| Popis: |
We introduce our book on teacher education futures in this chapter. Teacher education is currently facing many challenges, arising from the societal changes and contexts in which it is embedded. These contexts include changes in political arenas, in the nature of knowledge that is deemed important and in the emergence of new technologies. The future is always uncertain but if we have a sense of the drivers that will influence society, schooling and teacher education, we can begin to imagine possibilities for teacher education futures and investigate the trajectories that may lead to desirable futures. In this chapter, we outline the reasons for investigating the future in teacher education, based on current trends and drivers. The chapter outlines the ways in which we grapple with possibilities for the future by focusing mainly on two futures methods, the development of scenarios and the use of backcasting. Examples of previous research in this area are used to illustrate the discussion, with a focus in these examples on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, given the current discourse on the importance of these areas for advancing society. Finally, the chapter provides a description of the structure of this book. |
