The changes resulting from technological advances make it so that citizens now must develop different skills than those of citizenship of the past. Research shows that it is essential to change teaching practices in classrooms and, consequently, to change teacher training practices. We are facing new challenges that require new solutions to promote new ways of teaching and learning in schools.

After all, the focus of teacher education should be on the students and the improvement of the teaching-learning process. This challenge, which has always been a concern of teacher trainers, has been further complicated in recent years by the lack of teachers in Portugal, especially in some teaching groups, and has brought with it the need to rethink the training of future teachers and even the possibility of finding alternatives that allow teachers to move between the different Cycles and to reconvert some professionals from other areas who, through mechanisms still unclear to some of us, should quickly become qualified for teaching.

Commissions have been created, proposals exist, hearings have been promoted with those who are directly involved in teacher training – the Universities and Higher Education Schools –, professional and union associations of teachers have been heard, but we still do not understand where we are going. We are aware, and to quote Hargreaves (2000), that "Teaching is not what it used to be, nor is the professional learning required to be a teacher and to develop professionally over the years".

We find that in recent years much of the research on teacher education has contributed considerably to the identification of the major of today and propose a collaborative reflection on the search for solutions. What kind of teachers are we training today? What kind of teachers do we want to train? What school do we want to train for? Do we want changes? If so, which ones?

The Center for Research in Education of the University of Madeira (CIE-UMa), aware of how much this issue is crucial today, and because it is part of a university with a tradition in teacher training, understands that the time has come to dedicate its XIX Colloquium to this subject. Let's listen to experts and to all those who somehow contribute to teacher training and to promoting active, critical thinking, involving students too.