A Narrative Inquiry On Development Of Practical Knowledge Of Novice Teachers

With the deepening of China’s basic education curriculum reform,it has become the focus of research to enhance teachers’ awareness and ability of professional development.Previous study dicusses a lot about question of “how the teacher should do”,so we put eyes on the situation of the teachers’ daily life.With the method of narrative inquiry,discussing their action in the reflection to know-practical knowledge,so as to import the stages of professional development for teachers.This study tells the educational story of two novice teachers,in which the situations,problems,actions and feelings in practice are preserved as much as possible.In order to better understand the richness and complexity of the development of practical knowledge,study adopts a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches to interpret stories.It explores the basic content of teachers’ practical knowledge as the followings:knowledge of subject,knowledge of self,knowledge of students and knowledge of situation.The development of such knowledge is non-linear,it involves many factors.Among them,the organizational culture of the teaching school,student feedback,self-knowledge and personal teaching experience are the main factors.This makes the development of novice teachers’ practical knowledge have three characteristics:develop rapidly,accompanied by conflicts and contradictions and distinct individual difference.On the basis of summarization and reflection,this study draws three basic conclusions: first,reflective practice plays a key role in novice teachers’ development of practical knowledge;Second,the organizational culture of the teaching school influences the content and path of the development of novice teachers’ practical knowledge;Thirdly,focusing on knowledge of self is an important measure for novice teachers to develop practical knowledge.Based on this,the researchers put forward several possible suggestions for teaching schools,normal colleges and novice teachers themselves.The teaching school should create a positive cultural environment.Normal universities should provide case teaching with "reflection" as the direction.Novice teachers should establish the consciousness of independent development.