The World Education Research Association (WERA), 27 national, regional, and international specialty research associations aimed at advancing education research as a scientific and scholarly field, recently launched its new website that features 17 International Research Networks. One of these is “Teacher Education for the 21st Century: Developing Teachers Who Are Thoughtful, Reflective, and Inquiring,” co-convened by Dean Jane Close Conoley of UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz School. Conoley convened this group with Oon Seng Tan, Dean of Teacher Education at the National Institute of Education, Singapore, and Woon Chia Liu, Associate Dean of the same institution. The Gevirtz School’s Tine Sloan, Director of the Teacher Education Program, is another participant in this network.
WERA’s new website serves as a collaborative workspace for the organization’s 17 International Research Networks (IRNs). “Teacher Education in the 21st Century: Developing Teachers who are Thoughtful, Reflective, and Inquiring” is dedicated to satisfying the need for more conversation and research across cultures and across continents that defines critical components of teacher education programs that prepare teachers to be inquiring thinkers and researchers. Participants in the IRN beyond the lead institutions of the Gevirtz School and Singapore’s National Institute of Education include scholars in Denmark, Finland, Japan, Korea, Scotland, South Africa, and the American Psychological Association.
The website launch is in preparation of WERA’s upcoming 2014 Focal Meeting to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland this fall. WERA’s web presence will allow educators, researchers, and other scholars to exchange information and studies around the world via an online database.