Researches Of Teacher Group Professional Development Mechanism: Organizational Memory Approach

Teacher professional development has become an important approach in Teacher Education Reform. The paper systematically discussed researches and practice of teacher professional development at home and abroad, and pointed out that although current teacher professional development has been progressing in a way of groups, the features of groups did not function. With the supports of information technology, a mechanism of organizational knowledge formation (organizational memory) can be constructed. The paper put forth a concept of teacher group professional development from a view of accumulation and development for organizations' knowledge, and tried to make clear the mechanisms and methods of teacher group professional development.The paper argued that from the aspect of knowledge management, teacher group professional development actually means the process of the formation and development of teacher group organizational knowledge. Organizational memory represents the organizations' abilities of processing information and knowledge as well as abilities of accumulating and utilizing organizational knowledge. As a result, the paper suggests a model of teacher group professional development based on organizational memory: with the help of the supporting system for teacher group professional development, personal knowledge (PK) can be transformed to school organizational knowledge (OM) via personal public statement (PPS) and organizational public statement (OPS) , and description and expression, concern and comparison, negotiation and comprehension can be recognized as the main mechanisms. Meanwhile, the paper pointed out the ways of implementing management and motivation strategies related to the mechanisms are needed. According to these findings, the paper has described the main structures of the Web2.0-based supporting system and its models of instructional application, group development application and administration and motivation strategies.In order to verify its effect, some application cases of the teacher group professional development system referred to organizational memory has been practiced and methods of case study, survey, and interviews has been utilized. Results indicated that environment of information technology can facilitate to improve school abilities of organizational memory and the organizational memory-based teacher group professional development system actually effects the process of organizational memory, especially in using Wiki, Blog in cooperative lessons preparation, team activities and management and motivation strategies which were planed in accordance with the system. Finally, some limitations about this research and future directions were advised, which may inspire further theoretical researches and practices of teacher professional development.