ABTRACT: This article depicts the landscape of teacher professional development (PD) in Singapore, one of the world’s top-performing countries in education. We provide an overview of the resources available to the approximately 30,000 teachers within the 350 primary and secondary schools run by the Ministry of Education (MOE). We focus on the three main PD providers: the National Institute of Education, the Academy of Singapore Teachers and six Centers of Excellence, and schools themselves. Guided by the “Teacher Growth Model,” these providers aim at making PD coherent with teachers’ interests, the needs of schools, and the national curriculum. Teachers in Singapore are given the exceptionally high allotment of 100 voluntary hours of PD per year. There are multiple types of activities teachers can engage in, ranging from formal/structured courses and programs to more informal/reform-based initiatives (action research, lesson study). Teachers with different levels of expertise and career paths have access to different PD opportunities. Most PD is subject-specific and provides teachers with opportunities for networked learning, collegial sharing, and collaboration. In fact, all MOE schools have been recently mandated to become Professional Learning Communities (PLC). We conclude that this comprehensive set of PD resources, considered as a whole, presents the features of “high-quality” PD described in the international literature. However, we suggest that more research is needed to examine the extent to which such an ambitious PD model is enhancing teachers’ knowledge and pedagogies, and ultimately students’ learning.

This position paper aims to raise awareness among educational policymakers, teacher educators, and school leaders around the world about the urgent need to better prepare Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers in music education. Most countries fail to sufficiently train teachers to meet the music-related expectations of contemporary ECE curricula, which inevitably affects young children’s learning and development. Our first goal is to describe this worrisome reality in depth, based on prior literature. We elaborate on the limited music education (extracurricular, pre-service, and in-service) typically offered to ECE teachers worldwide. We then highlight the negative consequences that result from having a teaching force clearly ill-prepared in this area. Based on studies conducted with pre-service and/or in-service ECE teachers, we summarize what is known about teachers’ learning needs, motivations, and preferences regarding music education. Our second goal is to propose a series of low-cost, sustainable, and easily scalable strategies to strengthen teachers’ preparation. Practical and policy-related potential obstacles are discussed. As final remarks, we urge ECE stakeholders to (a) investigate the specific needs, motivations, and preferences of their local teachers in music education, (b) design and implement responsive training strategies, and (c) examine their impact on teachers and/or children.

As a result of globalization, kindergarten curriculum frameworks in Asia have been strongly influenced by Western theories, pedagogies, and values. In this article, we argue that Singapore’s Nurturing Early Learners and Hong Kong’s Kindergarten Education Curriculum Guide present key notions that are inconsistent with cultural values that are deeply rooted in these two societies. To overcome the challenges these inconsistencies trigger for teachers, principals, teacher educators, and parents, we advocate for the design of 'glocal' (global/local, explicitly hybrid) curriculum frameworks, based on principles that are culturally appropriate and socially situated. Drawing on recent research studies, we analyze current curriculum/practice gaps in relation to the notions of Child-Centeredness, Quality Interactions, Creativity and Self-Expression, and Play. In seeking the global/local balance that is needed in Singapore and Hong Kong, four alternative glocal notions are proposed: Child-Appropriateness, Pedagogical Quality, Arts Engagement, and Child-Led Activities. We conclude there is an urgent need for generating a solid corpus of local research in both jurisdictions, which should guide subsequent curriculum reforms and teacher preparation models. Our final aim is to contribute to early childhood education policy discussions in Asia, against the background of internationalization.

Teacher Professional Development: International Perspectives and Approaches

Most published journal articles describing professional development (PD) initiatives for K-12 music teachers have not explicitly alluded to the ‘features of high-quality PD', a solid theoretical framework arisen in content areas with more tradition in PD research (e.g. mathematics and science education). The goal of this review was to examine the music-specific PD literature using this framework. We reviewed seven mainstream music education journals from 1990 to 2015, identifying 17 articles reporting on a total of 24 PD initiatives (e.g. workshops, courses, programmes, school-based PD). Results show interesting differences in the extent to which the various features considered (i.e. content focus, active learning opportunities, collective participation, duration, and coherence) are exhibited in these music-specific initiatives. This analysis is relevant for music education theory, policy, and practice, as it suggests concrete ways of improving the quality of the PD offered to school music teachers.

Contemporary kindergarten curriculum frameworks emphasize the importance of promoting children’s holistic development, thereby focusing on both academic and non-academic learning areas. This exploratory study was conducted with a sample of 123 in-service kindergarten teachers in Singapore. The goals were to investigate the following: (1) how teachers prioritized the importance of the various learning areas of the ‘Nurturing Early Learners’ curriculum framework; (2) teachers’ professional development (PD) needs regarding these learning areas; and (3) the extent to which teachers with different beliefs about children and how they learn differed in their prioritizations and PD needs. Data were collected through an online questionnaire and analyzed using non-parametric techniques. Results indicated that (1) academic and non-academic areas were found to be intertwined in teachers’ priority rankings, although Social and Emotional Development was the top learning area for most teachers; (2) teachers reported high PD needs in all learning areas, especially in Discovery of the World and Aesthetics and Creative Expression; and (3) teachers holding more traditional beliefs tended to prioritize academic areas. No differences were found when comparing teachers’ responses according to their level of education, age, and years of teaching experience. We discuss the findings in light of prior literature, the implications and limitations of the study, and lines for further research.