This course explores two intertwining themes: (1) Teacher as the curriculum maker, which explores from the interpretive perspective on how teachers acquire the knowledge, skills, and values in forming their identity in situated teaching practices and curriculum making. How do we understand the composition of teacher’s knowledge, practice, and skills in making curriculum alive? What counts as teacher quality in an era of accountability? How do teachers provide and practice leadership in curriculum making? How do teachers learn at different points in the teacher’s professional continuum and in different contexts? (2) Teaching as a practice, one that has been historically understood by scholars, practitioners, and policy makers from a range of theoretical perspectives. What does it mean to conceptualize teaching as a practice situated in relation to curriculum, assessment and learning? What are the many ways people have thought about teaching as a practice, and what are the consequences of those perspectives for how we understand teaching? Who can create, evaluate, and critique knowledge about teaching? The course will introduce some major frameworks that have been used to guide research, policy recommendations, and the work of teachers and teaching.

We consider the issues of teaching and teachers in an international context, drawing on research from Singapore and other countries. Some of our texts and video materials we will use will give us repeated opportunities to consider education in China, France, Japan, and the U.S. While they don’t constitute a central focus of the course, they will give us some chance for shared discussion that draws on multiple and sometimes conflicting descriptions and interpretations of teaching and teacher in a particular setting. Thus, we further pursue the context-related questions when we make the familiar strange in such an international perspective: In what ways is teaching an embedded practice that is shaped by the many contexts in which it is situated? How is learning to teach a process of entering a particular culture? What does it mean to work as a teacher in response to the discourses prevalent in globalization, and the local culture of the students and the community?

As participants consider various perspectives to exploring these questions, they will be guided to reflect upon their own teaching practices and professional identity, with references to educational reforms in schools and classrooms.

 

At the end of the course, students will:
• confront fundamental issues pertaining to teachers and teaching;
• familiarize themselves with central lines of research on teaching and teacher;
• develop an ability to analyze teaching in relation to curriculum making, reflect upon their professional identity, and deliberately learn and lead from their own teaching practices;
• continue developing their academic skills in critical reading, analytical writing, and thoughtful collegial discussion in a professional learning community.

The course will cover three main areas:

1. Various conceptual and historical frameworks for reading and interpreting the large body of research on teaching;


2. Different approaches to understand the teachers;


3. Topics that connect the discussion on teaching and teachers with implications for practice, theory, and policy: such as curriculum/middle leadership, working with diverse learners, and assessment practices.

Three tasks that run throughout the face-to-face and online discussions will be
(1) interrogating the relationship between teachers’ knowledge/skills/beliefs and the teaching practices: We will explore a range of ways scholars have described knowledge about/for/of teaching, teacher quality, teachers’ thinking and beliefs, and consider what counts as the teaching profession from various angles;
(2) exploring the connections among teaching, curriculum, assessment, and learning as discussed in different theoretical perspectives within the field of study on teachers and teaching;
(3) examining the nexus between teaching practices and the opportunities for teachers to grow professionally and lead curriculum making in teaching practice. Specifically, we will explore how teachers develop their professional identity, and sustain their learning across their careers by devoting themselves to specific teaching practices.

We will conclude the course by exploring ways teachers learn in and from their teaching practice, and how the setting of the teacher community influences teachers' personal and professional growth.

A good Bachelor's degree from a recognised university.

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A teaching qualification such as the NIE’s Postgraduate Diploma in Education or equivalent portfolio of professional learning certification/diploma in education practice.

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At least two years of experience in teaching or professional experience in educational contexts.

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