What is Effective Pedagogy

This chapter examines the importance of an educator's “teaching philosophy” as a major prerequisite for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Teacher Education. The critical need for this examination is guided by the complex nature of challenges that educational institutions are continually faced with such as, diversity, students' awareness of their rights, ethnicity and negative ethnicity, information technology, capitalism and commodification of the educational enterprise, international competitiveness in both teaching and learning among others. Further, quality driven ESD programmes are currently a global concern. To guide this study were the following research questions: What is Sustainable Development/ (SD) and ESD? What is a teaching philosophy? What is the purpose of a teaching philosophy? What should inform an educator's teaching philosophy? In which ways can an educator implement his/her teaching philosophy? And, what characterizes a clear teaching philosophy? Finally, recommendations that can inform theory, policy and practice are presented.