Teachers' Professional Development Paradigm Shift And The Management Of School

In recent years, as the reform in new curriculum advances, the issue on teacher professional development has been one of the heated topics in education research and teaching practice. In general, traditional teacher training was launched by some authorities out of school, and carried on by means of"top-down"or"I speak and you just listen"situation. Thus, teachers'activeness and communicativeness are depressed.Compared with traditional paradigm of teacher professional development, newly-invented paradigm of teacher professional development puts more stress on autonomous teacher professional development. Teachers get more self-development in the course of professional development, and their professional growth becomes more dependent on self-design, self-study, self-reflection and self-inquiry. Another main characteristic of this new paradigm of teacher professional development is that it emphasizes teachers'growth, and it also advocates that if teachers are to overpass their own professional cognition and comprehension, they should open their hearts , interact and talk with other colleagues in their professional communities, in which they can enrich their experience and become more intelligent.The shift in the paradigm of teacher professional development asks for new changes in school management. Firstly, school-based teacher professional development requires that school managers should take the responsibility to promote teacher professional development, and help teachers achieve self-growth and mature in profession in real school teaching practice. Secondly, school managers should design effective environment and system to break the isolated and closed states among teachers , encourage teachers to exchange their profession knowledge and share in their common profession knowledge among teachers. Thirdly, school managers should transform systematic teacher groups into communities of teacher professional development, which is convenient for teachers to communicate with each other. Fourthly, one of the most important tasks in school management is to transform school culture, that is, to set up a kind of school culture which values fairness faith and cooperation so as to promote teacher professional growth and development.