Keynote Lecture 5: Preparing Teachers for the Changing Future

We live in an exciting time of relentless change, and unprecedented technological innovations and transformations. In this era, education must evolve from one that is ‘content-focused’ to one that emphasizes guiding and facilitating inquiry and discovery, as well as identifying and addressing real-world problems. It must prepare our children so that they do not merely survive in the new landscape but invent their future. From this perspective, it is clear that teacher education in this age cannot be about teacher training. It has to be about developing professional leaders in the field of education who assume personal responsibility for continuous learning, reflect and think innovatively about their practice, and inquire and make informed decisions about the learning needs of their students. It is about a long haul vision to evolve practice so that teachers can become shapers of character, facilitators of learning, architects of learning environment, and leaders of educational change. This address focuses on the significance of having a values-based teacher education that develops aspiring teachers into autonomous thinking teachers, which includes values development that re-envision teacher professionalism, professional practice and inquiry that encourages ownership of learning and crystallization of teacher identify, pedagogical changes to emphasize real-world inquiry and technology-enabled learning, and international practicum and internship to develop multiple perspectives of learning.