A Study Of Instructional Leadership Of Teaching-research Staff

Teaching-research staff system is one of the features of China’ s fundamental education system in which teaching-research staff formed a special group of people who have made a great contribution to ensuring a high quality fundamental education.However,these staff are facing unprecedented challenges in terms of professional development due to the deepening of fundamental education reform.During more than 50 years,the functions of teaching-research system has developed from professionalism-centered ones to professionalism&guidance oriented ones.Therefore,the functions of teaching-research staff have also been undergoing great changes,expending from research,service and guidance to management and guidance.As a result,the problems in professional development of teaching-research staff in 21st century became more salient and aroused the attention of academic circles.At present,there are few systematic studies on teaching-research staff in the education circles for the following reasons.First,it is hard for teaching-research staff to reflect and figure out what are their functions.Second,university researchers who have broad theoretical horizons pay little attention to the teaching-research staff,even if they did,it is hard for them to give their interpretations from a curriculum perspective for the lack of understanding of curricula in primary and secondary schools(a teaching-research staff should be an excellent teacher first).Therefore,little focus was given to study on teaching-research staff.Besides,it still need to be studied and discussed as to what are the differences between teaching-research staff and common teachers and what are the characters of teaching-research staff.This study aims to clarify the following four questions:What are the professional characters of teaching-research staff?Are they static or dynamic?If they are dynamic,in what way they are developing?Is it possible to find a way to promote the professional development of teaching-research staff?Research findings:First,according to the survey,teaching-research staff’s character is their instructional leadership,i.e.(1)determining and sharing aims for discipline development;(2)leading teaching program and managing teaching process,including strengthening basic qualities about curricula and promoting teaching and research abilities;(3)focusing on teaching process and student evaluation,including developing and enriching teaching materials,curriculum implementations and innovation;(4)supporting teachers and their professional development;(5)creating a good environment and atmosphere for teaching and learning..Second,instructional leadership of teaching-research staff constantly forms and develops,which can be divided into different levels.In this study,a large number of teaching-research staff,principals and teachers were interviewed and the result was concluded with Grounded Theory Approach as follows.Development of teaching-research staff can be divided into three levels:beginning level,skilled level and expert level.Each level focuses on different aspects of professional development,and the lower one will upgrade to the higher in a spiral form for they are partly overlapping.This process shows more relevance to how teaching-research staff make endeavors to explore teaching&research and their understanding of their work than that to the work itself.Third,we need to further explore what methods can be used to promote instructional leadership,since its development is a dynamic and hierarchical process.Teaching-research staff at beginning level show their instructional leadership by leading class teaching for they need to exchange ideas on class teaching with teachers so as to seek teachers’ acknowledgment.Though class teaching involves different subjects,teaching-research staff at beginning level may impress teachers by observing class teaching and giving feedback,through which the staff can find teaching problems and give professional suggestions and therefore,exert their influence on teachers.Giving feedback after observing class-teaching contest is the most effective way to lead class teaching since it provides an opportunity for teaching-research staff to find,analyze,and explore individual problems and share their ideas.The best way for teaching-research staff to develop its instructional leadership is "Evaluating Class-teaching Program",of which procedures and principles will do help induce class-teaching problems,and then improve and spread the methods.Fourth,teaching-research staff at skilled level show instructional leadership by promoting teachers professional development.To achieve this goal,teaching-research staff shall make sure that teachers are motivated to develop professionally and are provided with an external environment because both internal and external factors play a key role in promoting teachers’ professional development.The best way to promote this development is building up an efficient teaching team which enables teaching-research staff to find out teachers’ implicit knowledge and turn it into an explicit one and share it among team members.The strategy of building a highly effective team is to put teachers into different levels.Therefore,the greatest difference between teaching-research staff at skilled level and those in beginning level is that they change their focus from individual teachers and class teaching to teachers and team building.In skilled level,teaching-research staff start to realize that the key to program development is to promote teachers development which is focused on professional qualities.Fifth,skilled teaching-research staff may reach their bottleneck,a complacent state which will lead to a weaker instructional leadership.It can be broke through by focusing on the development of team leaders.There are three ways to achieve this goal.First,team leaders shall be authorized to conduct micro-discipline leadership.Second,more emphasis shall be given to the latest discipline development.Third,enhancing team efficiency by promoting team leaders.Therefore,expert teaching-research staff focus on how to develop discipline team.They improve themselves by using team leadership in which they gradually discover new team leaders and have them trained.