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This brief history of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT) documents developments and trends during the decade 2013–2023. To situate recent ISATT history, we begin with an overview of the association's first 30 years (1983–2012). The dominant theme of those early years was developing ISATT as a recognized and influential professional organization connecting researchers on teaching and teacher education from a growing list of nations and regions of the world. During the most recent decade, there has been a concerted effort toward broad internationalization through biennial conferences and regional meetings, and a growing network of national representatives from across the world. Also, the ISATT journal, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, the journal, which began in 1995, has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles written by more than 1000 authors and coauthors, contributing to a growing body of knowledge about teaching and teacher education in many cultures. In the last 20 years and especially in the past 10, the locations of ISATT meetings have become significantly more diverse, following a trend of greater internationalization compared with ISATT's European and North American beginnings. At the same time, the number of ISATT members remains stable and small thereby preserving a collegial and collaborative tone in our exchanges. In sum, ISATT's recent decade finds the association intellectually healthy, successful in managing the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, and enriched by the proliferation of multinational points of view and styles of research.

This chapter explores the notion of teacher identity and how teacher education might help to create a strong and clear vision for what it means to be a professional teacher. Within the organizational features and structures of teacher education, the pedagogy that students of teaching experience is crucial in shaping their understanding of their sense of identity. Teacher education needs to acknowledge and respond to the needs, issues, and concerns students of teaching have and create expectations that push beyond the personal and strive for the professional. This chapter suggests that in recognizing the importance of pedagogical reasoning and understanding learning about teaching through an inquiry stance, that students of teaching might begin to not only recognize the importance of knowledge of practice but also begin to see how to create knowledge from practice. A vision for their professional identity is then borne of a need to see value in “noticing” through practice in order to become more informed about teaching and learning. In doing so, the importance of pedagogy as a relationship between teaching and learning and the teacher’s role in mediating that relationship can support the development of an identity as a professional teacher.

This chapter considers the notion of inclusive pedagogy in terms of issues arising through such practice related to teacher learning, reflection and the development of expertise. By drawing on these ideas, the notion of inclusive pedagogy, and specifically the inclusive pedagogical approach in action framework, understandings of teaching and learning are examined that illustrate the importance of creating conditions for learning that can make a difference for all students. These ideas have important ramifications for teacher education – both pre-service and in-service – and the nature of those ramifications is considered in ways that are designed to illustrate why it is that teaching is complex and sophisticated business.

Teacher education has long been criticized for having little apparent impact on practice. Despite the fact that the teacher education literature is replete with examples of alternative or restructured programs designed to better align teacher education practices with the anticipated demands and expectations of school teaching, principles of practice seem strangely absent. Principles of practice for teacher education programs must be at the heart of any attempt to construct a meaningful and relevant program that might realistically respond to the expectations, needs, and practices of student teachers. In this chapter, the authors develop a set of foundational principles based on teacher education programs in Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands, in order to initiate a renaissance of teacher education based on fundamental principles to guide the development of responsive teacher education programs that genuinely make a difference.

The teaching of teaching is sophisticated work although it is often viewed simplistically. To challenge simplistic approaches to teacher education, teacher educators need to actively articulate the specialist knowledge, skills, and abilities that underpin expertise in teaching and to do so through their practice with their students of teaching. In schools, teachers do not commonly experience a workplace culture whereby the explicit discussion and critique of pedagogical purpose and reasoning occurs. Therefore, it is all the more important that teacher educators bring such thinking to the surface in their teaching about teaching. Teaching is not just about the “doing” of teaching; it is also about the “why” – which leads to the development of informed and meaningful practice to enhance student learning. This chapter considers some of the principles that underpin thinking about teaching as more than transmission and therefore shapes what teacher educators need to know and are able to do.

In this chapter, Cheryl Craig and Lily Orland-Barak, editors of International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part A), expound on the traveling pedagogies theme as well as the theory–practice chasm, and conclude the edited volume with a model capturing the nature of fruitful, contextualized international pedagogies. Throughout the discussion, they highlight connections between and among potentially promising pedagogical approaches documented by the contributing authors whose countries of origins differ. As authors of this chapter and editors of this book, they claim that promising pedagogies have the potential to “travel” to other locales if their conditions of enactment are locally grounded, deliberated, and elaborated. This contextualization adds to the fluidity of knowledge mobilization to contexts different from the original one. Furthermore, all of the pedagogies have a praxical character to them, which means they strive to achieve a dialectical relationship between theory and practice. At the same time, they address local complexities in a reflective, deliberative, and evidence-based manner while acknowledging connections/contradictions in discourses and daunting policy issues/constraints/agendas. Against this “messy” backdrop, a model for traveling international pedagogies is proposed. The model balances a plethora of complexities, on the one hand, with the seemingly universal demand for uniformity, on the other hand. Through ongoing local, national, and international deliberation and negotiation, quality international pedagogies of potential use and value become readied for “travel”.

In this chapter, the story of professional development of Barica Marentič Požarnik (Professor Emerita, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) is shared in an interview conducted by Barbara Šteh. Central to the story is the impact of her participation in ISATT together with other influences (organisations, projects, conferences, individual contacts) on her professional activities and beliefs. Through the telling, the Slovenian context, particularly in the areas of initial teacher education, continuous professional development, curricular reform and research practice, becomes visible. At the end, some remaining issues are revealed.

This chapter chronicles the process of one division of education's journey in achieving initial teacher accreditation from the perspective of the chair and author of the accreditation report. It was acknowledged early in the process that a collaborative self-study that had never been done before would be critical to a successful outcome. A committed faculty willingly participated in a study of themselves, their work and their collective work as a division. A deeper understanding of the complex role of teacher educators and authentic assessment in teacher education led to the development of a new assessment system resulting in valid and reliable data to support current claims and make planning decisions. Their shared belief in the power of education and understanding drove the faculty through various challenging, frustrating, invigorating, and exhausting experiences resulting in positive change and a clearer vision for the future.