Research On The Status Quo And Improvement Strategies Of Teachers' Professional Knowledge In Secondary Vocational Schools

The quality of secondary vocational education lies on the quality of teachers.And the key to improve teachers' quality is to develop their professional ability.The professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers plays an important role in their professional development with the optimization of professional-knowledge structure as its basis.And this kind of optimization needs urgently to improve.Meanwhile,the professional standards of secondary vocational teachers(a trial version)was put forward by Ministry of Education in 2013,which provides the basis for the development of professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers.Thus,the researches on their professional knowledge offer a theoretical guidance for knowledge optimization,enrich the theoretical systems for the expertise development of secondary vocational teachers and are conducive to get clear about practical dilemma as well as find out the influential factors for improving the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachersWith the current situation of the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers as the entry point,this research associating theory with practice,history with logic,macroscope with microcosm,quality with quantity,concentrates on the elements including the theoretical basis,status quo and problems,causes,construction path.With nationwide secondary vocational teachers as research objects,the present study is conducted in the literature research method,survey and analysis as well as statistical method.Firstly,as shown in the theory of teachers' developmental stage,the theory of lifelong learning,knowledge management theory,personal knowledge system,it is known that within the group of secondary vocational teachers,they vary in seniority,teaching experience,teaching expectation and expertise level on account of different stages of cognition and performance in the process of professional development of secondary vocational teachers.The professional standard for secondary vocational teachers entails the idea of lifelong learning which prompts them to study independently and update their knowledge level to make sure the sustainable development of their profession knowledge.The SECI modal in the perspective of knowledge management is beneficial to perfect their theoretical knowledgeable system and provide guidance for practical knowledge.The personal knowledge theory urges the teachers as the owners of professional knowledge to positively improve their professional knowledge and associate it closely with practical activities,further to implement pointedly training activities for teachers' professional knowledge.Thus,the development of the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers needs to follow the guidance of the theory of teachers' developmental stage,the theory of lifelong learning knowledge management theory and personal knowledge system.Secondly,by the help of the survey on current situation of professional knowledge of secondary vocational teacher(for teachers)and(for students)and in the method of questionnaire and statistical analysis,this research is conducted on the efficiency of educational knowledge,professional background knowledge,curriculum knowledge,general knowledge and training activities on the development of teachers' professional knowledge and their expectation on self-directed profession-knowledge development.It is shown that,in one aspect significant difference lies in the expertise levels of secondary vocational teachers in different schools in different regions and type,and with different genders,ages,education backgrounds,seniorities and titles;it varies a lot for their dimensions professional knowledge development in the training activities.In another aspect,development of teachers' professional knowledge is at lower level and unbalanced;their educational knowledge,curriculum knowledge and general knowledge is quite weak;the training activities are in low efficiency;the development of professional knowledge lack of practice.Thirdly,the causes of the problems are on reflection:(1)the social environment restricts the development of the professional knowledge of the teachers,as the general mood of society also regard vocational education as the "inferior education" and the policy executive ability for vocational education is low;(2)it lacks of institutional guarantee for the development of the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers as the training system,scientific research mechanism and evaluation mechanism are defective;(3)the secondary vocational teachers do not have a proper awareness on self-directed professional knowledge learning and the learning is not comprehensive;(4)the teachers are short of motivation to improve their professional abilities;(5)the source and way to recruit secondary vocational teachers is simple and hysteretic.The training institutions specialized for secondary vocational teachers are quite rare.All those factors impede the development of professional knowledge.At last,the present study discusses the effective mechanism for promoting the sustainable development of professional knowledge of secondary vocational teacher including(1)executive ability for development of the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers should be improved to guarantee teachers' status of subject in the development of the professional knowledge.At the same time,the professional knowledge training should be associated closely with teaching practice.And the training system should also be standardized.The teachers should strengthen self-reflection on their professional knowledge;(2)the theory of knowledge management needs to be introduced to improve the efficiency of professional knowledge learning.The institutional assurance for professional knowledge learning platform should be perfected.The educational research system needs to improve and the cooperative learning model needs to be innovated and optimized ceaselessly.Moreover,the evaluation system should also be created scientifically;(3)the quality of secondary vocational teaching staff should be improve through enlarging the channel of recruitingteachers and the entry requirement should be strict with in purpose of achieving university-orientation of pre-service education of the teachers.The expertise level of the teachers need to improve continuously;(4)the rule of continuing education targeting for secondary vocational teachers needs to be perfected in order to widen their knowledge.All in all,the professional knowledge level of secondary vocational teacher has an impact on their professional development level.Building an integrated knowledge structure plays a key role in improving their professional level.The present study,based on the professional standards of secondary vocational teachers(a trial version)focuses systematically on the contents including the theoretical basis of the improvement of professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers,status quo,problems,causes and strategies.Without doubt,to develop the professional knowledge of secondary vocational teachers is a systematic task.The more deeper research on the current situation of the professional knowledge level of teachers in other areas and on the defectiveness in the strategies to promoting the professional knowledge level should be conducted in the future.