[Keywords:] teacher professional development; Technical support; China; Sweden; compare
【 China Library Classification Number 】 G434 【 Document Identification Number 】 A 【 Document Number 】1672 ― 0008 (2009) 05-0023-04
I. Research background
Whether in Sweden or China, information technology entered schools in the 1980s. However, it has been nearly ten years since we really realized that information technology is a tool to change education and a means to promote teachers' professional development. As a developed country, Sweden has made a good attempt and exploration in using information technology to promote teachers' professional development, which is worth learning and learning from.
Second, the theoretical framework
This paper attempts to compare the process, policies, methods, forms, effects and existing problems of applying information technology to promote teachers' professional development between China and Sweden through literature analysis and expert interviews, in order to provide some reference suggestions for improving and enhancing the effect of teachers' professional development in China. The technical support for teachers' professional development, as understood in this paper, refers to a systematic, dynamic and complex process that takes technology, especially information technology, as the environment, means, ways, ways and methods to promote teachers as professionals to continuously improve their professional knowledge, teaching skills and professional attitude. Its goal is to help teachers adapt to information-based teaching, promote teachers' development, and then improve the quality of education and teaching [1].
Third, comparative analysis.
1. development course
Although China's economic development lags behind Sweden's, its exploration in education informatization and application of information technology to promote teachers' professional development has not lagged behind Sweden. In fact, the starting time of large-scale education informatization construction in the two countries is not far apart. 1999, the Swedish government launched the national action plan-"ICT in schools" (ITIS), started the nationwide education informatization construction, and provided on-the-job training for about 75,000 teachers [2]. Only one year later, the China Municipal Government promulgated the Notice of the Ministry of Education on Implementing the "School-to-School Communication" Project in primary and secondary schools, which also opened the curtain for the informatization construction of basic education.
In the past ten years, both governments have continuously invested in the construction of educational informatization. In addition, both governments are aware of the necessity of long-term national development plans. The difference is that, as a member of the European Union, Sweden's education informatization construction is not only restricted by its own government development plan, but also influenced by relevant EU policies. A ten-year work plan [3][4] approved by the EU Council of Education Ministers and the EU Executive Committee has a guiding role in Sweden's education informatization construction. However, the two countries are slightly different in construction ideas. China's first concern is hardware construction. In the process of hardware construction, he found the lag of teachers' ability, and then gradually attached importance to the cultivation of teachers' applied technology. The ItiS project in Sweden pays attention to the cultivation of teachers' ability from the beginning, so the cultivation of teachers and hardware construction are carried out simultaneously.
What is more noteworthy is that Sweden's education informatization construction is carried out under the guidance of curriculum standards. In other words, the Swedes first realized the educational reform, and promulgated a new national curriculum standard in 1994, stipulating that schools should focus on teaching rather than learning. Therefore, ICT is regarded as a powerful tool for learning through cooperation and communication [5]. Then, under the guidance of the curriculum standard, the educational informatization construction scheme is formulated, which effectively realizes the goal of educational informatization construction to promote teaching. However, China government didn't formally implement the new curriculum standards until 2005. At this time, the "school-to-school communication" project has been going on for five years. Sweden's practice is quite helpful for us to reflect on the "technology-led" education informatization construction.
2. Policies and regulations
In order to promote the application of ICT in education, the governments of China and Sweden have promulgated a series of policies and regulations. For example, the China Municipal Government has successively promulgated the Notice of the Ministry of Education on Popularizing Information Technology Education in Primary and Secondary Schools and the Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Promoting the Informatization Construction of Teacher Education [7]. On the other hand, the Swedish government has made more reference to the relevant policies of the European Union, such as the policy on ICT education application formulated by the Lisbon Committee [8] and the "e-learning action [9]" formulated by the European Community.
In addition, in order to meet the needs of educational reform in the information age, China and Sweden have also standardized the abilities that teachers must possess in the information age. In 2004, the Chinese government promulgated the National Educational Technology Standards for Primary and Secondary School Teachers (Trial) (CETS) and the China Educational Technology Standards (Discussion Draft), which set requirements for teachers' educational technology ability. The Swedish Teacher Education Innovation Committee also submitted a proposal in 2007, which clarified the skills that teachers should have when using ICT for learning [10]. The promulgation of these regulations has had a certain impact on the direction and content of teachers' professional development.
In order to ensure the development of educational informatization in the right direction, China and Sweden have also set up special institutions to guide and manage educational informatization activities. Since 2003, the Swedish government has set up the National School Improvement Bureau, which is responsible for the management of educational informatization construction, including not only the construction of campus network, but also how to develop campus network into an information-based teaching platform and develop teaching products suitable for schools, which can be said to cover almost all aspects of educational informatization [1 1]. China government also has corresponding departments to manage and guide the education informatization, such as audio-visual education halls (stations), equipment centers and information centers at all levels. In the past, these domestic institutions focused more on the network construction and equipment procurement of schools and regions. In fact, there are many administrative departments related to educational informatization in China. Although a variety of cross-management methods can give full play to the strengths of different management departments, they are also prone to problems such as redundant construction, multiple policies and low efficiency.
3. Method form
The action of using information technology to promote teachers' professional development can be examined from two dimensions. One dimension is about the ownership and management of teachers' professional development, including top-down government projects and bottom-up teachers' spontaneous behavior; Another dimension is about the methods or modes of teachers' professional development, including traditional face-to-face mode and online learning mode [12]. Both China and Sweden have rich and diverse forms of technical support for teachers' professional development, whether from a single dimension or a combination of two dimensions. "Teachers' Network" is a project initiated by China government to improve teachers' professional level. Its learning methods include face-to-face learning and online learning. And many teaching websites are teachers' spontaneous professional development behavior [13]. Similarly, the LIKA (Learning, Information, Communication and Management) project in Sweden is similar to the Teacher Network Association in China, and the national teacher professional development project "Promoting Teachers" (L? Rarlyftet) is also a government-led project, with face-to-face learning as the main way, and Lektion.se is a teaching material website made by teachers based on the web, in which experiences and materials are shared [14].
Both China and Sweden attach great importance to the promotion of communication, especially cross-cultural communication, to teachers' professional development, and the cross-generational characteristics of information technology provide unprecedented convenience for this kind of communication. Therefore, both countries attach importance to using the network to promote exchanges between schools and teachers and between schools and teachers from other countries. China's education authorities at all levels support transnational communication, and teachers' spontaneous communication behavior also appears in newspapers [15]. At the same time, the Swedish government guides its teachers to establish electronic networks with their partners in 27 European countries through the "ICT for Teachers" website.
In fact, in China, technology promotes teachers' professional development in many forms. Teacher China's enthusiasm and creativity are not worse than Sweden's, especially in the application of technology. For example, in promoting teachers' professional development through blogs, teachers in China have gone further than those in Sweden. In addition to individual teachers using blogs for reflection or exchange, there are also some excellent group blogs in China, which are usually promoted by local education authorities on a regional basis. The main goal is to promote the exchange of local teachers and serve their teaching. This kind of research on regional teachers' group blog promoted by education authorities has not been reported in Sweden, but in China, this practice appeared as early as 2005, and the research reports on it are also rich [16].
Of course, due to the great differences in different regions of China, the ways and levels of teachers' professional development are also very different in different regions. Even because of the different qualities and pursuits of teachers, the level and form of teachers using technology to promote their professional development in the same area or even in the same school may be quite different. Sweden, on the other hand, has a relatively small area and a relatively balanced development, and this difference is not particularly obvious.
Sweden has done a good job in giving full play to the main role of teachers. In the national teacher professional development project "upgrading teachers", although the universities offering teacher professional development courses are all the best universities designated by the Swedish National Education Bureau, teachers have the right to choose their own courses, and they can choose courses suitable for them from different schools according to their own needs and actual conditions. Although the course selection needs to be negotiated with the principal and the management department, teachers still have great autonomy in course selection [17]. On the other hand, in China, what kind of training teachers receive is often not up to them. Most of the time, they can only obey the orders of the competent authorities and accept the courses assigned to them, which greatly dampened the enthusiasm of teachers' professional development and is one of the important reasons for the low effect of teachers' professional development courses.
The concept of respecting teachers' subjectivity is also reflected in Swedish teaching websites. Online learning community not only provides resources and communication services, but also allows teachers to create their own homepages and private networks or groups, which provides a technical platform for teachers' independent development. In China, almost all teaching websites are controlled by sponsors and their core groups, and few teaching websites can provide such personalized free services for teachers.
The Swedes also handled the training and details of basic skills well. Teachers' information and communication technology website provides "practical information and communication technology and media skills" (PIM) services to help teachers master various digital technology tools, such as digital cameras and projectors, and provides step-by-step tutorials on Internet use. These tutorials and guides are also developed according to the characteristics of online learning. Therefore, PIM also provides a learning map to guide learners to choose different learning paths according to their own situation. At the same time, PIM also provides services for teachers to test the use of information technology. Teachers can evaluate themselves from two aspects: practical skills and theoretical knowledge in combination with local standards, so as to provide a basis for further study [18]. Although there are some websites in China that provide similar online teaching, they are not up to the level of PIM in teaching design, practical effect and evaluation service.
4. Effects and problems
Jedeskog reviewed the use of ICT in Swedish schools, divided it into "four waves (stages)" and analyzed the professional development problems faced by teachers in each stage. He believes that teachers have not been generally developed in the first two stages (computer science education stage and computer as a teaching tool stage), while teachers have benefited a lot in the last two stages (on-the-job training stage and ITiS project stage) [19]. But at the same time, some studies have pointed out that the impact of ICT on education and training is not as great as expected [20]. In China, the effect of technology in promoting teachers' professional development is not optimistic. Common problems mostly focus on the contents, methods and forms of teachers' professional development training [2 1][22], and some discuss the gap between urban and rural areas [23]. The latter point is unique to China.
Generally speaking, the effect of technical support for teachers' professional development is not obvious. Although most people agree that technology can promote teachers' professional development, there is no clear answer on how to effectively promote teachers' professional development by using technology in China and Sweden.
5. Comparison between China and Sweden
The comparison between China and Sweden in using technology to promote teachers' professional development can be summarized into the following two tables:
Fourth, the result
By comparing the practice and research of technical support for teachers' professional development between China and Sweden, we can draw the following conclusions:
First of all, China and Sweden have used technology to promote teachers' professional development for about ten years. This activity is influenced and restricted by the process of educational informatization in their respective countries, and it can also be said to be a part of the development of educational informatization. The difference is that Swedes consider the issue of teacher training while building hardware, while China people find the necessity of teacher training in the process of using the hardware after completion. Another difference is that the level of teachers' professional development in Sweden is relatively average, while in China, the difference is quite obvious. More importantly, the release of the Swedish new curriculum standards is earlier than the start of informatization construction, so informatization construction is carried out under the guidance of curriculum standards, which can better realize the goal of information technology promoting education.
Second, both Chinese and Swedish governments have issued a series of policies to promote the application of ICT in teaching, which also put forward new requirements for teachers' technical ability in the information age. The difference is that, as a member of the European Union, Sweden's policies will also be influenced by EU policies. In the management of educational informatization, Sweden has a simple management model and a clear framework, while China has multiple cross-management, which easily leads to inefficiency and redundant construction.
Third, both countries have fully adopted various forms to promote teachers' professional development, and China has done even better in this respect (such as group blogs). However, Sweden has given teachers more subjective status, and their teachers have greater autonomy in development (such as the right to choose training courses). ), and projects to promote teachers' professional development also fully take this into account (such as online learning communities and PIM). However, in China, teachers' dominant position in professional development has not been truly respected, teachers have almost no right to choose training courses, and many professional development projects have failed to really consider teachers' needs and characteristics.
Finally, the role of technical support in teachers' professional development has not been fully and clearly proved in these two countries. However, most people agree that technology can promote teachers' professional development. However, the way and effect of this effect need to be further clarified.
Reflection and suggestion on verb (abbreviation of verb)
The essence of technical support for teachers' professional development is the same as that of non-technical support for teachers' professional development, both of which are aimed at improving teachers' professional skills. The comparison of professional development of technical support teachers between China and Sweden seems to reveal that there is no great difference between the two countries. However, from the following short story, perhaps we can get a glimpse of an important difference in the professional development of teachers in the two countries. At the seminar on "Technical Support for Teachers' Professional Development" hosted by the author, experts from China and Sweden met a problem that they could not understand each other. The topic discussed at that time was to promote teachers' professional development through online training. China experts are most concerned about how to solve the problem of learners' cheating (in many seminars I attended, as long as online learning is involved, it will almost certainly be discussed), but Swedish experts can't understand why we have encountered such a problem.
For this reason, the author specially suspended the meeting, explained to Dr. Ola Lindbergh of Sweden why the experts in China had doubts about this, and asked him to explain why this problem would not occur in Sweden. Then Dr. Lindbergh gave the answer. In Sweden, although a teacher's salary is closely related to his professional title and working years, it is also related to his teaching post and teaching effect, and the person who judges his working ability is the principal. In other words, teachers can talk to the principal about work and salary. If a teacher thinks his teaching level is high, or he can be competent for a job with higher salary, he can talk to the principal and put forward his own requirements. The principal will judge whether to give him a raise according to his performance. Therefore, it is necessary for any teacher to improve his teaching level, because it will affect his salary. Therefore, teachers accept training courses, not to mix credits, but to really improve themselves. So, of course, there will be no fraud.
Dr Lindbergh's explanation made China participants understand the difference between China and Sweden, and also understood why Swedes were not concerned about fraud in online training. At that time, the author thought he had found the answer to the question. It was not until later that he communicated with a group of English teachers that he found that the reason was not that simple. Recently, I received a group of British primary and secondary school teachers who visited China. In an exchange meeting, in order to verify Dr. Lindbergh's words (Britain and Sweden belong to the European Union and have high similarities in policy and practice), the author asked British teachers two questions: first, are you willing to participate in teacher training, and second, are these trainings useful? 10 British primary and secondary school teachers almost unanimously gave a positive answer. This shows that the initiative of British teachers and Swedish teachers in participating in teacher training is similar. But don't teachers in China want to improve their professional level? I don't think so, but why aren't our teachers willing to take part in these trainings?
The author also communicated with the head of the British delegation on this issue, which really clarified the internal reasons. The British government will provide a certain amount of training funds for each teacher every year. Of course, the money will not be given to teachers. At the same time, the government gives teachers a few days to attend training every year. During this period, the school does not arrange courses, teachers go to participate in training, and wages are paid as usual. Like Sweden, teachers can choose what training they want to attend, and of course they have to discuss it with the principal. Training courses are mainly provided by relevant departments of some universities and specialized training institutions. These institutions publish their own courses for teachers to choose from. After the teacher chooses a course, the teacher's training funds will be transferred to the institution that provides training courses. In other words, the training institutions are not funded in advance, and can only be funded when teachers choose to take their courses. In order to win more teachers to choose courses independently, training institutions must provide teachers with suitable courses as much as possible, so as to obtain enough funds to maintain their own operations and even make profits. This is the biggest difference between them and China.
In China, teachers' training is usually decided by their superiors. As an ordinary teacher, he has almost no right to speak when and where he received any training and who the trainer was. The selection of trainers is basically decided by the leaders of the competent departments. Therefore, improving the relationship with the leaders of competent departments rather than developing excellent courses has become the primary consideration of training institutions. Many times, teachers are forced to participate in such training, because each teacher has to get some credits for continuing education every year. What is even more frightening is that sometimes, teachers have to pay their own tuition fees and use their rest time to complete their studies. I want to ask, how motivated will a teacher be to pay for a training that he doesn't want to attend during recess (not to mention the poor quality of this training)? Fraud is probably the best or most realistic choice.
From this story, we can easily find that although we are discussing the professional development of teachers supported by technology, it is often not the technology itself that affects its effect, but the factors such as system and culture. Therefore, discussing the technical support for teachers' professional development should not be divorced from the social background. In order to improve the technical support effect of teachers' professional development in China, it is necessary to introduce market-oriented mechanism into training. If the state can pay, universities can provide services, and teachers can choose (this is the most important point), teachers' professional development under the support of technology can get a good soil.
[References]
[1][7] Jiao Jianli, Wang Xiaodong, Qin Dan. Teachers' Professional Development Supported by Technology: A Literature Review of China [J]. Journal of Distance Education, 2009, (1).
[2] [5] [10] [1] [19] Li Minggu, J Ola Lindbergh, Teacher Professional Development with Technical Support-Swedish Policies, Documents and Recent Actions [J]. Journal of Distance Education
[3] Council of Europe. Implementation of "education & training 20 10" work plan, working group "application of information and communication technology in education and training", progress report [r/ol].
Technology Promoting Teachers' Professional Development: A Comparative Study between China and Sweden
Wang Xiaodong
(South China Normal University Future Education Research Center, Guangzhou, Guangdong 5 1063 1)
In China and Sweden, technology has been used to promote teachers' professional development for ten years. Through the comparative study of China and Sweden, this paper reveals the similarities and differences between the two countries in the stages, policies, ways and effects of technology promoting teachers' professional development, and puts forward some suggestions for further research in China. Through in-depth analysis, it is found that this mechanism is the key factor affecting the promotion of teachers' professional development by technology. Market mechanism is the right way to provide a good foundation for teachers' professional development in China.
Teachers' professional development; Technical enhancement; China; Sweden; comparative study
Editor of this article: Tao Kan