AbstractSustainable education requires teaching practices and techniques that secure strong foundations in learning. The changing contexts, needs and trends of the 21st century challenge teachers to enable students to obtain the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in an ever changing and digital world (Coklar & Yurdakul, 2017). Schools’ philosophy and curriculum must encourage students to develop adaptive skills that are foundational to lifelong learning to sustain them in changing environments (De Corte, 2019). However, students’ achievement has been drastically compromised throughout the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Furthermore, some countries, such as Australia, are facing a concerning decline in academic achievement in science, reading, and mathematics (PISA, 2018). The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explore Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) theory for its potential to enhance students’ sustainable abilities enabling them to engage in lifelong learning. An exploration of SRL theory posits the need for empirical research of effective SRL implementation in schools. The theoretical foundations of SRL are outlined, along with its impact on students’ learning and development in the 21st century. This article explores elements of SRL implementation that support educational bodies in fostering competent learners and sustainable education, including pre-service teachers’ training, teachers’ self-efficacy, a whole-school approach to SRL, and ongoing professional development in SRL.

In Australia the separation of mind, body and spirit by secular society has had a significant influence on educational trends. An outcomes-based approach to education, with an emphasis on cognitive learning, has meant that the affective and spiritual dimensions of students' lives have often been understated. Classroom programs in religious education have been affected by this educational climate where the pendulum has swung in favour of the achievement of cognitive learning outcomes. The cognitive dimension of learning is an integral part of the learning dynamic. However the roles of thinking, feeling and reflecting/intuiting are complementary within this process. Religious education is one curriculum area that can effectively address the interplay between the cognitive, affective and spiritual dimensions of learning. This paper outlines a model explored with pre-service teachers at a publicly funded Catholic university. This model addresses the complementarity of the cognitive, affective and spiritual dimensions of learning. Examples of pre-service teachers' work are drawn upon to demonstrate the interplay of these dimensions and to show how in practice this might be achieved within school curricula.

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The paper draws initially on theoretical literature describing schools and universities as, necessarily, dialogic learning communities, which is then applied to an investigation into the use of peer review in teacher education in an Australian university. The empirical research described was completed with pre-service teachers of religious education, and it explores the implications for the learning of those pre-service teachers in a university and in school settings. Advantages of peer review by pre-service teachers include helping them to identify, understand and address their strengths and limitations. The work was described as a positive experience, supporting the expectations of the authors that it could and should be positive, despite some of the previous literature in the field emphasising negative experiences of peer review. Activities used for this research were themselves models of professional learning, representing a 'research attitude' of the pre-service teachers to their own work. That can in turn be applied to the research attitude of university tutors and, just as significantly, of teachers and pupils in schools. Pre-service teachers were seeing themselves as researchers in learning communities, and were able to understand how they might transfer this approach into the classrooms in which they would be working. Although a small-scale piece of empirical research, it nevertheless helps to clarify some of the ways in which teacher education can model, and influence, the nature of schools as learning communities.

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