International Comparative Study On Teacher Educators And Professional Standards For Teacher Educators

In the reform of teacher education, teacher educators are an important factor which restricts the quality of teacher education. The study of teacher educators is also gradually becoming a special research field. The reform of teacher education has put forward some professional requirements for teacher educators. Teacher educators, as professionals, need to meet particular requirements in professional quality, acquire certain professional certification, and realize continuous professional development. The stipulation and implementation of teacher educators’ professional standards, to a large degree, are to achieve all these goals mentioned above.At the beginning of the study, the most important thing is to clarify some basic concepts such as teacher educators, teacher educators’ professional standards. By summing up the researches concerning different understandings about teacher educators in different countries and among different researchers, the author first analyzes the basic meanings of teacher educators and defines the concept of teacher educators from two aspects:connotation and denotation. Then based on some research findings regarding the stipulation and implementation of teacher educators’ professional standards among different countries around the world, the author summarizes the connotation and function of the teacher educators’professional standards.First of all, discuss the establishment of the teacher educators’ professional status. From the source they come, teacher educators can be divided into two main categories, a kind of teacher educators transformed from primary and secondary school teachers; another kind is the teacher educators who graduate from the university and directly undertake teaching in higher education. These two types of teacher educators each have advantages and disadvantages. But with a great demand for a new generation of the professional teacher educators, qualification requirements for teacher educators must be clarified; the cultivation of teacher educators also need to be professional, thus establishing and upgrading the professional status of teacher educators.Second, analyze teacher educators’ professional identity and role. To clarify the teacher educators’ professional identity, it is necessary to make comparisons among teacher educators, the primary and secondary school teachers and educators in different sectors of high education. And then compare the professional identity of the same kind of teacher educators in different countries. In teacher education, teacher educators have multiple social identity and role identity. Among these identities, the most important one is ’teachers of teachers’. Teacher educators’ professional identity means that teacher educators understand and agree from their heart with the expectations of the society for teacher educators. The promotion of teacher educators’ professional identity requires two-aspect efforts:the subjective efforts and the creation of external environment.Third, based on the confirmation of teachers’ professional status and professional identity, we need to make a continuous pursuit of qualification requirements for such a professional personnel, and thus realizing the urgent desire for establishing teacher educators’ professional standards. This study, based on a comprehensive analysis of research findings concerning teacher educators’ professional standards in the world, chooses two teacher educators’ professional standards developed and implemented by the ATE and VELON as the main research objects, and makes a comparative analysis in three aspects:the establishment, the basic content and the certification of the standards. Meanwhile, this paper, combined with China’s national conditions, makes some further thinking about the issues concerned.Finally, analyze the direct and indirect impacts of teacher educators’ professional standards on teacher educators’ professional development. Promoting professional development of teacher educators needs to think about some basic questions, for example, which stages should the professional development experience? Which aspects should it involve? How to realize the professional development of teacher educators? For these questions above, this study combines teacher educators’ professional standards with the professional development of teacher educators from vertical and horizontal dimensions, making a further thinking about them. And to a certain extent, this paper expands to the construction of the teacher educators’ professional community.