**Preface XI**



Chapter 7 **Preparing Educational Hackers 101** Maya Wizel

## Chapter 8 **Teachers' Knowledge of Curriculum Integration: A Current Challenge for Finnish Subject Teachers 119** Mikko A. Niemelä and Kirsi Tirri

Preface

As with most dynamic activities that are based on social and cultural contexts and rely on interactions, education is a complex and often ambiguous endeavor. Despite this complexi‐ ty, however, scholars and educators are often required to find ways of defining and explain‐ ing what "good" teaching is and to incorporate these conclusions into teacher education. What are the characteristics of "good" teacher education? What sorts of knowledge and skills should it include? How might these elements be introduced, as pedagogical amend‐ ments, into existing programs for teacher education? This book offers some comprehensive

The book contains eight scholarly chapters from various countries around the world: Finland, Ireland, Israel, Taiwan, Australia, and the United States, which offer unique and up-to-date perspectives on relevant practices and pedagogies for teachers' professional education and development in the present age. Methodologically, the chapters are mixed—half of them based on theoretical research and an extensive literature review, and the other half on the findings of empirical studies in various educational fields. The chapters are divided into two sections based on content. The first section presents strategies, models, and policies that represent sys‐ tem-level factors that can support teacher education or professional development programs. The second section offers several examples of innovative learning and teaching practices im‐

The first section begins with Jari Lavonens' chapter "Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development," which presents a comprehensive, collaborative endeavor in Finland's educational system, designed to analyze and to improve pre- and in-service teach‐ er education. This extended brainstorming process emphasizes the need for an ongoing search for appropriate ways of updating educational processes and the crucial role of the teacher in the education system. An important aspect of system-wide change is the partici‐ pation of teachers, so that they can be involved in generating solutions, receive professional support, take responsibility for the design of teaching and learning, and later take owner‐ ship of processes and successes. Professionalization processes of this type are a source of

The issue of teachers' power and empowerment is discussed in depth by Aishling Flaherty in her chapter "Power and Empowerment in Schools." The author stresses the significance of power and empowerment as features of teachers' professional knowledge and illustrates how the effective and aware activation of power shapes all individuals' experiences in an

Another crucial aspect of teachers' professional knowledge is their ability to address the di‐ versity and multiculturalism that characterize present societies. Marita Mikinen discusses

ideas in response to such questions, based on an international overview.

plemented at the level of the individual teacher in a variety of educational settings.

strength and considerable empowerment for teachers.

educational institution.
