Effective management of continuous professional development (CPD) for school principals is more critical than ever. The focus of this study was to examine the management of CPD programmes for school principals in the 21st century. In general, this study explored the practices and experiences of high school principals, senior teachers, and the officers of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) in Aceh, Indonesia, with regards to their contribution in advancing professional development activities at the school level. A total of 15 informants were purposively selected, comprising of six school principals, six senior teachers, and three MoEC officers. Methodologically, face-to-face interviews were conducted to deeply explore the informants’ feelings and views. The findings revealed several emerging themes related to theories and previous studies. Primarily, the informants perceived the concept of 21st century’s CPD programs as a trust (amanah), professional competence, continuous professional training, lifelong learning, a community of practice, and strategic planning. They viewed the underlying characteristics of effective 21st century’s CPD programs to be research-based and result-oriented, align with the current trends, and have significant changes in the form of systematic planning, have practical and interesting methods, and clear targets. The 21st century’s CPD programs are beneficial in terms of attitude changes, gaining new knowledge, improving a good relationship, improving self-confidence, and promoting best practices. The findings showed that the informants mainly managed the 21st century’s CPD programs through motivation and supervision, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and promoting local values. Among the challenges faced by the informants in managing the 21st century’s CPD programs were people’s resistance to change, technicality and workload, almost zero follow-ups, unprofessional recruitment, and unclear training syllabus. To effectively manage the 21st century’s CPD programs, the informants suggested doing personal approach, professional development skills, professional recruitment system, continuous training programs, and optimizing school organizations. The main contribution of the present study to the existing body of knowledge is the 21st Century AMANAH Continuous Professional Development model, developed based on the study’s findings. Finally, this study presented several implications, suggestions, and recommendations for future research.

Teaching critical thinking, while important and essential especially in the 21st century, has been facing documented shortcomings and overall inadequateness. In the meanwhile, gamification as a pedagogical strategy has been reporting encouraging results in the field of education. Thusly, this current study was set to test possible gamification effects on learning transfer of one component of critical thinking, that is critical thinking dispositions. Sixty-eight teachers from Saudi Arabia were engaged in a true-experiment training course for a week. Three dimensions of learning transfer were adapted from the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) to be used as a post-test. The results from the independent samples t-test, performed to compare the treatment group with the control group, showed that gamification had no significant effect on the three learning transfer dimensions, namely: motivation to transfer, transfer design, and perceived content validity. The study ends with practical implications as contributions to the field, along with recommendations for future research in gamified education and recommendations for educators.

This study examines the epistemological theory of Ibn Tufayl Al-Qaysi Al-Andalusi, in science and education and its implications for Muslim education curriculum. Ibn Tufayl was born in the beginning of twelfth century in Guadix (Wadi Ash) and he died in 1185 AD in Morocco. He was an encyclopedic scientist; a philosopher, a judge, a physician and an astronomer. His novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, is the only remaining work that reached us from his whole collection. It is also known as al-Hikmah al-Israqiyyah aw al-Mashriqiyyah (The Secrets of the Flourishing Wisdom). This novel talked about an infant named Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, who lived and grew up alone on an island. In this novel, Ibn Tufayl attempted to reconcile philosophical and empirical knowledge with the religious knowledge through the understanding and application of scientific and educational theories and methods. The researcher used the historical, analytical and comparative methods in this study. All the texts were examined and analysed critically. The primary source of literature was Ibn Tufayl’s novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. The secondary sources included articles or studies written to explain and clarify the novel and also the books or articles talking about modern scientific discoveries and modern educational theories; Rousseau’s novel in education, Emile and Piaget’s work, The Psychology of Intelligence for natural theory and theory of intellectual or cognitive development and the notion of evolution through the ages respectively. The study found that firstly, there were many scientific aspects in the novel like the inductive or deductive methods, many scientific facts and theories particularly related to space physics which provides evidence that Ibn Tufayl saw the universe the way Einstein saw it in the twentieth century, except he saw it much earlier in the 12th century. Furthermore, the analysis shows that Ibn Tufayl had seemingly sowed the seeds of two famous educational theories – the Natural theory which is attributed to Rousseau and the theory of constructivism established by Piaget in the 19th and 20th century respectively. But the most important finding was his arguments on the relevance of both the philosophical and empirical sciences and revealed sciences in finding the ultimate Truth. Finally, the study shows Ibn Tufayl’s educational thoughts can be applied in reforming educational systems in the Muslim world that are steeped in educational dichotomy between acquired knowledge and revealed knowledge. Thus, the researcher recommends the novel be studied in both disciplines of acquired and revealed knowledge in the university in the Muslim world.

This study explored the experience of pre-service teachers in a coursework that was instructed using the Narrative Approach in Universiti Putra Malaysia. In doing so, the study intended to examine the perceptions of the pre-service teachers about learning in a Narrative Approach classroom as well as to understand on how their experiences of using the Narrative Approach promote their moral reasoning, in addition to discuss the challenges they encounter during the lessons. This study is a case study of six pre-service teachers in their sixth semester of the Teacher Education Programme in UPM. This study employed purposive sampling method in selecting the informants. The main data collection technique was semi-structured interview with the six pre-service teachers and triangulation with the researcher’s class observation and semi-structured interview with the LHE 3313’s (Moral Issues and Conflicts) instructor and pre-service teachers’ reflection essays. The data were transcribed, analysed and the emerging themes were categorised and discussed. The findings revealed that the pre-service teachers generally had mix perceptions including pleasant and unpleasant experiences towards learning using the Narrative Approach. The findings also disclosed that the ways narrative approach facilitates moral reasoning were through themes such as indoctrination avoidance, resources of understanding and diversity sensitivity. Their challenges regarding this approach were also highlighted, and themes such as affective issues, classroom environment that is not conducive, peers’ distractions, weakness in language proficiency, has been revealed. These finding led to the conceptualization of a model on the main Dimensions in Learning Using Narrative Approach for Pre-service Teachers which can be a valuable guide to understanding the pre-service teachers in order to provide more conducive and successful learning and teaching environment for them to promote their moral reasoning. This study has crucial implications for Moral Education instructors and curriculum developer in creating a more effective and successful teaching approach of the courses especially for pre-service teachers. Moreover, it would also provide input for the UPM policy makers especially in reviewing existing policies or formulating new policies so that the predicament of the pre-service teachers is addressed as well.

This qualitative action research entailed the description of how the researcher used the philosophical inquiry approach to improve the teaching of Civic and Citizenship Education class. Using the data collected in the classroom observation (audio and video recording), document analysis (teacher’s reflective journal and students’ written work) and a group interview, the students’ learning experiences were analyzed to find out the extent of the development of their community of inquiry, their reasoning skills, and their views and perceptions towards the CCE lessons. Content analysis was used for classroom observation transcriptions, teacher reflective journal and students’ written work, while thematic analysis was used to analyze the group interview. By conducting three cycles of Lewin’s type of action research on twenty-five students for two semesters, the researcher managed to capture the gradual development of the community of inquiry, especially for the elements of participation, shared cognition, the quest for meaning, deliberation, impartiality and challenging as a procedure. In terms of reasoning skills, at the early stage, students were mainly providing examples and supporting opinions with convincing reasons. They gradually improved in offering counter-examples, making balanced evaluative judgments, making relevant distinctions and connections, and seeking to clarify ill-defined concepts. Seeking to uncover underlying assumptions, drawing suitable inferences and offering appropriate analogies were presented mainly in their written tasks. Students acknowledged positive changes and improvement in their CCE lessons as compared to previous and other classes, mainly because of the feeling of social solidarity, the exchanged of ideas and the condusive learning environment which enhanced their speaking, listening and thinking skills, together with some personal traits and values that encouraged positive interaction within oneself and with others. The main implication of the study is that philosophical inquiry is suitable to be used as an effective approach in teaching CCE as it encourages good participation, sharpens students’ reasoning skills and promotes democratic classroom learning environment which can be extended to form a democratic society and good citizenship. The study ends with recommendations for improving the teaching of CCE and conducting further research in the area of philosophical inquiry and CCE.