Improving the Preparation of Teachers:
Educating Pre-service Teachers for the Information Millennium
S. Chye1, S. L. Kong2, & S. H. Seng
The National Institute of Education/Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
The educational scene is evolving rapidly in response to societal developments over the last decade. Attempts to confront challenges of the 21st century have meant that ambitious goals are being set forth in current educational reform efforts. Singapore’s Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, summed up the nation’s vision for educational reform in these words – "Thinking Schools and Learning Nation". This vision of schooling however, poses great challenges for teachers and the schools in which they work. In order to meet these challenges, renewed forms of teacher preparation are an imperative. The purpose of the present paper is thus to discuss future directions for teacher education programs in light of current societal demands. A conceptual framework for developing teachers who are equipped to teach in the schools of tomorrow will be suggested. Particular emphasis is placed on ways to train pre-service teachers to teach thinking effectively. It is suggested that self-regulation be employed as a vehicle to support student teacher learning in this area.
The Pressure for Educational Reform
We are living in an age where the world’s store of information is rapidly increasing. Almost a decade ago, Freeley (1990) stated in foresight that, "ninety-seven percent of everything known at the start of the twenty-first century will have been discovered since today’s students were born" (p. viii), and pointed out that these students would be called upon to face problems unimaginable at this time and to reach decisions based on evidence tha ...