A Junior High School Mathematics Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge Of Life History Research

Since 1990s, with the rise of professionalizing campaigns of teachers in China and abroad and the large amounts of introduction of foreign research results on the practical knowledge of teachers in China, till recently, the importance of the personal practical knowledge in the development of professional teachers is being recognized by more and more experts and scholars.However, currently both the study on the formation of teachers' personal practical knowledge and its relevant theoretical results in our country are relatively rare. This research aims to probe the inner causes of the formation of teachers' practical knowledge so as to offer some suggestions on the formation and development of personal practical knowledge for teachers.The formation of teachers'personal practical knowledge is closely related to the professional and private life experiences of teachers, for the personal practical knowledge of teachers comes from their personal experience, so the formation of teachers' personal practical knowledge definitely will be affected by the life history of teachers. Therefore, this research tries to study the formation of individual teacher' s personal practical knowledge in terms of life history. It chose a math teacher named Z who works in Y junior middle school as the sample. Through the observation, interview and physical material collection etc. to collect information and data about Z whose personal practical knowledge was finally shown, the life history analysis was then applied to analyze the knowledge. Finally a conclusion of the research was gained and some suggestions derived were put forward too. This dissertation consists of five parts, and they are:PartⅠis the introduction, which expresses the reasons and meaning of the research, the forming of the issue, literature review and the definition of the core conception etc. Part II concerns the research design, which illustrates the overall procedure of the research through three aspects:the understanding of the method of teachers'life history, personal experience of the teachers'life history study and the considerations of ethics of the research. Part III is the description part of the study sample Z's life history, namely, life before being a teacher, life after being a teacher and family life. Part IV mainly focuses on two aspects, with the first on collecting and analyzing of Z's personal practical knowledge, which contains the faith of teaching, knowledge of common teaching methods, knowledge of math teaching, knowledge of teaching reform, knowledge of head teacher and the knowledge of managing relationship with students; and the second on applying the life history analysis method to analyze the elements influencing the formation of Z's personal practical knowledge, which contains the significant events in Z's education experience, the accumulation of teaching experience in teaching career, the difficulties and challenges in living environment, and the limits and influence of personal qualities. PartⅤelaborates the suggestion and reflection based on the research.