Challenging student teachers in higher education to learn authentically: A Singapore case study

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 33 : Reshaping Higher Education

July, 2010, 654 pages
Published by
M. Devlin, J. Nagy and A. Lichtenberg
ISBN
0 908557 80 9
Abstract 

This article is an account of the design and development of a course in teacher higher education using an inquiry and self-directed approach to improve authentic learning of graduate students in a course taught at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. A key learning outcome is that these adult learners were supported to change their perspectives about internal and external relationships of school communities. Challenges to examine prior, often negative, assumptions about school stakeholders increased students’ awareness of the influences of prior attitudes and beliefs on actions. As a result, many expressed both a greater willingness to modify these perceptions as well as a readiness to take responsibility for building more positive relationships with their future constituencies.

Keywords: authentic and self-directed learning, schoolstakeholder relationships, teacher education