Theory And Practice Of Teacher Professional Development Based On Collaboration

Teachers are the key of education's development. Teacher Professional Development (TPD) has been one of the central topics of present education reformation. With the establishment of school-based TPD idea, in order to promote teachers' professional development based on the school, lots of researches have been done and have arrived to certain achievements. However, the present acts pay more attention to imparting knowledge and skills and training teachers' practical-reflection ability, while ignoring factors such as school culture, teacher culture, teaching culture and so on. Many practice and researches have proved that isolated teacher culture impedes teachers' development. However, collaborative teacher culture can enhance the development of both teachers and school. So, building collaborative culture merits the important attention in school-based TPD.Based on Teaching and Research Group (TRG), the most elementary and daily organization for teachers' teaching and research, the research tries to offer some constructive proposals on enhancing TPD through analyzing a case. Multiple methods of data collection, including interview, filed observing and collecting documents, were adopted in this qualitative study. All the interview records were transcribed and read repeatedly along with field notes and documents. Themes, comments and ideas emerging during this period were written down and acted as guidelines for further data-analysis. At last the themes were categorized and sequenced into the final report.The research analyzes TPD from angles of ecology, culture and organization to found its theory basis. After describing the value, viewpoint and practical meaning of ecological perspectives of TPD, the thesis discusses the characteristics of collaborative teacher culture and the relations between TPD and collaborative teacher culture. At last, the structure, operation, character of TRG and the connection with TPD were described.Together with the case, it is analyzed the Maths Teaching and Research Group Of D primary school, including its structure, operation and the evolution of teachers in it which was generalized into three aspects: (1) applying education theory to practice; (2) make the educationpractice rational; (3) helping each other and making professional progress together.Finally, based on the case analysis, the research puts forward four further action proposals from idea, system, content and form, including: (1) aiming to professional development; (2) systematization; (3) pointing to practical problems; (4) collaboration plus self-reflection.