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This research treated the secondary school teachers as the research scale and the research targets included the following: secondary school (employ unit), center of teacher education, and qualified teachers. In terms of these three groups of people, the topics of exploration focused on the perception of suitable teachers, perception of evaluation standard during the process of teacher examination and the relationship among teacher examination systems. The research was managed by two phases: the first phase referred to literature reorganization, expert interview, the qualities and conditions of suitable teachers, important evaluation standard during the process of teacher examination and teacher examination system used; the second phase included questionnaire survey, employ school acquisition, the perception of centers of teacher education and qualified teachers toward the suitability condition and examination evaluation standard in the first phase and teacher examination system used. This research found out that as to the perception of suitable teachers, through data collection, there were six factors reorganized. The levels of their importance were as follows: education devotion, teaching capacity, class management, capacity to guide special students, capacity to communicate with the parents and the will to undertake administrative works. Noticeably, employee unit and centers of teacher education apparently valued class management more, compared with trained teachers; as to evaluation standard of examination, the analytical result found out that the perception of three groups were different in terms of the views toward educational works, written examination data, candidate’s age, club experience at school and capacity to use multimedia support teaching materials. This research further proposed six suggestions for centers of teacher education and trained teachers: (1) employ schools considerably valued educational devotion; (2) trained teachers tended to neglect the importance of class management; (3) employee unit considerably cared about the new teachers’ competence to use multimedia support teaching materials; however, trained teachers did not have the same view; (4) employee unit considerably cared about new teachers’ views toward educational works as well as the candidates’ ages; (5) generally speaking, trained teachers neglected the importance of club experience at school; (6) the data revealed that written examination data was not relatively important in terms of teacher examination

This study examines EFL preservice teachers' life-history narrative. The objectives of the examination were to identify the preconceptions of teaching and teachers that the preservice teachers brought to teachers college, the sources and biographical origins of these preconceptions, and to what extent, if any, the preconceptions influenced their initial motivation to enroll in a teacher education program.

Using a life-history narrative as the method, the authors aimed at capturing and describing the critical moments in the preservice teachers' educational histories, the people involved in those moments (Clandinin and Conelly, 2000) and the sociocultural factors that might have influenced their preconceptions of teaching and the work of teachers as well as their decision to undertake teacher education.

The narrative analysis of the autobiographies has revealed that the preservice teachers still viewed teaching and teachers from altruistic perspectives. These preconceptions were based on the apprenticeship of observation and highly influenced by significant moments, the people they interacted with throughout their life and educational history and the sociocultural value of teaching and teachers in Indonesia. These preconceptions have influenced their genuine motivation to undertake teacher education and their commitment to the teaching profession. Several pedagogical implications for teacher education are also presented.

The authors’ study contributes to the scholarly conversations about the critical roles of life-history examination in the understanding of preservice teachers' motivation to undertake teacher education.

This article aims to describe and discuss four major innovations to improve the quality of teacher education including preparation programs and professional development programs in recent years in China. The four major innovations include establishing the National Curriculum Standards for Teacher Education (NCSTE) and the National Teacher Certification Examination; implementing the “double development plan” to reform clinical practice; launching the “National Training Plan” to develop in‐service teachers; and consolidating the career ladder for teachers.

The paper takes the form of a review of the government documents and current literature.

The author argues that the four major innovations reflect the central trends to reform teacher education both in China and the USA – increased standards and accreditation, more clinical experiences in preparation, increased use of technology in teacher professional development, and more accountability and incentive for teachers.

When the world is faced with the globalized economy, cultural exchange and social equity issues, discussions about the recent innovations of China's teacher education will shed light on our understanding of better approaches to improve teacher quality that no doubt connect tradition and local practices with global convergence.

It is extraordinary that such an apparently forbidding aspect of education as examinations has become so charged with emotional attitudes and language that, before one even begins to survey any sector of the field, some cautionary words are necessary. It is salutary to remind ourselves that in this, as in all organised human activities, we are not likely to find perfection, but only a serviceable balance of opposing factors:

Teachers constitute one of the largest groups of knowledge workers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents and outcomes of teachers’ task and extra-role performance (ERP) under two different autonomy regimes in charter and regular public schools. A special emphasis was given to the ERP of teachers. Both the predictors and outcomes of teacher work performance were comparatively investigated in these two different school environments.

By applying a social-cognitive perspective and a causal comparative design, the study comparatively tested the reciprocal relationships among the study variables in public and charter schools. The clustered sample included 812 public school teachers and 112 charter school teachers.

The findings revealed that the predictors and outcomes of teachers’ task and ERP have differing dynamics in these two distinct types of public schools. The School Type, which represented the differences in school autonomy between public and charter schools, appeared to be the strongest differentiating factor across two groups of schooling. Both types of teacher performance (task and extra role) in charter schools outweighed their counterparts in public schools. Similarities and differences were observed on the predictors and outcomes of teacher work performance.

The current study contributed to the scant literature on the effects of school autonomy on teacher task and ERP. A clear understanding on the predictors and outcomes of teacher work performance under two different school autonomy regimes may guide practitioners and policymakers in their efforts to bring public schools to a more competitive edge.

Number five in a series of articles looking at methods and techniques used in further education in an attempt to define ‘progressive’ teaching in this sphere.

The study aims to present a logic map linking the Professional Development School (PDS) Nine Essentials as a PDS theory of action and offer an analysis of dissertations that compare outcomes of learning in PDS and non-PDS contexts.

For this current study, the authors identified 25 of the 210 dissertations from a larger study that used a comparison methodology to provide a window into how learning in PDS and non-PDS settings may differ. In reviewing these comparison studies, the authors identified a set of clustered themes, as well as a variety of comparison constructs and measurements researchers used to determine the impact of PDS.

Five themes emerged including (1) the experience of learning to teach in a PDS setting vs. a non-PDS; (2) the experience of teaching in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (3) teacher candidate quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (4) teacher quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; (5) school leader quality in a PDS vs. non-PDS; and (6) K-12 student learning in PDS vs. non-PDS.

Limitations of this study include the complications related to comparison, logic-related fallacies and the complexity of capturing simultaneous renewal.

In the 30th year of PDS work, the study utilizes a theory of action comprised of linking the PDS Nine Essentials to situate the comparison dissertation analysis of outcomes in PDS and non-PDS contexts suggesting challenges and possibilities and perhaps a direction for new research questions.

The purpose of this paper is to share findings from a Master's study exploring teacher professional learning needs with the purpose of elucidating the needs of teachers, and mentor teachers, within the school cultural context in the Republic of Ireland. This study coincides with a relentless neo‐liberal drive to outsource most of what was traditionally seen as state investment across all public services, including education.

The research methodology is a small scale qualitative research study exploring the perceptions of experienced teachers in two secondary schools. It examines the conditions which may account for different levels of engagement in this regard.

The key findings show very different levels of engagement in school based teacher professional learning in the two secondary schools.

These findings have serious implications for the type of whole school mentoring that needs to be offered within schools at a time when policymakers are mandating teacher professional learning and requiring the development of critical reasoning capacities for all pupils in a global knowledge world.

This study is concerned with the readiness of the experienced teacher to mentor beginning teachers, and student teachers, in ways that value co‐inquiry, care, agency and critical thinking within the ecology of a whole school environment. Mentoring has become a popular construct in everyday usage. The originality of this research lies in the use of productive mentoring as a framework developed by the authors and under continual interrogation.

Within schools across the USA, mentees supported by mentors experience a number of potential benefits, including high job satisfaction, less attrition and more opportunities for professional/emotional guidance. However, these benefits are less understood in the context of formal mentorship specifically, as well as to what extent these supports apply to instructional practices. This study aims to address the minimally researched area of how being mentored might impact the instructional practices of teachers at all stages of their career.

Based on data recently published for the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) in 2018, this study examines the relationship of teachers with formally assigned mentors, the number of total years of teaching experience and instructional practices. US teachers who responded to the target survey questions (n = 1,934) were submitted to several one-way analyses of variance to determine (1) the potential relationships between the presence of a formal mentor and instructional practices and (2) how different groups of teachers with varying numbers of total years of teaching experience impacted these relationships.

The results found that the presence of a formal mentor predicted higher classroom management practices, clarity of instruction practices and cognitive activation activities for the combined sample (p < 0.05), and for teachers with 15 years or more of teaching experience, the presence of a formal mentor predicted higher classroom management and clarity of instruction practices (p < 0.05).

The results provide evidence for the use of formally assigned mentors beyond new teacher induction, but the nature of the formal mentorships in this study is unclear. Future research should further investigate descriptive cases of more inclusive formal mentorship programs.

Bureaucratic theory, systems theory and a review of research on innovation, provide a conceptual framework on which seven predictions are posited. The predictions relate to the innovative behaviour of a bureaucratic education system throughout a period of twenty years. An innovation is defined as a new structure or process that appeared for the first time in the education system. One hundred and sixty four innovations are identified and classified. The predictions are tested and the implications discussed.