Professional Development of Teachers in the Context of New Curriculum

Author: Wang Shaofei, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: As is well known, it is difficult to reform a habit. Just as it is hard to change our own habits, it is equally challenging to alter teachers' behavioral habits. As promoters or trainers, or managers of the new curriculum, we should maintain a positive mindset. We should not treat teachers as the "sole target" of reform, nor as "scapegoats" for reform failures. We should not constantly say that our teachers "lack competence," but rather see them as "comrades-in-arms" on the journey of curriculum reform. We should have reasonable expectations and not expect that after a single training session, teachers will change their perspectives or improve their skills—we are not that powerful. Nor should we expect all teachers to do things that even we cannot accomplish; we are not the ones who issue commands to teachers. Overall, the teaching profession is largely driven by habits. The reason for this is that education lacks a unified, clear, and standardized reference framework. If you ask 100 people, "What makes a good education," you will get 100 different answers. Similarly, if you ask 100 teachers, "What makes a good lesson," you will also get 100 different answers. It is easy to reach consensus on educational concepts or philosophy, but overly emphasizing uniformity or standardization on the technical or procedural level can lead to non-education, anti-education, or even anti-educational practices. Therefore, as professionals, we cannot blame teachers for always relying on their habits and always feeling like they are "walking a new path in old shoes." In fact, how much do we truly understand about teachers' professional development needs? What we share with teachers besides (sloganeering concepts) are "complexifying simple problems" in the form of theories or concepts. The main part of this book provides practical and comprehensive strategies for teachers' professional development, which is a distinctive feature compared to many other current publications on the same topic. After briefly discussing the innovation of the new curriculum and the changes teachers need in the context of the new curriculum in the first and second parts, we focus on strategies for teachers' professional development in the third part, "How Teachers Can Achieve Professional Development." Among the strategies we propose, teachers' personal knowledge management, professional development planning, teaching portfolio development, teaching case development, peer coaching for teachers, and the establishment and activities of teaching research groups are rarely discussed in existing literature. These are the results of our efforts to explore teachers' professional development. We hope these new strategies will be beneficial to teachers in achieving their own professional growth.