Teacher educators are an occupational group who appear to suffer from an identity crisis. They do not seem to be able to agree on what their role or professional learning needs are. This situation has dire consequences for the next generation of teacher educators who enter the field in the same rather haphazard and ad hoc way as the ones before.…

The formation of identity in a secularized world is different from formation in a religious oriented society. In this situation, educating young people and guiding their personhood formation is even more a task of connecting to the pupils from out of your own heart. A Catholic religious teacher can be a mirror for these young people when answering…

Co-constructing a long-term sustainable vision on the future of teaching is a policy priority for many countries as society rapidly changes. There is a need to create space in the teacher debate to look forward for inspiration and to learn from contemporary change in other professions, such as the concept of "connective professionalism".…

This chapter presents how I integrated Virtual Exchange (VE) programmes delivered by Soliya in two courses at an international undergraduate liberal arts and sciences college. In both cases the VE programme was fully integrated in the courses as a graded element. The students of beginner Italian participated in the four-week long Connect Express.…

This article describes an initiative led by two classroom teachers from the Netherlands to put teachers back at the centre of the educational process. The article argues that the educational system has become inverted, with those who are most influential (teachers) having the least opportunity to influence. The challenge is to "flip the…

Contemporary genomics research will impact the daily practice of biology teachers who want to teach up-to-date genetics in secondary education. This article reports on a research project aimed at enhancing biology teachers' expertise for teaching genetics situated in the context of genetic testing. The increasing body of scientific knowledge…

This study focuses on aspects of the Changing Academic Profession survey of 2007-08 that describe the place of faculty in their institutions. The authors examine the following aspects of institutional life: (1) the faculty role in institutional governance; (2) who evaluates their teaching and research; (3) the locus of their loyalties as between…

In the literature on intercultural education there is an abundance of text about what ought to be going on in the classroom and a lack of empirical descriptions of the dilemmas of intercultural education in practice. This article describes the practice of five teachers guiding discussions about sensitive issues in ethnically diverse secondary…

This paper highlights my experiences as World Citizenship teacher at a public school in the Netherlands, comprising a student population of second generation immigrants with a Turkish background. It shows how the concept and course of world citizenship has evolved since its inception three years ago. The paper also reflects what we, as teachers…

In a statistics course for bachelor students in econometrics a new format was adopted in which students were encouraged to study more actively and in which cooperative learning and peer teaching was implemented. Students had to work in groups of two or three students where each group had to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks was: explaining…

Several factors have been identified that influence a teachers' use of curriculum materials. This paper focuses on the development of materials as a key factor in this process. Clarification is given on how a sophisticated design of curriculum materials can improve curricular implementation processes and outcomes. An overview of the implementation…

The Dutch Association of Teacher Educators developed a standard for teacher educators. This article places the development in a wider context, discussing the role of teacher educators and five important starting points used in developing the standard. Dilemmas encountered during the development of the standard and plans for the future are noted.…

This article presents a new classification scheme for learning environments in secondary education, based on a review of recent literature on new learning and a review of existing classification schemes. This new classification scheme emphasizes new forms of learning and is organized around three main aspects of learning environments that may be…

Expressing the desire that geography should be a more challenging subject that helps pupils to become better learners, a group of academic geographers and geography teachers from northeast England developed teaching strategies to stimulate pupils to think through geography. Teachers in England and the Netherlands report that these strategies are…

One of the goals of Project Onderbouw in the Netherlands is to develop an educational concept and curricula to be used in primary education. The educational concept adopted for the project is termed "developmental education." Based on neo-Vygotskian principles and other theoretical approaches, "developmental education"…