Ebook: Teachers as Learners: Critical Discourse on Challenges and Opportunities

In movements of educational reform across the world, educators are forging new roles, identities and relationships. Leadership is of course vital, but needs to be rooted in a capacity for learning. This volume responds to some of the tensions and paradoxes typically associated with educational reform, presenting a critical discourse on teachers as learners. Contributing authors highlight a range of culturally related challenges that teachers should not face in isolation. Sustainable teachers’ learning ideally requires a collective engagement to turn challenges into opportunities in the quest for meaningful professional development. This book offers a vision of a new relationship among educational workers as a joint force of learners in a cross-boundary endeavour aimed at a renewed moral commitment to education. Ora KWO is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. As a university academic who has been involved in teacher education for three decades, she specialises in research on professional development and on the processes of learning to teach. In 1997 she was awarded a University Teaching Fellowship by the University of Hong Kong in recognition of her excellence in teaching. Since then, her research interests have extended to the quality of teaching and learning in higher education, and to the building of learning communities. In 1999-2000 she held a Universitas 21 Fellowship at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Since 2001, she has been an Honorary Professor at Hangzhou Normal University in China, where she initiated the building of a learning community under the theme, Teachers and Teacher Educators in Action Learning” (TATEAL). CERC Studies in Comparative Education (For complete publications list and other details, see inside pages) Other books published by CERC include: Carol K.K. Chan & Nirmala Rao (eds.) (2009): Revisiting The Chinese Learner: Changing Contexts, Changing Education. ISBN 978-962-8093-16-8. · Donald B. Holsinger & W. James Jacob (eds.) (2008): Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives. ISBN 978-962-8093-14-4. · Nancy Law, Willem J Pelgrum & Tjeerd Plomp (eds.) (2008): Pedagogy and ICT Use in Schools around the World: Findings from the IEA SITES 2006 Study. ISBN 978-962-8093-65-6. · David L. Grossman, Wing On Lee & Kerry J. Kennedy (eds.) (2008): Citizenship Curriculum in Asia and the Pacific. ISBN 978-962-8093-69-4. · David A. Watkins & John B. Biggs (eds.) (2001, reprinted 2009): Teaching the Chinese Learner: Psychological and Pedagogical Perspectives. ISBN 978-962-8093-72-4. · David A. Watkins & John B. Biggs (eds.) (1996, reprinted 1999): The Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological and Contextual Influences. ISBN 978-0-86431-182-5. Order through bookstores or from: Comparative Education Research Centre Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China. Fax: (852) 2517 4737 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.hku.hk/cerc

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In the worldwide movements of educational reform, educators are forging new roles, identities and relationships. Leadership is vital, but must be rooted in the capacity for learning. This volume responds to the tensions and paradoxes brought by educational reforms, presenting a critical discourse on teachers as learners. The contributions bring an array of cultural settings and methodological orientations, and reveal contextual burdens that teachers should not carry in isolation. Teachers’ learning demands collective engagement to turn challenges into opportunities in a sustainable quest for higher goals. The discourse concludes with a vision for a new relationship among educational workers as a joint force of learners in a cross-boundary endeavor for moral commitment to education.