Study On Teachers’ Knowledge Transfer From The Perspective Of Mentoring

With the deepening of the research on teacher professional development, teachers’knowledge has been paid more and more attention. In order to make up for the weekness of pre-service teacher education, mentoring was introduced to in-service teacher training and has played am important role in professional development of beginning teachers. Mentoring, which is a mutually beneficial relationship between an experienced teacher and a beginning teacher, promotes their professional growth greatly through two-way transfer of teacher knowledge. However, the effect of teacher knowledge transfer based on mentoring remains to be improved nowadays because of the following three existing problems:one is that the knowledge transferred is mainly explicit knowledge, the second is that there are difficulties in the transfer of tacit knowledge inter-individuals, and the third is that knowledge transferred is difficult to apply in new contexts.The dissertation focuses on three issues as follows:■ Which knowledge should be transferred between the experienced teacher and the beginning teacher?■ How to transfer the knowledge in the process of mentoring?■ What factors will influence the effect of knowledge transfer?To answer these questions, literature analysis and interviews were used in this study. The analysis framework of the research was structured based on viewing theories in the perspective of integration, which means to absorb reasonable elements with the development of theory. How to see teachers’knowledge and its transfer is related to how we see educational practice. Therefore, the characteristics of the educational practice were researched from the perspective of Bourdieu and Schoen. And then, the analysis framework of the teachers’knowledge stucture was formed based on the theory of PCK and theory of teachers’practical knowledge, and the analysis framework of how to transfer knowledge was structured based on the theory of potential energy of the knowledge and the theory of SECI model. On this basis, the former three questions were explored and answered from the perspective of mentoring.From the general perspective of knowledge and the division of knowledge in management science and cognitive psychology, teachers’knowledge structure was established following the development of the theory of teachers’knowledge. Teachers’knowledge consists of three parts:descriptive pedagogical content knowledge, external regulating practical knowledge and internal regulating practical knowledge. The descriptive pedagogical content knowledge, which points to what teachers know, includes the knowledge on subject, pedagogy, students and curriculum. The external regulating practical knowledge, which points to how to teach and belong to teachers’situated tacit knowledge, includes contextual cognitive skills, teaching skills and interpersonal cognitive skills. The internal regulating practical knowledge, which points to how to think and belong to teachers’general tacit knowledge, includes the knowledge on self, critical reflection and belief. Beginning teachers should have most of the knowledge according to the professional standards for teachers in different countries. However, the external regulating practical knowledge is in urgent need for beginning teachers from the characteristics of teachers in special professional development stage and from their practical needs, and that pedagogical content knowledge seemingly simple shouldn’t be ingored. The requirements of the state, the expectations of the school and the needs of the teachers should be integrated when determining what to transfer by mentoring.There are two kinds of ways to generate explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge according to the SECI model. The path of the transfer of tacit knowledge, which follows the process of Externalization-Combination-Internalization, was especially researched in this study. A model of how to transfer teachers’knowledge in mentoring was established according to the path and the theory of reflection-in-action. The tacit knowledge will be explicit through action, language and schema in the specific teaching context by the master and apprentice, and the differences will be found and the problem will be reframed through interaction and dialogue. Subsequently, feedbacks will be given by the context when the beginning teacher explores and experiments in virtual world and in the real teaching context, and knowledge will be generated and renewed by reflexion-in-action and further dialogue between the master and apprentice. In the end, the knowledge will be applied to a new or similar context by "seeing-as" or "doing-as" and be internalized gradually in the continuous application.It’s really difficult to transfer tacit knowledge in mentoring, and the effect of knowledge transfer is influenced by a lot of factors including the characteristics of teachers’knowledge, the differences between the potential energy of teachers’ knowledge and the context where knowledge transfer occurs. It’s found that it will be more difficult to transfer if the knowledge is embedded in higher level, and it will bring more benefits if the differences of the potential energy are maintained in moderate level. And it’s indispensable for knowledge transfer to have common value among teachers, culture of sharing and cooperation, and incentive mechanism in school.The problems of what knowledge should be transferred and how to transfer were discussed in the end of the study. Firstly, although beginning teachers are in urgent need to enhance the professional teaching skills, the internal regulating practical knowledge shouldn’t be ingored and must be paid attention because this knowledge is indispensable for reflextion-in-action and can be applied more easily in new teaching contexts. Secondly, "epiphany" is an important way to generate new knowledge for beginning teachers. However, new teachers generally lack knowledge of critical reflection, so it should be one important responsibility for master to help his apprentice to understand and reflex-in-action. Thirdly, while most of the knowledge is transferred from master to apprentice, there is also knowledge transfer in the opposite direction, and knowledge transfer in mentoring is two-way. To promote mutual knowledge transfer, beginning teachers should participate in interaction and dialogue equally on the basis of the common value.