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Are education systems converging toward a global model of teacher education or do local models tend to predominate in spite of attempts to reform them? How much do global, national, and local cultures shape and condition future teachers’ opportunities to learn to teach? How do these opportunities influence teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge? In this chapter we use data from the IEA’s first study of the effectiveness of pre-service teacher education in order to investigate teacher education policy, program structure, and outcomes. Using multilevel modeling we found that across countries individual characteristics have a similar and powerful influence on what future teachers come to know at the end of their pre-service programs. The effects of teacher education curriculum on future teachers’ mathematics pedagogical content knowledge reaffirm the prevalence of local cultures on the implementation of an increasingly globalized ideal. We conclude that while the provision of teacher education shares many common features in goals and structure across countries, it is strongly influenced by local conditions and norms, and by cultural notions of the knowledge that is considered essential – framing how quality is to be defined and operationalized – when learning to teach.

This chapter explores the value of a service-learning unit within a pre-service secondary teaching course. It does so through the perceptions of pre-service teachers. The purpose was to determine the potential of a service-learning program to prepare pre-service secondary teachers for the classroom, both personally and professionally. The context for the research is a social justice service-learning unit offered to pre-service secondary teachers undertaking a Bachelor of Education, Master of Teaching or Graduate Diploma of Education. There were 105 participants in the study. Data collection entailed a 25- to 30-minute survey, which participants completed at the conclusion of the unit. The survey contained qualitative and quantitative questions. Data were analysed through content analysis in the case of the open-ended questions while percentages and frequency column graphs were used for the multiple response questions. The results revealed that the personal and professional development of pre-service secondary teachers had been impacted significantly as a result of engagement in service-learning activities. Additionally, participants listed a range of ‘memorable’ experiences, highlighted various challenges associated with service-learning, indicated ways service-learning prepared them for their teaching practicum, and noted the importance of including service-learning as part of a teaching degree. An over-arching theme that emerged repeatedly in the comments of the pre-service teachers was the need to adopt an inclusive attitude in their teaching practice. The chapter concludes with the authors offering recommendations that focus on further research into the viability of service-learning programs in pre-service teaching courses.

Teachers disseminate food knowledge and skills in secondary school curricula that provide essential skills for a healthy life. The purpose of this paper is to explore Australian secondary school teachers’ views of healthy eating and their sources of information in planning their food, nutrition and health curriculum.

Secondary school teachers’ perceptions were explored through semi-structured, in-depth interviews that were de-identified and transcribed verbatim. Codes were ascribed to sections of the transcripts and throughout the process of inductive thematic analysis. The teachers’ responses were grouped into five main themes: approaches to teaching healthy eating, sources of food and nutrition information, curriculum planning, teaching goals and teacher career influences.

The teachers were clear about the aims and importance of teaching healthy eating in an experiential curriculum. They reported that teaching healthy eating assists the health and well--being of adolescents and their families. The effectiveness of current teaching in Australian secondary schools may be compromised by the positioning of food, nutrition and health topics in two separate curriculum areas: technologies and health and physical education, and competing school priorities and resources that limit the students’ exposures to food curricula. The teachers sourced food information from online websites, popular culture and social media. Their knowledge and views of healthy eating appeared to be associated with their interests, life experiences, education and employment histories.

These findings can assist with health promotion and education policy development. They can assist the design of healthy eating curriculum approaches for secondary schools and professional development courses for teachers, which will foster healthy food habits for adolescents, and their families in the future.

Secondary school teacher perceptions of the place of healthy eating in food, and nutrition curricula have been under examined.

This chapter links ideas about a key issue and a major factor in successful implementation of effective science education in Africa. It presents the Kenyan case as a prototypical African country. While located in the sub-Saharan region, Kenya shares similar national development plans and dreams as well as socio-economic conditions as most African countries. In this work, the current status of science education in Kenya [Africa] is explained, and a blueprint for successful science education relevant to any country in Africa is presented. This chapter argues for contextual and practical approaches to enhancing science teacher effectiveness. It is anticipated that discussions of this work will generate debate within and about science education in Africa and hopefully ignite cross border research on teachers and the teaching of science. Also, the question of quality science education in Africa and elsewhere will be raised locally and internationally.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the degree to which Entrepreneurship Education (EE) was being provided to secondary school students following changes to the Secondary School Curriculum in 2010 by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Under these changes, secondary schools were charged with following an “entrepreneurial” approach to school instruction that would develop entrepreneurial behaviors in students.

The study used a qualitative methodology focused on gauging the reaction by teachers, students and their parents to this new teaching approach. The sample comprised ten secondary schools situated in Northland, New Zealand. A series of focus groups were used to solicit data among three levels under study in each school, i.e. teachers, students and parents. Individual semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from school principals to determine overall reactions to EE by the rest of the school.

Teachers reported benefits in terms of reduced direct teaching workload, increased participation from students and significantly improved scholastic results compared to targets set in the curriculum. Students reported positively on the greater degree of flexibility allowed under this teaching approach, while parents reported changes in attitude and more engagement in school activities and projects.

The continuing evolution of classroom education at secondary school level has long-term repercussions for student learning, engagement and retention as we move to the digital age. Similarly, there are also consequences for the evolving role of teaching, curriculum design and delivery.

The value of this research lies in a closer examination of the effects traditional teaching practices have had on secondary students entering the digital age. Furthermore, it investigates an alternative teaching approach through EE and the impact it has on student learning, retention and engagement.

The focus of this chapter is on the effective and inclusive classroom practices for the teaching and learning of mathematics at the primary and early secondary levels. The research literature and major national and international reports on effective and inclusive mathematics teaching at the primary and secondary levels of schooling are examined. Some of the challenges to inclusive mathematics teaching are explored. Based in Florian’s (2014) inclusive pedagogical approach in action framework, a research-based exemplar of effective and inclusive primary mathematics teaching is described. The elements of effective and inclusive practices at the secondary level are outlined and a sample lesson presented. Potential impediments to inclusivity are examined.

The Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) is one of the two main initial teacher education routes in Scotland. It is a short (1 academic year) university-based course, in which school placement is integrated, enabling students to develop and apply knowledge, skills and values for a career in primary or secondary education.This chapter explains the PGDE university provision across Scotland and the role of the General Teaching Council for Scotland in the design of, and recruitment to, the courses. The current high demand for places on PGDE Primary courses is not mirrored in PGDE Secondary, in which there are many ‘hard-to-fill’ subjects, leading to varied recruitment to, and selection of, applicants to the courses. The PGDE is acknowledged to be intense and demanding and yet remains a popular, viable route; this chapter discusses reasons for its appeal over the undergraduate route.

This article draws on my doctoral research into the expansion of the Catholic educational mission in New Zealand in the years from 1945 to 1965. The project utilised archival and documentary sources and interviews with thirty three Catholic educators: twenty one female religious from the Sisters of Mercy, Dominican Sisters and the Religious of the Sacred Heart and twelve male religious from the Marist Brothers, Christian Brothers and the Society of Mary (Marist Priests) and two former diocesan directors of Catholic education.