Policy Changes in Brunei Teacher Education: Implications for the Selection of Trainee Teachers

Brunei Teachers’ Perspectives on Questioning: Investigating the Opportunities to “Talk” in Mathematics Lessons

“…Shahrill and colleagues found that the successful students in mathematics depended largely on language-based expressive learning styles and study strategies such as speaking, writing, and reading. This implied that questions that are hard, tricky or confusing were likely to lower students' interest and motivation to learn and this was more evident in young learners (Mundia, 2007(Mundia, , 2012b). …”

“…Student evaluations were also innovated with the introduction of school-based assessment and assessment for learning to support the new curriculum (Mundia, 2010b;Nor & Shahrill, 2014). These two major changes in school curriculum and student assessment, prompted the reform of teacher education in Brunei which began in 2009 and continues today (Mundia, 2012a;Tait & Mundia, 2013). The Ministry of Education in the Government of Brunei has also recently designated five model schools to serve as examples of effective teaching (including questioning) to teachers (see Omar et al, 2014).…”

A Comparison of Brunei and Hong Kong - SAR Student Teachers’ Self-efficacy in Implementing Inclusive Education Practices: Implications for Teacher Education

“…The major significant differences were by gender (see Table 4), country (Table 5), and respondents' educational level (Table 6). It is hoped that the ongoing teacher education reforms in both Brunei Darussalam and Hong King -SAR documented in the relevant literature for previous studies (see Mundia, 2009;Mundia, 2010b;Mundia, 2012a;Mundia, 2012b;Forlin, 2012;Tait & Mundia, 2012) will address these issues to narrow the differences or gaps. In addition, this also implies that teacher education programs in the two institutions (Brunei and Hong Kong-SAR) need to design and implement training programs that can boost self-efficacy in implementing inclusive education practices in all categories of student teachers.…”

“…Mundia (2009) further proposed that school counselors could be used as resource persons to enhance the capabilities of regular teachers under the ongoing implementation of inclusive education in Brunei Darussalam. Since teaching was a demanding task that requires highly self-motivated professionals, the whole teacher education program in Brunei needed to be reformed to train people with deep interest in teaching to guarantee teacher effectiveness in using inclusive practices within inclusive settings (Mundia, 2009;Mundia, 2012a). The training of effective teachers and other professionals at universities in Brunei is now considered a very important undertaking under the ongoing tertiary education reforms (Mundia, 2012b).…”

Brunei Student Teachers’ Selected Personal Attributes, Attitudes to Women and Interpersonal Trust: Brief Psychological Report

“…Despite these changing circumstances, not much social psychology research has been conducted to determine how educational personnel of both genders are interacting and functioning during training and while serving as teachers in Brunei Darussalam. For example, much of the available psychological research regarding Brunei initial teachers has focused mainly on issues such as: the Brunei student teachers' mental health problems (Mundia, 2010a;b;c;Mundia, 2012a); effects of psychological distress on Brunei trainee teachers' academic achievement (Mundia, 2011a); assessment of psychological distress in Brunei female, mature age and part-time student teachers (Haq & Mundia, 2013); attitudes of Brunei pre-service teachers of both genders to special and inclusive education (Haq & Mundia, 2012); and improvement of Brunei teacher education programs (Mundia, 2009;Mundia, 2010d;Mundia, 2012b;Mundia, 2012c;Tait & Mundia, 2012). In addition, although Brunei female students are relatively stronger at mathematics than their male counterparts, recent studies have shown that there some who experience problems with this subject, have high support needs, and would learn it more effectively in collaboration with peers of both genders (Mundia, 2010e;Mundia, 2012d;Hamid et al, 2013).…”