A Study Of Teacher Collaboration Mechanism In The Context Of School Change

In the new global economy, teacher quality has become a central issue for education change, which determines whether education reform could be succeeded. Professional development is considered to be an effective way to improve teachers’ professional knowledge and skills. Among various professional development activities, school-based teacher collaboration stands out. The study of teacher collaboration mainly focuses on schools in steady state, and analyzes the performance and operational mechanism of teachers’collaboration in the context of external change. However, there has been little discussion about schools under the process of both external imposed change and internal structural change simultaneously. Under the tension of internal and external change, teacher collaboration is situated in a special context, which could not be explained well by existing theories. Schools also lack effective strategies to promote teacher collaboration in such situation. Collaboration mechanism is treated as the key factor to promote teacher professional development. The thesis mainly focuses on the specific operation of teacher collaboration in the context of school change, interprets the tensions in teacher collaboration, verifies the effectiveness of cooperation mechanism for the professional development, and builds the model of teacher collaboration mechanism.The study adopts case study method. Researchers went to a primary school three times for field study, using interviews, observation and questionnaire survey to gather data. It reveals the real scene of school teacher professional development and teacher collaboration, and analyzes the real state of teacher collaboration mechanism. The study finds that teacher collaboration has an positive impact on teachers’ professional development. Although teachers’professional development has greater improvement than in the past, problems still exists. Instructional leadership is a key factor to promote teacher collaboration effectively. Structure is a main factor to impede teacher collaboration. Defects in system design, deviation in system implement, and incapacity of staff are factors out of capability. Affected by working pressure, identity changes and other factors, teachers’enthusiasm on interpersonal relationship is frustrated, and teachers lack the incentive to cooperate with colleagues. Based on the analysis of teacher collaborative process, the study builds the theoretical model of teacher collaboration, which includes four key elements:structures, context, leadership and interpersonal relationship. In order to solve the present problems in the case school, the school should get rid of a regionalized structure limit, eliminate the teachers’ subjective resist, enhance professional capacity, and develop instructional leadership among middle-level leaders.