**2. Why study student-active learning in teacher education?**

An important aspect of teachers' professionality is the ability to promote instructional strategies that encourage students to take an active role in their own learning. Examples of such strategies include project-based learning, group discussions, and hands-on activities, all designed to help students develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and a deeper understanding of the subject matter. By engaging students actively in the learning process, teachers can help students retain information and knowledge more effectively. In addition, by creating a learning environment in which students participate as active learners, teachers play a critical role in helping students feel more connected to their school and community and feel more invested in their own learning. In turn, a learning environment where all students feel valued, respected, and supported can lead to improved academic outcomes and greater social-emotional well-being.

*Perspective Chapter: Enhancing Student Teachers' Professional Development through Active Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112399*

As noted by Darling-Hammond [8], the kind of teaching that supports twentyfirst-century skills in education, such as that incorporating creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, "is very different from what was required when the goal was merely to 'cover the curriculum' and 'get through the book'":

*Students entering school today will leave to work in jobs that do not yet exist, using knowledge that has not yet been discovered and technologies that have not yet been invented, facing complex problems our generation has been unable to solve [8].*

Meanwhile, the complex processes of globalization, internationalization, and immigration continue to alter the landscape of education [9]. As cultural and linguistic plurality become integral aspects of the educational experience, different perspectives are introduced into the dialog. Such intercultural exchange may not only stimulate new ideas and innovations but also transform traditional notions and values [10]. The central in-demand skills that employers demand within such a context will be to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across different cultural backgrounds. More than to follow directions or "simply to recall a canon of received knowledge" [8], students need to incorporate the abilities to assess and evaluate different solutions to problems, to make sense of complex information, and to develop a lifelong-learning mind-set. As such, the traditional teacher-oriented methods used to impart information, what Darling-Hammond [8] framed as "chalk and talk-methods," need to be replaced by teaching methods that allow students to take an active role in their own learning.

All of these expectations surrounding contemporary schooling have implications for teacher training. In recent years, teacher educators have increasingly recognized the value of student teachers' engagement in their own learning. New preparation programs typically allow student teachers to discuss and review research to actively develop a basis for systematic and critical reflection regarding professional practice. These programs also allow student teachers to develop their professional experiences by conducting their own inquires using methods such as action-based research to strengthen the quality of their own teaching. Likewise, by incorporating teaching methods that utilize collaboration, interaction, and participation in teacher education, prospective teachers are given opportunities to engage in reflexive and critical thinking that may help them prepare for future work in a complex school environment and in society [11–13].

Nevertheless, a growing body of teacher education research has called for radical improvements in traditional teacher training [14, 15]. The repeated critiques of traditional teacher education programs include the divide between the field of practice and the university, the fragmentation of content and pedagogical knowledge, and the absence of innovative teaching strategies and inquiry-based learning in the programs. Over the past decades significant improvements have been made in many countries, for example, by developing undergraduate teacher education programs into five-year practitioner research-based master's models or initiating one- or two-year graduate programs to support newly qualified teachers [8]. Still, prior research has indicated that many teacher programs require improvement, not least by challenging, developing, and transforming the well-established and dominant role of lecture-based teaching practices [14, 15].

From the perspective of such a critique, prospective teachers need to actively engage with knowledge rather than passively reproducing it. A continually changing society requires professional teachers who can help students to engage in their learning to develop critical thinking, the skills for problem-solving, and the ability to address the emerging challenges and problems that do not have existing answers [16]. Thus, it is imperative that teacher educators not only lecture about the necessity of student-active learning, but also find ways of facilitating and promoting real student teacher engagement. With this background, there is reason to discuss how contemporary teacher education programs can apply methods that more actively involve prospective teachers in the learning process.
