Understanding The Impact Of Inset On Teacher Change In China

This pivot considers the impact of INSET courses on EFL teachers practicing under the national curriculum reform in China. Providing context-specific findings on the policy and implementation of INSET as well as its impact on teacher education initiatives in both China and similar contexts, it explores the limitations of one off training events such as INSET and the inconsistency between teacher learning results and their classroom practices. The book argues that teachers, when returning to pre-INSET teaching, are influenced by their prior deeply-rooted beliefs largely considered more powerful than newly-learnt theories. Addressing the rarely discussed fact that the complex and dynamic characteristics of teacher learning change over time and support the construct of teacher learning as a social event rather than a one-off event, the book also offers practical solutions on how to improve teacher education and enhance the long-term INSET impact on teacher development, with the ambition of promoting education reform for both teachers and students alike.

This book explores language teachers' identity learning through the lens of teacher emotions. This qualitative study, utilizing a longitudinal case study design, sets out to trace how four college English teachers at the case study university in East China respond emotionally towards the curriculum reform, how teacher identity learning takes place, and how emotions interact with the identity learning processes. Guided by the theoretical framework, this book adopts diversified methods to collect data across one academic year of curriculum implementation. It also discusses the findings which reveal that curriculum reform poses great emotional challenges for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, teachers who traverse across emotional geographies, orient to feeling rules, and perhaps translate emotion work into emotional capital. This book explores language teachers' identity learning. This book helps the researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in higher education policymaking to understand how EFL teacher emotions can be utilized to support EFL teachers' identity learning and thus sustain curriculum reform efforts.

As the demand for education at all levels has increased, so have the models of meeting these increased demands for education. As in many other parts of the world, public education has expanded to serve large populations across the regions of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Many nations in these regions have instituted mandates, policies, and frameworks intended to simultaneously increase access to public education opportunities as well as improve the quality of education provided and to address a wide populace. Because the increase in educational demand has occurred at all levels, these efforts often address various levels of education from early childhood through primary schooling, junior secondary and secondary schooling and into tertiary education. Efforts also have been made to increase participation in education by marginalized and/or special populations. The range of efforts is large with some focusing on involving migrants/immigrants/refugees in primary education while others aim at opening up choices at the university level. Recently, nations in the region have recognized the possibilities of digital learning (online learning) as cell phones and other widely used portable wireless devices have made it possible to sell the idea that one can learn from anywhere at any time. This widespread access to technology has made it possible for governments as well as private entities to expand learning opportunities even to populations previously unreached or to address difficult to reach sectors of the population. At the same time, the population itself has not only increased in numbers but in diversity. Maintaining quality through digital and other means of quick expansion of educational opportunities continues to be challenging if not problematic. Effects of Government Mandates and Policies on Public Education in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East is Book IX of the series, Research on Education in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Chapters document, describe and/or raise critical issues and/or questions resulting from government policies, mandates and frameworks intended to make available public education to an ever-growing populace while at the same time being mindful of improving quality of education being availed to an increasingly diverse populace.

This Research Topic is part of the Insights in Psychology series. We are now entering the third decade of the 21st Century, and, especially in the last years, the achievements made by scientists have been exceptional, leading to major advancements in the fast-growing field of Psychology. Frontiers has organized a series of Research Topics to highlight the latest advancements in science in order to be at the forefront of science in different fields of research. This editorial initiative of particular relevance, led by Douglas Kauffman, Specialty Chief Editor of the section Educational Psychology, is focused on new insights, novel developments, current challenges, latest discoveries, recent advances and future perspectives in this field. Also, high-quality original research manuscripts on novel concepts, problems and approaches are welcomed.

This book explores the ideas and background of teacher education policy development in China and implications for the contemporary Chinese education system. In addition, it examines the key themes of teacher education policies since 1949, including investigating Teacher Exchange and Rotation Policy, Teacher Policy in the Perspective of China’s Alleviation of Education Poverty, Balanced Allocation Policy of Teachers in Chinese Urban and Rural areas, and the implementation effect evaluation of the free/public normal university student policy in China. All these policies contribute to explore the dramatic development of teacher education policy development in contemporary China.

This book examines teacher agency in implementing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum reform in the Chinese university context. It theorizes the concept of teacher agency from a sociocultural theory perspective and draws on a study conducted in a conservative and less developed area in China. The book uses Engeström's activity theory and Vygotsky's concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to understand the nature and extent of teacher agency in adapting one’s teaching with respect to beliefs, knowledge and instructional practices. The study concludes that curriculum reform in China needs to shift from reliance on 'top-down' policies to 'bottom-up' implementation that mobilizes local understandings and practices. One of the implications of this study is that transformative teacher education programs aimed at developing teacher pedagogical agency require that teachers have ongoing opportunities to design, develop and evaluate curriculum-based mediational means.

Beliefs about knowledge, learning and teaching are assumed to impact teachers' practice (Brownlee, 2004; N. Entwistle, Skinner, D. Entwistle, & Orr, 2000). A change of beliefs is an important step for teacher learning, but it is often seen as difficult if not impossible (Cooney, Shealy, & Arvold, 1998). This study investigated the impact some teacher education programs from China and the USA had on the teachers' beliefs and teaching strategies and how these teachers integrated the acquired knowledge and teaching strategies in their practice. Researchers were particularly interested in investigating teachers' ability and willingness to use the strategies congruent with constructivist learning theory in their classrooms. (Contains 1 table.).

In China, educators have paid more attention to the curriculum reform than to the teacher preparation and professional development. The conflict between traditional values and the urgency of social changes compounded by the lack of understanding about psychological effects of these changes on Chinese teachers complicates the transformation process for education reform in Chinese society. This study investigated how a group of 20 teachers at a Chinese children welfare institution adapted Western educational concepts to transform their Chinese teaching practice. This study followed these teachers for the 12 months after their training to investigate how they addressed cultural and pedagogical conflicts when applying their training in practice and the changes that had occurred in the first year. This study hopes to benefit the educators in the cross-cultural teacher preparation field regarding the professional well-being of teachers working during times of rapid social changes. It is also useful for early childhood educators and professionals who work with the children at high risk as well as the children in Chinese welfare institutions.

Based on case studies of Chinese teachers in Shanghai and their workplace learning within the context of reform, this book examines how Chinese teachers learn together when they engage in school-based learning activities. Since the New Curriculum Reform in China in 2001, school-based teaching research groups (TRGs) (Jiaoyanzu) have played an important role in changing teacher learning approaches. Informed by organizational learning frameworks and organizational knowledge theory, the author examines the processes and effects of teacher learning in school-based settings, particularly the role of school leadership in the learning and change of in-service teachers. Implications of sustainably optimizing the school-based teacher learning communities for school improvement are also discussed. The book will be helpful and valuable for policymakers, school leaders, researchers, students, teachers, and other educational practitioners in understanding the distinctive features of school-based teachers’ learning in China.