Teacher Collaboration And Development

Teacher development means much to the improvement of school education and the advancement of educational revolution. In these decades, there are many researches about teachers professional development in and out of China, few of which sets in the reality of the education in China. This research focuses on 'Jiaoyanzu', the pacific basic organization for teachers in China, inspecting how teachers exchange information and corporate in 'Jiaoyanzu' and how this course affects teachers' professional development, with three 'Jiaoyanzu' in two state schools in Shanghai as cases.The information needed is gained mainly through interview, observing in the spot, collecting files, questionnaire investigating and so on. All the teachers (27) in the three 'Jiaoyanzu' finished the questionnaire, the data of which is analyzed with SPSS 11.0 to form an initial report as the thread and the direction of spot researches, In the six-month spot research, the researcher observed and recorded the lesson preparing, lessson observing, lesson analysing, and lesson showing of the three 'Jiaoyanzu' 17 times, talked with 10 teachers, collected 28 files about the professional development of the 'Jiaoyanzu' and the teachers. The observations and talks were recorded, most of which were written down and repeatedly read and analyzed. The questionnaires verify with the spot researches, as well as replenish and correct them, for which the result of the research could reflect the reality.This research investigated and depicted ordinary activities of the three 'Jiaoyanzu', such as 'group lesson preparing', 'lesson study', and their process.This research analyzed the quality of 'Jiaoyanzu' with questionnaires and spot researches, including eight aspect: authenticity, practicability, depth, sharing, pertinency, consistency, parcipating,and criterion. The research also analyzed the level and course of Jiaoyanzu' affects the teachers' development with the two methods, including six aspects: teachers' belief, teachers' knowledge, teacher reflection, developping chance, working efficency, and professional promise.In this research we found that the activities in 'Jiaoyanzu' were miscellaneous and fragmental, and teachers' deliberation were strongly context depended and action directed. Compared with other aspects, these activities devote most help to increase teachers' teaching knowledge, with different contents and levels in different stages. In those large scope activities or activities for show, the authenticity is in doubt. The daily deliberation activities have many practical results, which does much help to teachers' work. But in the other aspect, the teachers' teaching concepts and professional introspection are confined. In the three cases, the teachers' concepts about sharing information and opinions are different. Some of them just use others' teaching information for reference, but for some of them, the exchange of ideas and thoughts is more smooth and easy. Different activities have no clear hierarchy and focus. Comparatively speak,' Jiaoyanzu' has little influence on teachers' profession emotion, but has much on sense of organization belonging.As I know from my research experience, teachers' real professional development is so far away from that clear and definite as scholars said, which is miscellaneous, full of indefinite factors, and hard to be holded with clear concepts or orientations. As for the reality of the education in China, the frames of the concepts some western scholar presented are not completely suitable for us. Using western scholars' research for reference according to the research results we got ourselves to build up a theory about teachers' professional development suitable for our education background is an inescapable responsibility for the scholars on education in China.