Studies Of Online Learning Communities Based On The Professional Development Of Geography Teachers In Middle School

The creation and development of online learning communities of teachers provides a new model and environment for teacher professional development, promoting teachers’teaching and research in their daily life.The study focus on the geography teacher online learning community and its influence of teacher professional development.First of all, this paper makes a comparison between the traditional model of teacher professional development and the model of online communities of teachers, and analyzes their advantages and disadvantages respectively, stressing the unique advantages for the professional development of teachers in online communities.Then, the questionnaire investigation was conducted on geography teachers’ participation in traditional teaching and research. The paper reveals that the traditional teaching and internet-assisted teaching research are mutually complementary for the professional development of teachers. At the same time, this paper finds that teachers with different years spent teaching have unlike attitudes towards both teaching and research ways.Secondly, based on the observation of the geography teacher online learning community, the paper makes comparison among the uses of network tools such as blog, forum, QQ groups and micro-blog in function and analyzes their advantages, their effects on teacher professional development.Xingyun Geographic portals has been established for a long time in China with a large number of participants, high activity, rich content, comprehensive structure as geography teacher online learning community. The thesis chooses it as a typical case, using questionnaire investigation, participation and observation method to make a comprehensive analysis. Firstly, in order to understand the influence range of Xingyun portals and finds out what attracts teachers to participate in this community, the paper investigates the basic situation of teachers who participate in Xingyun portals and their participation in Xingyun geography activities, Secondly, the Xingyun geographic portals holds high active teaching and research activities regularly, such as QQ group discussion ("round table" conference, daily study, guest interviews), analyzes the advantages and shortages of these activities in the interactive process, and puts forward some suggestions for optimization. Thirdly, in order to clarify the roles of Blog in teacher professional development, this paper observes and analyzes Blog and dialogue from four parts, such as blog types, content, review types and blog feedback time(review time and reply time).On this basis, according to the formation background of several online teacher communities, the thesis divides these backgrounds into four categories, such as local (official) learning community background, academic background, business background, by interest in the sublimation of the sense of social responsibility, and analyzes the positive and negative effects of each support background of community development and the teacher professional development. Then the author summarizes the life cycle of Geography teacher online community which was formed by the interest and the social responsibility in the fifth part. It is divided into five stages:the start-up period, the formation period, development period, repeated period, declining period and mature period. Therefore, to construct a sustainable geography teacher online learning community, the paper raises some strategies, including what should uphold the principle, presents the key elements in four aspects, such as targets, participants, culture, technical factors, and provides reference and advice for Geography teacher online communities.