A Study On Teachers’ Professional Development In Technical Universities

Technical universities implement the undergraduate level technical education as the main body with training technical talent as the main target. They mainly serve advanced manufacturing and modern service industry. Compared with other application-oriented universities, technical universities put emphasis on cultivating technical talents in technical fields and serve the applied technology exploration and development. Their school orientation and personnel training objectives are also obviously different from other types of universities. So this distinctive school orientation and personnel training objectives put forward special requirements for their teachers. The objective of this study is "professional development of technical universities teachers"."Technical universities" and "professional development of teachers" are the two key words. Therefore, the study begins with the issues and problems of these technical universities teachers. Based on existing problems, the thesis analyzes the special qualities requirements for technical universities teachers by using related theories of teachers’professional development both home and abroad and proposes the strategies for teachers’professional development. Action research is applied to verify these strategies. To be more specific, the study includes the following parts: Part I Introduction The thesis starts from the issues of teachers’professional development raised by the development of technical universities and then systematically reviews the existing researches as well as the merits and deficiencies of the existing studies for the professional development of technical universities teachers. With the implementation of the strategy of invigorating the country through science, technology and education and the rapid development and structural adjustment of higher education, a number of technical universities came into being with training technical talent as the main target. In this situation, the emergence and development of the undergraduate universities put forward new requirements for their teachers, that is, they can equip themselves with the matching knowledge, ability and quality as technical universities require. However, as newly-built undergraduate universities, they are in the transitional stage: from college to university and from qualification development to distinctiveness development. At the same time, the professional ability of current teachers also lags behind the requirements of the technical and applied talents. Thus we should sum up such problems timely, refine some experience, and therefore put forward some viable strategies to promote their teachers’ professional development. In this way, teachers’lack of professional ability can be solved. The introduction part is not only focused on the analysis of existing problems, but also answers why their teachers’professional development should be studied; furthermore, it systematically reviews the existing research to find the focus of the study. In addition, it also defines the scope and the basic concept of the study and overviews the overall content of the study and research method.Part Ⅱ The present situation and issues of technical universities teachers’ professional development This part reveals the problems of technical universities teachers’ professional development from the current situation of technical universities and their teachers’ professional development. The problems, in other words, mean how to build a teaching team of distinguishing features which can meet the requirements of the development of technical universities in line with the distinctive nature of the technical universities personnel training. With the increasing development of technical universities, this study finds that technical universities teachers have developed steadily in recent years in the following aspects:the rapid growth of teacher aggregate; further optimizing teachers structure; preliminary appearance of high-level personnel aggregation effect; the distinctive features of the teachers team being more and more obvious. However, it also finds that there are many problems among technical universities teachers in some aspects, such as, a serious shortage of high-level teachers’ team, teachers’ lack of technical and practical ability, as well as lack of system planning of technical, practical orientation on teachers’ introduction and cultivation. To truly understand the current situation of technical universities teachers’ professional development, the author selects one of technical universities in Shanghai as her study sample, and deeply investigates teachers’ professional knowledge level, scientific research level, teaching level and engineering technical level through questionnaire. After analyzing the research results and the overall analysis of the current situation of teachers’ professional development of other technical universities, it can be found that there are main problems among teachers’ professional development, such as, weak awareness of teachers’ professional development, update professional knowledge being slow, irrational knowledge structure, some teachers lacking of career aspirations, low job satisfaction, limited training and education for teachers, lack of favorable environment for teachers’ professional development and imperfect of evaluation mechanism of professional development. All in all, there are various factors influencing the above problems, both the individual factors and the external environment and system factors.Part Ⅲ Theory support for the professional development of technical universities teachers This part mainly introduces the value orientation, process theory, and model and strategies theory of teachers’ professional development. Using these theories as a resource of references provides theoretical support and guidance for teachers’ professional development. It firstly depends on their value orientation including rational orientation, practice-reflection orientation and ecological orientation. These three orientations base on different assumptions and ideological backgrounds and differ from each other on main issues, such as understanding the concept of teachers’ professional development as well as guiding and inspiring the practice of teachers’professional development. From the current research results, it can be seen that professional development research framework employed by scholars can be roughly summarized as five types:career/life cycle framework, psychological development research framework, teachers socializing framework,"attention" research framework and integrated research framework. These above types provide research framework, research perspective, research ideas and content-reference for this thesis research and lay a theoretical foundation for the follow-up study. Teachers’professional development theory indicates that teachers’professional development of technical universities is a periodical and life-long process, and its development stage is a multi-dimensional and multi-domain process. Technical universities teachers are mainly composed of teaching teachers, learners and researchers and their professional development should be consistent with the universities reform.Part Ⅳ Regulations of undergraduate technical education on teachers’professional development The study and analysis of the connotation and essence of technical universities’ education reveals the characteristics of technical universities. Based on these characteristics, a further analysis is done of the quality requirements for technical universities teachers especially focusing on the distinctive features of teacher professional development. Technical universities education aims at the elementary training of professional technicians. It has the same "level" with engineering education though belonging to different categories, but it can be categorized as the same kind of education with the technical education, though they differ in the "level". As common universities, technical universities implement the undergraduate level technical education as the main body. Teachers’professional development of these universities not only adheres to its common characteristics and laws, but also attaches great importance to its particularity. Their teachers’ability firstly focuses on technicality, integrity and applicability, and then based on it, according to different development model, the diversification of their teachers’professional development would be further promoted.Part Ⅴ The supporting system for technical university teachers’professional development This part mainly analyzes the required system building, culture environment and experience support of teachers’professional development from a "should be" angle, which is an essential guarantee to ensure the technical universities teachers’professional development. Teachers’ professional development of technical universities is a multi-field, multi-dimensional system. Its development effectiveness depends on the support from various conditions:From the system level, in regard of the system plight of teachers’professional development, it should establish teachers’ education system, assess&engagement system, incentive system; From organization&culture system, it should establish teachers’outlook of life, maintain its shared values and vision, as well as create teachers’cooperative learning mechanism of technical universities so as to promote the effectiveness of teachers’professional development of technical universities.Part VI An action research of technical universities teachers’ professional development The last part focuses on the reality analysis of the value orientation, professional development contents, professional development stages and professional development approaches of the technical universities teachers through a deep analysis of a case study of Shanghai XX college and then proposes the basic strategies of technical universities teachers’professional development."Self-renewal" orientation of teachers’professional development of technical universities is determined by many factors, such as the uniqueness of personnel education and cultivation of technical universities, special quality requirements for their teachers, as well as its work characteristics. Teachers’professional development content contains major knowledge, professional skills and professional attitude. Professional development period can be divided into seven stages:pre-education period, early occupation period, transitional period, competent period, mature period, stable period and retiring period. Thus, each stage has its own characteristics and development requirements. On the basis of the preliminary studies, this research proposes strategies----containing four levels, six measures and three programmers---for teachers’ professional development of technical universities. Four levels are as follows:at the national level, building a new system and mechanism of teachers’professional development; at the social level, building a new model of school---enterprise cooperation as well as practice---learning combination; at the universities level, deeply digging school-based education’s potential on teachers’professional development of technical universities; at the teachers level, fully inspiring teachers’initiative and enthusiasm. Six measures are:implementing university-based training, university-based curriculum development, effective action research, effective teaching reflection, building the teacher professional development community as well as scientific teacher evaluation. Three programs are:"program of combination of teachers’practice, learning and research","program of middle-aged teachers going abroad for academic visit" and "program of outstanding young teachers’domestic exchange scholars".