英语论文参考
1. IntroductionThe professional development of teachers is studied and presentedin the relevant literature in many different ways. But always at the coreof such endeavours is the understanding that professional development is aboutteachers learning, learning how to learn, and transforming their knowledge intopractice for the benefit of their students’growth. Teacher professional learning is a complex process, which requirescognitive and emotional involvement of teachers individually and collectively,the capacity and willingness to examine where each one stands in terms ofconvictions and beliefs and the perusal and enactment of appropriatealternatives for improvement or change. All this occurs in particulareducational policy environments or school cultures, some of which are moreappropriate and conducive to learning than others. The instruments used totrigger development also depend on the objectives and needs of teachers as wellas of their students. Thus formal structures such as courses and workshops mayserve some purposes, while involvement in the production of curricula, thediscussion of assessment data or the sharing of strategies may serve otherpurposes. Not every form of professional development, even those with thegreatest evidence of positive impact, is of itself relevant to all teachers.There is thus a constant need to study, experiment, discuss and reflect in dealing withteacher professional development on the interacting links and influence s of the history and traditions of groups ofteachers, theeducational needs of their student populations, the expectations oftheir education systems, teachers’ working conditions and theopportunities to learn that are open to them.During the past ten years a large number of articles published inTeaching and Teacher Education have reported on research andinterventions designed for teachers, with teachers and by teachersaimed at their professional learning, with an eye on their impact onteacher and student changes. They cover different geographicalregions and different research and development procedures. Thefirst part of this article providesa bird’s eye view of the content ofthese pieces, thematically organised in terms of their mainemphases. The second part reviews more closely nine articlesselected as being particularly illustrative of the thematic areas, andalso representative of different geographic locations and contextualparticularities.2The Scopus search machine was used to retrievea list ofarticles that included “teacher professional development”in theirkey words, to select 111 relevant ones and, by examiningtheirabstracts or the entire article, to produce the classification presentedbelow in Table 1. While it might beartificial to classifyjournal articles according to a single thematic emphasisas usuallythey have more than one central focus, to do so seemed asensibleway of providing a synthetic overview of what waspublished overthe period. In the rest of this first section then I briefly review the production under each one of thethematic areas. 2.1. Professional learningThese articles deal in general with how teachers learnand change by developing theory or applying theory to the discussion of teacherchangeThey examine the personalprocesses that are involved in the various formats used for teacher learning,how teacher learning is researched and propose or discuss models of teacherprofessional learning The main emphasis of these studies is to understand theprocesses whereby teachers change. While some are centred on conceptualanalysis, others describe the approach with both qualitative and quantitativeresearch examples.Within this broad area of professional learning, thereare three specific groups that standout in terms of the number of articles they contain. Articles that deal with reflection and narratives form one group.A second one centres on the role of different tools in professional learning,especially technological ones and a considerable number focus on beginningteacher learning.2.1.1. Reflection processesThe assumption in articles dealing with teacher reflection is thatanalysis of needs, problems, change processes, feelingsof efficacy,beliefs are all factors that contribute to teacherprofessionaldevelopment, be it through enhanced cognitions or new orimproved practices. Reflection is discussed and used in research inseveral ways. The studies in this decade centre primarilyonreflection asan instrument for change and on the various ways inwhich reflection canbe developed. A group explicitly considers thecontribution to reflection of narrative methods such asstorytelling(for example, about Professional Development Schoolexperiences)and the construction of stories within professionaldevelopmentactivities. Narrative accounts serve also tounveil the role ofemotions in change. Other articles consider theimportance forreflection ofinvolvement in research, and more practically theopportunity offered by self-assessment tools or reflective schoolportfolios as triggers for change
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