A Case Study On Professional Development Of A Biology Expert-teacher In High School

The 21 st century is an era of life science, an era that demands for large numbers of well qualified biology teachers to be cultivated, and for basic education of life science to be developed. Expect-teachers are a group of the most successfully developed individuals in the career of education, studies on the professional development of high-school expect-teachers, therefore, are of great significance to prompt the development of young teachers. Whereas, present studies related to the professional development of expect-teachers largely focus on teachers in subjects like English and Chinese, while studies on the professional development of biology expect-teachers have yet to be reported, reflecting an uneven distribution of subjects.Employing the approach of case study in the qualitative research, this paper focuses on the professional development of a biology expect-teacher(the teacher Z) in a high school as the research object, traces the growth footprints of Z, analyze the personal qualities of the expect-teacher, analyze the professional literacy of the expect-teacher,and analyzes factors influencing the professional development of Z. The following four contents were contained in the study :Firstly, in the stage of non-concerns, Z participated in the College Entrance Examination after the Cultural Revolution and started to develop ties with the profession of teaching; in the stage of virtual concerns, Z studied in NC Normal University and laid a foundation for professional development in the later stage; in the stage of survival concerns, Z formally started biology teaching career in CK High School; the stage of task concerns was a later-stage period for Z’s teaching in CK High School, during which Z had been concentrating on improving professional literacy; in the self-renewal stage, Z engaged in teaching in LC High School and ND High School, assumed important position as an instructor for Olympiad competition, and focused on academic researches, making the period a high-efficiency stage for professional development.Secondly, the teacher Z are featured with five factors of the personal qualities: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, low neuroticism and openness to experience.Thirdly, the structure of Z’s professional literacy consists of literacies of knowledge and professional skills(literacies of life science, relevant knowledge in biology, practical knowledge and practical skills); theoretical and competency literacy(theoretical literacies in pedagogy, psychology, biology curriculum theory and teaching theory; literacies in verbal expression ability, ability to organize teaching, ability for teaching research, self-learning ability, and creation development ability); and morality and professional ethics.Fourthly, the external factors influencing Z’s professional development include social environment and school environment; while the internal influential factors mainly include personal traits, internal motivation for development, and personal habits.The aforementioned research findings may serve as an enrichment for the empirical cases and provide basic material for the theories on the professional development of biology expect-teachers in high school, and provide references for the professional development of normal college students majoring in biology science, or the youth who intend to engage in biology teaching, as well as high-school biology teachers.