Making a Difference: Challenges for Teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education

Making a Difference: Challenges for Teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education has been written to provide an international forum of scholarly discussion around the theme of how teachers and teacher educators can make a difference. It examines some of the challenges that need to be addressed across the teaching profession. The chapters have been developed by the contributors from a set of keynote presentations and refereed papers given at the 2005 International Study Association for Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) Conference, in Sydney, Australia. The conference was attended by 190 delegates, from a diverse range of countries: Australia, Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and the West Indies. A distinctive feature of the conference was the range of education systems, policies, teacher education programs, school districts, classrooms, teachers and students whose views were argued for and critiqued. This book has been prepared so that it reflects that breadth of contexts and issues. The book is presented in four sections, each emphasising a unique dimension of what is involved in making a difference. The authors offer a range of viewpoints from their different cultural, historical and professional contexts. While each section has a special emphasis, the major themes of heeding challenges and making a difference are woven into all the sections. The chapters in this book provide readers with frameworks, evidence and examples addressing challenges and making a difference. Evidence is presented as to how realities have been transformed for students, teachers and teacher educators as well as for the profession itself. We hope that your engagement with the authors and material in this ISATT forum will motivate you to transform realities in your own professional worlds.