Study On Problems And Countermeasures Of Teachers’ Professional Development In Vocational Colleges

With the rapid progress of higher vocational education, the professionaldevelopment of vocational teachers has become a hot research issue in recent years.At present, there exists a variety of explanations to the professional development.Current research findings indicate that most researchers tend to interpret this conceptas a growing process of the teachers’ professional attainments, which means that theinherent knowledgestructure and professional norms of the vocational teachers areconstantly renewed, updated and diversified. The professional development is alsodeemed as an advance in the teachers’ career development. Therefore, the research ofprofessional development is an important part of vocational teaching staff study, andalso an inevitable requirement for the construction of double-type faculty team andteaching staff. How to promote the professional development of vocational teachersand build a qualified faculty team has become an urgent task.In this paper,“professional”,“professional development” and“professionaldevelopment of higher vocational teachers” are defined, and theprofessional development trend for vocational teachers in China is discussed througha literature review. Comparative analysis of American community colleges,Australian TAFE colleges and German vocational colleges is then carried out, so thatthe successful experiences of vocational education in developed countries abroadcould be concluded. Interviews of24frontline teachers in5higher vocational collegesare conducted to reveal the current situation of higher vocational colleges, whichinclude teachers’ cognition on professional development, professional developmentlevel and the environment. Problems facing professional development of Chinesevocational teachers are also explored in this paper. The paper finds: teachers are shortof power for professional development; teachers’ overall situation is not optimistic;and ways and contents of teachers’ professional development are inappropriate. Theseproblems are closely related to the system, standards, evaluation mechanism ofteachers’ professional development and teachers’ professional autonomy. In the end,to improve the professional development and make it more systematic and scientific,solutions are given from four aspects, that is the establishment and improvement ofthe system, self-development of vocational teachers, construction of a favorableclimate and policy support.