Chapter 11: Rethinking Teacher Education: Lessons Learned From a Mandatory Community-Based Service-Learning Program

Institutes of higher education around the world have increasingly adopted experiential education and service-learning (SL), in particular, to equip their students with 21st century skills, and teacher training institutes have also come to realize that SL can complement more conventional pedagogies such as classroom-based lectures and field experience, including school practicum. This chapter describes an innovative approach to teacher preparation at postgraduate level through the establishment of a compulsory SL block across subject disciplines at a leading Asian university. By positioning SL as a cornerstone of its postgraduate teacher preparation curriculum, the university concerned has opened a powerful new space for their students’ knowledge building and one which is rich in learning opportunities for both preservice and in-service teachers. The chapter details this curriculum change which was designed to expand their beginning teachers’ capacity to integrate understanding of theory and practice, broaden their global outlook and become community-aware teachers. By working alongside local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as well as other community partners during their training, student teachers engaged in a process of boundary crossing on their journey towards becoming a teacher. The chapter identifies a number of positive outcomes in their novice teachers’ personal and professional development while also acknowledging some of the tensions and challenges that arose during the first year of this SL initiative.