Reflective Teachers: A Probe Into 21st Century Skills Among Indian Trainee Teachers

Introduction

“If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow” said John Dewey (in Lands, 2011) implying that we must offer students authentic learning experiences that prepare them for the ever-evolving challenges that lie ahead and engage, equip, and ready them to lead into the 21st century. Our style and approach to teaching must emphasize the learning in the 21st century. To counter these changes a cadre of specially trained teachers is needed that seeks to promote the concept of teaching as a profession making professional development a must (UNESCO, 2003). A solace of this demand we get in the words of John Dewey as well when he said, “we do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience” (Mantell & Barnett, 2014). Here we get the concept of a reflective teacher who regularly dedicate time to evaluate their teaching practice, analyze their teaching, and consider how they might approach particular tasks or challenges in the future which is urgent for teaching in the 21st century classrooms since education in the 21st century is profoundly affected by changes in society: globalization, technology, labour market dynamics, immigration, etc (Cretu, 2017). The 21st century has brought its changes and challenges which demand that teachers be appropriately prepared, trained, and equipped with the right skills which will help them to deal with such challenges in their profession because, quality of teachers determines the quality of education that is linked with nation’s development (Trilling & Fadel, 2009). The effect of globalization and other pressures and challenges such as the rapid technological advancements, changing patterns of work, the explosion in information access and use have brought in certain demands on education. These changes inspire to accommodate and assimilate the 21st century skills by the teachers since they are to in a different perspective now, learning could never happen the way it is happening these times (Stewart, 2014). Reflection over these skills with analysing and evaluating the degree the assimilation of these skills could be a good focus for research that is followed in this study.