The professional development of teachers involved in collaborative curriculum change: The case of New Basic Education Project in Shanghai.

摘要

Although teacher professional development has been widely studied in English-speaking countries during the last two decades, few researches are conducted based on the context of Mainland China. Taking a university-school collaborative curriculum change project (New Basic Education Project) as a case, this exploratory research aims to investigate (a) on what bases (e.g., routines and procedures in schools, teachers' daily professional activities) and (b) how teachers participating in this project gain professional development, and (c) what changes teachers may experience during the process of curriculum change under the educational context of Mainland China.;New Basic Education Project was initiated by several university educators and teachers from a primary school in 1994 in Shanghai and extended to more than 30 schools in Shanghai five years later. One of the most important aims of this project is to change the students' classroom lives by changing teachers.;Multiple methods of data collection were adopted in this qualitative study: (1) The researcher spent two months in the project field observing the procedures and activities in the change process, including teaching observation, university educator and peer reviewing, group discussion and meetings. Field notes were taken during the process of observation. (2) Documents including newsletters, reports, journals, and articles written by university educators and teachers were collected. (3) 13 teachers and 8 principals (including vice principals) from 5 schools, 6 university educators and 3 teaching researchers were interviewed, all of the interviews were recorded.;All the interview records were transcribed and were read repeatedly along with field notes and documents. Themes, comments and ideas emerging during this period were written down and acted as guidelines for further data-analysis. At last the themes were categorized and sequenced into the final report.;The study finds that (a) principals and teachers hold different expectations and have different understandings of the project with university educators, (b) routines, rules and widely shared standards in schools play an important role in the way principals and teachers interpret and treat the change, (c) even after participating in the project for a rather long period of time, participant teachers are still not sure what the change is about and what does it mean to their daily professional activities.;Detailed description of participant teachers' daily professional activities and strategies employed in the project to enhance change is given in this report. Participant teachers report a wide range of change during the project, including (a) receptivity of the project, (b) needs and motivation, (c) degree of openness, (d) habits and ability to reflect, (e) education conceptions, and (f) teaching behavior. The study also finds that positive changes happening on students may be the main reason why teachers finally accept the project and tend to continue the project.