Reflections on Professionalism, Pedagogy & the Theoretical Underpinnings of Teaching Practice Revisited

In this book, the different authors attempt to deal with some of the issues raised by plucking the gaps and addressing the paucity of critical engagement by vigorously reflecting in a robust manner the burning issues that bedevil teaching practices. The chapters of this book address various topics concerning teaching practices with the goal of placing before the reader a variety of the authors experiences, perceptions and insights into teaching and learning in general. Teaching practices is an important bedrock component in initial teacher training programmes designed deliberately to capacitate future teachers with the requisite skills of teaching the learner with passion and commitment. Children as constituting the bulk of learners, are the future hope of a nation, and they need teachers who are skilsful, competent, compassionate and understand how/what it is to be a child. This book offers a variety of views, theories, beliefs, policies, experiences and suggestions that together strive to make a significant contribution to teaching practices. Among others, the authors argue that it is incumbent for universities to continuously evaluate their teaching practice programmes and models so as to keep abreast with new developments, and to also search for new ways and approaches that could improve teaching practices. It is imperative for teachers to remain active in the pursuit of scientific enquiry as a means of discovering and/or inventing new theories and methods of improving their teaching practices, so that the learners could benefit maximally. Furthermore, the various authors exchange ideas and also emphasise the necessity of first assessing the needs of a situation before venturing to a solution. Without being aware of the needs of their student teachers and the learners they teach, the lecturers may not be able to meet the demands of the teaching practice.