Investigation Of The Professional Development Status Of Novice Primary School Teachers

The key of the teacher team construction is to speed up the teachers’ professional development. As a special group of teachers, novice teachers stay in the initial and also critical stage of their growth. There are only 2 public schools and 456 faculty members in Kunming Hi-tech Zone, but 234 teachers among them just start their work in 2011-2015 and have the seniority of less than 5 years, accounting for 51.32% of all teaching staff numbers. The low average age of teachers and the large quantity of novice teachers have become the characteristics of the public primary schools in Kunming Hi-tech Zone.Based on the actual situation of Kunming Hi-tech Zone, this research applies the methods of literature review, questionnaire survey, interview, text analysis and others, compiles questionnaires based on the study of relevant literatures, investigates the 234 novice primary school teachers, and then learns and analyzes their professional development status combining the interview results. The main problems that should be studied in this research include the similarities and differences among the novice teachers with the seniority of less than 5 years, and the stage characteristics of novice teachers at the early, middle and later stages of their novice period. Then, based on the study of above problems, the research discusses how schools should offer guidance and support and what efforts the novice teachers should make to promote their professional development.The major conclusions of the research are as follows:1. Generally the novice teachers have some similarities: firstly, as there are a large quantity of novice teachers in the primary schools of Kunming Hi-tech Zone, and the male and female structure is unbalanced, so the teachers have great pressure at work; secondly, the novice teachers have a high recognition to the professional knowledge and show great enthusiasm to work; thirdly, the novice teachers are eager to improve their teaching abilities; fourthly, observing the teaching of famous teachers and evaluation of classroom teaching are the practices in great help to the teachers in early novice and middle novice stages, some teachers in later novice stage slightly tend to public classes and teaching research, so generally the teaching of novice teachers mainly focuses on imitation; fifthly, in research activities, the novice teachers need to participate in team and group activities; they need to strengthen themselves in such aspects as professional development planning, reflection, reading and paper writing, etc., and the mentoring has become the way most favored by novice teachers and most beneficial to them; sixthly, the novice teachers long for the recognition from their schools, the school management has great influence on the early novice teachers, while the school atmosphere and teacher culture have increasingly obvious influence on middle and later novice teachers.2. In terms of the investigated professional development, the novice teachers of Kunming Hi-tech Zone at their early novice stage, middle novice stage and later novice stage have significant differences in workload, care to the emotions and attitudes of students in the teaching process, writing of educational papers, and ways of professional development, but the differences in other aspects are not significant.3. The research summarizes the general stage characteristics and laws of teachers’ development in their early, middle and later novice stages through analysis to the questionnaire data and interviews to the novice teachers, their supervisors and school leaders.The early novice period(less than 1 year of work): The novice teachers just starting their work have great enthusiasm and freshness in work, the satisfaction to their own professional development is just in an initial level, they mostly take the external demands as the driving force of their development, and they get the maximum influence from school management factors; they aspire to master the modern education technologies; their overall levels in teaching evaluation, teaching method knowledge and student knowledge are not high; their tasks are mainly the observation of teaching of famous teachers and the class evaluation; their professional development patterns and means are relatively single and mainly focus on classroom; due to the lack of experience, they have no opportunity to show themselves in various platforms.The middle novice period(2-3 years of work): After the practice in the first year, the novice teachers tend to stabilization in their middle novice period, they have certain improvements in teaching evaluation, teaching method knowledge and student knowledge, etc., and their development platforms and development patterns are widened. Most of them have adapted to the requirements in school work, and they begin to reflect on their teaching behaviors especially under the requirements and guidance of schools. At this stage, the novice teachers have accumulated certain teaching experience, and begin to show themselves in some platforms provided by the school. According to their performance, the schools will select a batch of dedicative and devoting novice teachers and cultivate them in administrative positions. However, from this stage, due to the increase of workload, the pressure of novice teachers also increases gradually.The later novice period(4-5 years of work):In the 4-5 years of their work, i.e. the later novice period, the novice teachers experience a quickened development period. The teachers at this time have got some foundations and experience, have shown themselves in different stages, and have took part in some research projects. However, in this stage, most teachers face the selection of Promising Young Teachers and Backbone Teachers, and need to prepare the upcoming professional title declaration. All these need to base on the hard indexes, including public classes, paper publication, research results and awards, etc. Therefore, the teachers at this stage have strong impetus. Among the later novice teachers, those selecting “lack impetus” in the factors restricting the professional development of novice teachers are obviously lower than those in early and middle novice stages. At this stage, they work harder and some of them even cut figures.The specific suggestions proposed in this research are: firstly, give targeted support to novice teachers according to the characteristics and laws of their different novice stages; secondly, strive to transfer the work pressure of novice teachers into the impetus of their professional development; thirdly, promote the professional development of novice teachers with the improvement of their teaching skills as the core; fourthly, construct the development system of novice teachers scientifically; fifthly, pay attention to the individual experience of novice teachers based on people oriented policy.