On Teacher Decision-Making

As the development of the Curriculum Reform of Basic Education,the status and role of teachers are changing,but at the same time teachers are slso faced with unheardof challenges. Teachers should not just carry out the curriculum passively,instead they should establish,choose and decide the contents of curriculum,and try to teach effectively.The diversity and variability of teaching practice requires teachers should be the professionals and the decision-makers,not the just executors.So,if we want to improve the teaching quality and cultivate the all-round students,we must study the theory of teacher decision-making,arouse the intention of teacher decision-making and urge teachers to be real decision-makers.So,it is enssential both in theory and in practice to study on teacher decision-making.The thesis consists of nine sections:INTRODUCTION.In this part,the origin,the significance and the design of the study are given.CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEWS.In this chapter,some core concepts are defined,and some of the related research is reviewed.Teacher decision-making is a personal behavior.To achieve the aims and tasks of teaching,teacbers should predict,analyse and reflect their teaching process by way of their own beliefs,knowledge and practical wisdom,and then decide which project is the best one.So teacher decision-making is a dymamic process,and is also the linkage between thinking and practice.Teacher decision-making structure and direct teachers' behavior,and the purpose of teacher decision-making is to achieve thc effective teaching.The characteristics of teacher decision-making are embodied in:creating,predicting,harmonizing and processing.CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BASES OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING.Teacher decision-making,serves as assumptions and beliefs,not only changes teachers' behavior and teaching methods,but also redirects and establishcs teachers' ncw beliefs,strateies,methods and techniques.All these changes have their theoretical bases.The Contexts Recognition and Learning Theory serves as epistemology base,the Complexicity Science Theory as methodology base,and the Reflective Practisioner as practicality base.CHAPTER 3 THE MAIN FACTORS OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING.The base and factors of teacher decision-making include the following aspects:teacher's belief system,teacher's knowledge and teacher's practical wisdom.Teacher's belief inluence his or her decisions about what and how to teach.Teachers make assumptions and depend on beliefs in their everyday teaching lives. Teacher's knowledge includes teacher's content knowledge,teacher's cultural knowledge and teacher's padegogical knowledge.Teacher's practical wisdom comes from teacher's practice,and it is a kind of rational intuition.To achieve the better teaching result,teachers constantly apperceive, distinguish and comprehend the teaching circumstance.Teacher's wisdom refers to teacher's advanced teaching perspective,tact teaching technique,teaching skill and teaching strategy.There are also other factors that influence teacher's decision-making:teaching condition and teacher's emotion,and so on.CHAFFER 4 THE PROCESS OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING.The process of teacher decision-making is different from teaching process.The purpose,task,and method of teacher decision-making differ in the different stage of teaching.The process of teacher decision-making goes as following:identify the teaching problem,explicit the teaching purpose,choose the teaching scheme and assess the teaching results.Decisions occur in three different loci of teacing:planning and preparing for instruction,the interaction phase,and evaluating learing outcomes.Each of these loci involves different kinds of considerations.So we call them as teacher planning decision-making, teacher interaction decision-making and teacher assessment decision-making.CHAPTER 5 INVESTIGATION OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING(1):TEACHER PLANNING DECISION-MAKING In the investigation of the teacher planning decision-making, we find the following phenomena and problems:Firstly,teachers usually followed the book knowledge oreintation,but neglected to cultivate students learning skill and capability.Secondly, some teachers paid too much attention to organizing the activity for the class,not the teaching process itself.And thirdy,some teachers lacked the decision-making skills and ability.CHAPTER 6 INVESTIGATION OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING(2):TEACHER INTERACTIVE DECISION-MAKING.We investigate teacher interaction decision-making from three aspects:teaching techniques,teaching methods,and teaching strategies.We find that:First, teacher's teaching experience plays significent role in choosing the teaching techniques.Second,in the teaching process,some teachers used the method in an incoherence way,so sometimes the classroom was in a messy state.Third,some theachers took advantage of teaching strategies at will, so some of teaching aim could not be obtained CHAPTER 7 INVESTIGATION OF TEACHER DECISION-MAKING(3):TEACHER ASSESSMENT DECISION-MAKING.Two aspects of teacher assessment decision-making are investigated in our study.We find that,on one hand,some teachers just assessed the students' learning,and they ormited to assess the other parts such as teaching process,teacher's presentation and teaching envimment,etc;on the other hand,some teachers didn't take any assessment or evaluation,and that means assessment or evaluation in teaching process is not important.CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESSTIONS.Based on the above analyses and investigation,we get the following result:Firstly,in our primary and secondary education,during school life,some teachers are not conscious of the right to teacher decision-making.Secondly,some teachers lack the ability and capacity of teacher decision-making.Thirdly,the decision-making process of some teachers need guide.So based on our study,we suggest that the following measures can be taken to improve teacher decision-making ability and capability:First,we should emporer teachers,to give them more right to decide their own teaching aim,teaching process and teaching assessment.Second,we should improve teachers' basic knowledge and skill of decision-making,to urge them to improve their practical wisdom and take action research.Third,we should build a set system to make sure that teacher should analyze,make decisions and reflect during their teaching process.