The Professional Practice and Inquiry (PPI) course was introduced to equip pre-service teachers with the knowledge, skills, and values required to develop them into reflective practitioners with a strong teacher identity. This study looks into the efficacy of the course in the preparation of thoughtful and reflective teachers. Self-reported…

Teacher learning is key for quality teaching and learning. Schools leverage situated teacher learning to develop teachers' capacities. However, situated teacher learning is ambiguous. How teachers learn is shaped by socio-cultural factors. This paper elaborates upon a case study of situated teacher learning in Singapore in which teachers learn in…

The Teaching for Metacognition project, a hybrid model of PD, integrates the "training model of PD" with sustained support for teachers to integrate knowledge gained from the PD into their classroom practice. This paper is based on the work of the teachers in the project in two-tier communities of practice. It examines the perceptions of…

This study explores the use of a corpus of classroom discourse data (Singapore Corpus of Research in Education or SCoRE) to facilitate the professional development of English language (EL) teachers in Singapore. A survey was first conducted to probe the knowledge base and belief system of EL teachers in three key domains: epistemology, pedagogy,…

In any language education program, there are both commonalities and divergences in the ways in which students negotiate and form their identities. While work on bilingual education has revealed important similarities that students come to share, fewer studies have focused on explaining variation. In this paper, we explore individual differences by…

The identification of personal teaching metaphors is a potentially effective means of assisting pre-service teachers to become reflective teachers. However, although metaphors are often viewed as a way to facilitate self-reflection, teacher education programmes have shed little light on effective communication and collaboration that are essential…

Teachers' responses to language classroom incidents depend on many factors, including the extent of their teaching experience. The question of how much influence teaching experience carries is important given that pre-service teachers have had limited opportunities to respond to day-to-day incidents that arise in classrooms. This paper reports on…

In an increasingly global higher education environment, many universities are taking their educational services overseas. One model of overseas provision is through transnational (offshore) education. Transnational teaching challenges the prevailing understanding of an academic role at every level. Transnational teachers are expected to work in…

Using Singapore as an illustrative case study, this paper discusses the attempts by the Singapore government to improve schools through reflection for teachers. The paper points out that the conception of reflection advocated by the state and practised in schools is explicit and systematic in nature and focuses on specific and proximate matters…

Action research has received increasing attention, especially by school leaders, as a result of the Singapore Ministry of Education's push for greater autonomy, diversity and innovation at the school level. It is also perceived as a means for teacher professional development and professionalism. The Teachers Network, which has its own brand of…

This paper investigates the impact of a current educational policy initiative in Singapore called "Science Practical Assessment" (SPA). SPA is designed to overcome the limitations of single, high-stakes examinations by placing emphasis on research processes, entrepreneurship and the development of science practical skills. Structurally,…

The Singaporean education system is undergoing many changes in order to develop schools and nation which cultivate learning and education. A crucial success factor to these initiatives is the teacher. Singapore needs reflective teachers who can continually reflect upon their own practices to find better ways of teaching as well as maintain their…

Examined the role that support from the school and colleagues played as one teacher developed during his first year as a secondary English as a Second Language teacher in Singapore. Data from observations and interviews indicated that the teacher considered collegial support the most important school-based support during that first year. The paper…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore if reflective inquiry and action learning have an influence on job and organizational effectiveness. A reflective-action learning framework will be used as a prior theory to illustrate its link to organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: The case organization is a Singapore higher learning…

This paper seeks to explore how beginning elementary school teachers (N=161) in Singapore conceive the scope and nature of science and to understand the relationship between those views and their present approach to, as well as their past experience of, science teaching and learning. Results of an inquiry into the teachers' views indicate that…