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

Global communities have been working in several directions to provide a meaningful pathway to develop the 'reflective teachers', a cadre of confident, effective, and efficient teachers for the 21st century's fast-changing globalized society who can teach effectively in diverse classrooms. For this to happen, the development of 21st-century skills among teachers needs to be focused right from the teacher preparation stage. This study sought to investigate the Indian trainee teachers' perception of these essential skills, to what extent these skills were integrated into teacher education programs, and challenges to their integration. The study followed a mixed approach comprising of both quantitative (e. g. descriptive survey) and qualitative (e.g., interview) research methods taking 500 trainee teachers from 50 teachers' training colleges using a stratified random sampling technique. Data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially. Findings revealed that few skills were partially integrated while others were poorly integrated, significant differences were found in the ingestion of these skills between trainees of private and government teacher training colleges, and thereby, hampering the aim of making teachers reflective. The study also noted the challenges in integrating these skills that will provide a valuable reference for teacher education curriculum planning and implementation with a view of providing a holistic educational experience among trainee teachers across countries.