This book provides an insider’s perspective of the Singapore education system that views teacher capacity building as a key lever for quality educational experiences. It describes experiences from policy conceptualisation to practice implementations of teacher learning. This book includes international perspectives in the form of expert commentaries and critique where comparisons are made between Singapore’s experiences and those of other education systems. It also describes the complexities of teacher professional learning within and across three levels: policies, partnerships, and schools, that shape policy to practice implementations of teacher professional learning from pre-service to in-service teachers.   Together with the international scholars, this book shares the lessons learnt in Singapore to encourage policy makers, scholars, and schools to continue thinking about how teacher professional learning can be enhanced, caution against the direct transfer of practices, and describe how teacher capacity building lays the foundation for the education system to stay relevant, address challenges, and meet students’ needs.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to teacher professional learning: the Singapore perspective.- Part 1: Historical, political and contextual influence on professional learning.- The historical evolution and context of teacher learning and professional development in Singapore.- Centralized decentralization and its influences on teacher professional learning.- Early childhood teacher education: Learning from teacher policies and the science of human development.- Policies and initiatives for teacher agency and professional learning.- How context shapes Singapore teachers’ experiences of educational change and borrowing.- Teacher professional learning: Reflections on a Singapore perspective.- Part 2: Partnerships with communities and its influences on teacher learning.- Developing multiple perspectival mindsets for future ready teachers.- Practicum: A model of shared responsibility and co-learning in developing 21st century teachers.- Digital portfolio and partnerships: Enablers for the development of reflective practitioners and empowerment of teacher learning.- A responsive teacher leader programme: Galvanizing the theory-practice nexus in the design of professional development for teacher leaders.- Leveraging on co-constructive partnership and teachers’ experiences for a meaning-oriented professional learning and innovation.- Partnerships with communities and its influences on teacher learning: Reflections on a Singapore perspective.- Part 3: School-based influences and efforts on teacher learning and professionalism.- A model of situated professional learning in Singapore: Lessons learnt.- Teacher talk and learning in a networked learning community at the forming stage.- Rethinking the facilitation of teacher professional learning through complexity theory – From the perceptions of the school staff developers in Singapore.- Digital storytelling as a reflective-reflexive practice for teachers’ professional learning.- Reconstructing diversity in lesson study: shaping teachers’ beliefs about teaching diverse students in Singapore.- Teacher resilience, professional learning and professionalism in Singapore.- School-based influences and efforts on teacher learning and professionalism: Reflections on a Singapore perspective.- Final words.