teacher Education

Around the planet, teacher education is positioned as one of the most important components of government policy in an effort to boost human capacity for a global world. In Australia, for example, “in the last decade alone, there have been no fewer than 40 reports on various aspects of teacher education and since the 1970s, we have seen more than 100 reviews of teacher education” (Mayer, 2014, p. 462). Many conservative governments see teacher education as a variable to be manipulated to improve economic outputs to promote jobs and growth. More liberal governments see teacher education as a way to promote human capacity, build global-mindedness, and improve the human condition. In many ways, teacher education is a safe target for leaders looking to “blame something” for the changes in the rule book of schooling. We can no longer be satisfied to marginally educate a majority of our people. In addition to the moral necessity for effective universal education for everyone, with the rapid pace of automation, there is nothing to do if you are undereducated in today's world. This edition of the Peabody Journal of Education is dedicated to rethinking the frameworks that guide teacher education and its place in this social transformation.

Reframing teacher education for learning equity

In the first article, John Fischetti presents the case for a new vision for teacher education. At the University of Newcastle in Australia, an international network of teacher education programs was formed to investigate the best research and practice in the emerging learning sciences. The Global Learning Equity Network (GLEN) has crafted a new set of international frameworks, launched a cloud-based resource tool, and formed a global research team to study the implementation of a new vision for teacher education.

Equity issues in teaching and teacher education

Penny Jane Burke and Geoff Whitty provide important context for the consideration of equity in teaching and teacher education. Inequality emerges even before children enter into the education system, and systematic inequalities continue to emerge throughout all stages of education. This article investigates the need to create educational structures, processes, and strategies that disrupt the reproduction of persistent patterns of inequality across social differences with the aim of creating pedagogies and practices that are sensitive to multiple layers, contexts, and challenges that characterize the field of equity in all stages of education.

The importance of community knowledge in learning to teach: Foregrounding Maori cultural knowledge to support preservice teachers’ development of culturally responsive practice

Letitia Fickel, Jane Abbiss, Liz Brown, Kaiārahi Māori, and Chris Astall of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, discuss the teacher education program in Aotearoa New Zealand and the benefits of its one-year, postgraduate masters program that incorporates research-informed professional knowledge with embedded practice-based learning. This program equips preservice teachers with the knowledge and skills to become effective, culturally responsive teachers, ensuring equitable outcomes for all students. The authors poignantly provide a spotlight on the importance of new teacher knowledge of their learners’ backgrounds, culture, prior knowledge they bring to school, and the environment in which they live. Too often teachers use a deficit rather than an asset mind-set in understanding their students. This work helped evolve the GLEN first framework on the importance of knowing where children live.

Rethinking teacher quality in the age of smart machines

Yong Zhao is a global scholar and thinker who challenges the premise of schooling as we know it. As technology has transformed society, it has brought about the need for an educational paradigm shift from homogenous learning to individual pathways of learning and necessitates a review of the teaching qualities required for 21st-century education. This article posits the importance of shifting the traditional content and pedagogical knowledge focus in teaching to focusing on training teachers as community-based facilitators of students’ holistic development.

Reflections on neuroscience in teacher education

Donna Coch discusses the importance of neuroscience knowledge in teacher education programs in terms of deepening pedagogical content knowledge from multiple perspectives; understanding neuroplasticity, its educational implications, and ability to restructure knowledge; and recognizing the power of the environment to affect neurobiology, learning, and development. This will contribute to engaged, reflective practice and informed inquiry to address underlying mechanisms that other traditional levels of analysis cannot and do not address.

New visuality in art/science: A pedagogy of connection for cognitive growth and creativity

“New visuality” enables students to maximize their excitement and engagement in learning moments and offers opportunity for their creative potential to represent experiences. This article investigates the connections of neuroscience and learning with the pedagogy of “new visuality” and the ability for students to build knowledge, refine concepts, build reasoning capacities through higher order thinking, and experiment with ways to render and represent thinking. Kath Grushka, Miranda Lawry and Alice Hope reveal that the human brain was not designed for most of our current curriculum structures.

Perceptions of social justice among South Asian and Chinese immigrant youth in Hong Kong

Young people's political attitudes, behaviors, and participation have become key social issues in Hong Kong. Celeste Yuen reports on her research about adolescents’ perceptions of social justice across numerous student groups, focusing on attitudes of gender equality, racial/ethnic equality, and immigrants’ rights in Hong Kong. Findings reveal differences in racial and ethnic rights, limited opportunities for civic and political engagement, civic rights tension, and the importance of language in socialization of various racial/ethnic groups, indicating policymakers’ importance in developing support measures and shifting resource allocation to promote greater social solidarity and equality.