Understanding Teacher Learning In A Context Of Curriculum Innovation A Narrative Inquiry Of RICH Education

Teacher is believed as a crucial part during curriculum implementation. To connect a curriculum with students, a teacher is required to have a full understanding of the curriculum, the students as well as the self. With such responsibilities, a teacher must become a life-long learner to maintain knowing of the essence of education, the students, the curriculum and the teacher self so as to nurture the curriculum into one which can best develop the capacity of the students. Therefore, it’s significant to explore how teachers learn to understand and develop the curriculum.The purpose of this study attempts to inquire why and how a teacher learns to understand the complicated process of curriculum innovation, and what major outcomes are produced for the teacher’s professional growth through exploring the learning opportunities during curriculum innovation in RICH(Research-based, Integrated curriculum, Cooperative learning, Humanistic outcomes) education in a college of foreign languages of a teachers’university in Zhejiang.The major theoretical framework for this research is based on Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural theory and Mezirow’s transformative learning theory. The main research participant is a teacher who, with more than30years of teaching experiences, has been deeply involved in the RICH education. The students she taught are also important participants during the process of data collection. And the tools for gathering data are interviews, classroom observations, field notes, teacher’s journals and students’learning portfolios etc. The whole research lasted for about two years from October2011to December2013. This study uses narrative inquiry as a major research method in analyzing the data gathered.The major findings of this study include factors facilitating the teacher to become an eager learner that are the challenges and difficulties she had ever encountered during curriculum innovation, influential persons, intrinsic motivation as well as the liberal institutional culture. Because of the change of teacher’s identity, her colleagues, students, challenges, difficulties, classroom practice and community activities have all become rich learning resources. Teacher’s motivated learning has further impacted the development of the teacher. With the intrinsic teacher learning, teacher’s personal practical knowledge enriched, the curriculum approach changed and the teacher also grows into a reflective thinker.This study may give some insight for teacher development from the inquiry of the lived stories of the research participant. There are many ways for teachers’growth professionally, but the curriculum innovation initiated by the great needs from the teachers may emerge as an effective landscape for teacher development.