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The purpose of this article is to discuss the impact of an international book exchange project done with elementary students from a professional development school partnership on the understanding of project-based learning by pre-service teachers.

A collaborative project between a school in Uganda, a university teacher education preparation program in the United States and an elementary school resulted in a book exchange between the schools. The pre-service teachers worked to develop lesson plans related to social studies and language arts for students with and without special education needs. These lessons were then taught to students at an elementary school who are part of the university’s school partnership program. Upon completion of the book exchange, pre-service and in-service teachers reflected on their experiences.

Pre-service teachers reported that the project provided them a better understanding of collaborative work and project-based learning during their reflections and said they were more willing to take on large projects after seeing the buy-in and value for students.?

While pen pal and similar writing exchange programs are not novel, this project sought to explore the impact of having one embedded into a teacher training program on pre-service teacher perceptions of project-based learning and the potential impact to their future teaching practices.

This chapter features three personal reflections written by practicing teacher leaders from Florida, Ohio, and Maryland. The first reflection describes a collegial partnership between a practicing special education teacher and an undergraduate intern which has been sustained for many years. The second recounts a teacher leader’s serendipitous experience in cultivating new teacher leaders through collegiality, collaboration, and leading by example. The third describes how a college instructor’s participation in Project Teacher Leadership provided new leadership opportunities and inspired educational and professional growth. The chapter concludes with five questions for discussion and reflection.

Teacher education pedagogies face the complex challenge of attending to standards of professionalism while being sensitive to the local changing needs of professional learning. Encounters between these two aspects of professional work are manifested, for example, through the relations between innovative, “against the grain” pedagogies and standardized criteria and accountability to policy issues and measurement. This chapter characterizes various “contact zones” across participants, contexts and contents, called for by the four categories of pedagogies (working with multimodalities, partnerships and community learning, teacher assessment, and vehicles for dissemination) that comprise this volume of International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part C). The four categories of pedagogies join five earlier categories of pedagogies (teacher leadership, diversity, family, social justice, and technology), which are found in International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part B). These go in with yet another five categories of pedagogies (teacher selection, reflection, narrative knowing, teacher identity and mediation and mentoring), which are found in International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part A).

This introductory chapter provides an explanation for and overview of this edited collection, including a brief synopsis of the themes which are developed in its chapters. Themes include the contested site of teacher preparation, whether it should take place mainly at university or in schools and whether the emphasis should be on the academic discipline of education or on the practical elements of teaching. A second theme relates to the impact of education policy on teacher preparation; in particular, the devolution of powers from the UK Parliament and Government to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive (now Scottish Government). In this devolved context a new curriculum framework covering those aged 3–18 years, called Curriculum for Excellence, was introduced in 2010 and recently a Scottish solution to teacher shortages has been to create online and distance learning routes into teaching. A third recurring theme in the book is the review of all forms of teacher education led by the former Chief Inspector of schools, Graham Donaldson. This review resulted in a seminal report, ‘Teaching Scotland's Future’, and its 50 recommendations included many related to teacher preparation and induction. This collection also shines a light on some hitherto neglected areas of teacher preparation, including the Episcopalian Teacher Training College and the preparation for English Language teachers.

This chapter synthesizes Chapters 8–11, and discusses various definitions, structures, and cultures of teacher leadership. It also describes how the professional development school model supports various teacher leader roles, responsibilities, and initiatives, including liaisons-in-residence, professional learning communities, learning walks, co-teaching, and mentoring. Recognizing that even amidst rich and authentic examples, a common definition for teacher leadership still does not emerge, the chapter concludes on the note that by not declaring a one-size-fits-all definition of teacher leadership, the concept remains open to various potential leadership roles and responsibilities.

This chapter features three personal reflections written by practicing teacher leaders from North Carolina, Kentucky/Missouri, and New Jersey. The first two reflections describe various challenges and successes of instructional coaches working with new teachers and experienced teachers in two different schools. The third reflection recounts one teacher’s frustrating experience trying to provide support for his school’s Parent and Teacher Organization. The chapter concludes with five questions for discussion and reflection.