A Study On Professional Development Of Teachers In Higher Vocational Colleges

An essential task for higher vocational college education is to foster students with strong ability of applying techniques under the guidance of relevant theories. As the task is mainly fulfilled by the teachers in the higher vocational college, the professional qualities of the teachers will directly influence the completion of the task. Therefore, it is critical to improve the teachers' professional qualities.The most important approach to promoting the teachers' professional qualities is to develop the teachers' profession. This reflects the necessity of both the higher vocational college and the teachers themselves. Although for a long term, great importance has been attached to the professional development of teachers involved in the basic education and relevant researches have been in the period of adolescence, insufficient attention has been given to the professional development of teachers involved in the higher vocational colleges. In addition, relevant research is still in its infancy. A lot of quesitons remain unanswered, like what is the content of the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college, what theory or theories underlie(s) it, what is its current situation and its challenge, so on and so forth. To give an systematic and complete answer to the above quesitons is urgent for the reseaches on the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college.The present research starts with history of the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college. A glimpse of its history discovers that the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college is not only necessary for China but also keeps step with the world trend. With the development of economy and higher education in our country, the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college has undergone three phases: the passive professionalization, the massive professionalization and free professional development. In the process of development five changes will take place, namely, change from teacher training to teachers' professional development in the content, change from experience-oriented teachers to bi-profession-oriented teachers in the target, change from academic-type to practice-type in the structure of knowledge, change from monotony to multi-element in the approach, change from emphasis on degree to emphasis on both degree and ability in the assessment. In short, profound theories underlie the study of professional development of teachers in the higher vocational college, which include theories teachers obtain from such disciplines as Modern Study of Education and Psychology as welll as theories they gain from practice.Like common universities, higher vocational colleges must remain opened to the world. Compare the professional development of teachers in the higher vocational colleges in the western countries with ours, this thesis discovers that there still exist some problems in the latter. The problems range from the construction of the team of teachers to development of the individuals. The former includes the non-standard training system, indefinite goal, single source of teachers, incomplete knowledge structure, imperfect training policy and guarantee system, the brain drain while the latter includes the imbalance between the teacher's knowledge of major and of education, insufficient of self-improvement and research work, limited further study and training. The causes for the problems are from three sources: the teacher as an individual, the college and the social environment.The approaches to solving these problems lies in the following. The first is to establish notion of scientific development in order to create a proper atmosphere; the second is to reform and improve the relevant systems; the third is to construct the organization of learning to foster the professional development of teachers; the forth is to construct the teachers team of bi-professional type.The thesis ultimately does a case study on the professional development of teachers in Guangdong Industry Technical College. On the basis of a comprehensive survey it discusses relevant policies and measures in the college.