A Study On The Professional Growth Of Beginning Physics Teacher In Middle School

The professional growth of beginning teacher is of great importance to the whole professional career. It is almost impossible for the beginning teacher to become an excellent one without normal instruction and training in the first several years. Therefore, many countries, the developed countries in Europe and America in particular, have long attached much importance to the training and instruction of beginning teachers. However, in China, for a variety of reasons, the post-career training and instruction is not paid enough attention, consequently missing the optimal opportunity of professional development for beginning teachers. The functions and features of physics mean that the physics teacher, in addition to the basic teaching ability and wisdom that teachers of other subject have, should also possess some professional ability closely relevant to the discipline of physics. This inevitably results in more difficulties confronted by the beginning physics teachers in the process of their professional growth. Today when the basic education reform is right under its way, the professional growth of beginning physics teachers is becoming increasingly prominent.This dissertation starts with the status quo of professional growth of the beginning physics teachers in middle school, analyzes the difficulties and reasons that the beginning physics teachers confront with in their teaching, and the deficiency of their professional literacy, aiming to discuss the effective route that beginning physics teachers follow in their professional growth. The study consists of three questions: firstly, what professional literacy should a qualified physics teacher in middle school should have? Secondly, what is the status quo of the professional growth of the beginning physics teacher? Thirdly, how to construct a united route for their professional growth?The study shows that the professional literacy structure of the middle school physics teacher mainly includes professional will, professional knowledge, and professional shills. The professional will decides whether a teacher is willing or unwilling to engage in teaching, the professional knowledge decides whether or not he knows the teaching job, whereas the professional skills decides whether or not he knows how to teach. The formation of teachers' professional will is influenced both by the pre-service education and the post-service teaching practice; the professional knowledge is mainly acquired through the pre-service study of the theories, and the professional skills largely rely on the teaching practice. The target of the pre-education training provides a basis for the professional development of the beginning physics teachers, while the professional literacy that a qualified physics teacher should possess is the necessary pursuit of the beginning physics teacher. Therefore, the professional growth of the beginning physics teacher needs to pay attention to both the pre-service and the post-service education.The survey shows that the pre-service education that the beginning physics teachers received is not rational, the education practice is especially weak, therefore the beginning physics teachers do not obtain the fundamental teaching skills; the living environment along with the environment of the professional growth goes against their professional growth after entering the career, mainly adapt themselves to the education practice in constant trial and error. The difficulties that the beginning physics teachers meet in the process of their professional growth mainly includes: firstly, pedagogically speaking, how to accomplish the transformation from textbook knowledge to practical operation, from indirect experience to direct experience; how to get practiced in the course-book and acquainted with the students, how to design the teaching plan and the classroom teaching, how to induce students to get engaged in scientific probe, to develop effectively the physics curriculum resource and to give vivid and examples. Secondly, in the aspect of classroom management, the difficulties lie in how to effectively manage classroom and evaluate students; and in the aspect of interpersonal communication, the difficulties mainly represent in how to mediate the relations with the relevant functional branches in the school, how to keep on good terms with the relevant people concerned and how to communicate effectively with students' parents. The deficiency of the professional literacy chiefly as follows: with respect to the professional will, teachers' low commitment, inactive working spirit and inappropriate teaching attribution are the major problems; as to the professional knowledge, the beginning physics teachers are unable to understand fully the course-book, have not a systematic command of the physics knowledge and are lacking in the knowledge about students and that of the relevant disciplines. With regard to the professional skills, the beginning physics teachers are generally weak in such abilities as expression, physics experiment, instruction and evaluation, classroom management and cooperation and mediation, and so on.This dissertation concerns almost every aspects of the pre-service education ranging from the students' recruiting in the major of teacher education, curriculum design, the choice of teaching contents and methods and teaching practice, to the all-around program concerning the post-service promotion in the aspects such as induction training, school-based mentor, network instruction and the autonomous professional development, and hence the dissertation constructs a united route for the professional growth of the beginning physics teacher. It is the author's hope that it may help the beginning physics teacher adapt themselves quickly to the physics teaching practice in middle school, meanwhile set a solid foundation for their follow-up professional growth and transcending the self.The professional growth of beginning teachers needs not only the whole society to respect teachers creative work, improving their living environment and the environment of professional development so as to provides solid support for the development of educational cause, but also the right and space of the professional development empowered by the school authority to teachers. What is more important, it needs each beginning teacher to work harder to improve his awareness of development and the creative consciousness. So to speak, for beginning teachers, knowledge is the nutrition of professional growth, practice is the soil, support from living environment is the important guarantee, reflection is the effective means, the development of professional autonomy is the inexhaustible motives, cooperation the facilitative power, and the experience borrowed from others is the beneficial supplementation.