Different scholars have different views on the structure of teachers' professional knowledge. Ye Lan, a professor at China Normal University, pointed out in the article "An Analysis of Teachers' Professional Literacy in the New Century" that the professional literacy of modern teachers has changed in the knowledge structure. It is no longer limited to the traditional model of "subject knowledge+pedagogy knowledge", but emphasizes the multi-level structural characteristics. "... the so-called multi-layer composite knowledge structure is a knowledge structure based on contemporary scientific and humanistic knowledge, supported by professional knowledge and skills, and supplemented by educational knowledge. Its complexity is also reflected in the mutual support, mutual penetration and organic integration of the three knowledge levels. Only when the integration is realized and manifested in the scientific, artistic and personal uniqueness of teachers' educational behavior and the richness and development of teachers' spiritual life can the rich and unique characteristics of teachers' professional knowledge be fully displayed.
American scholar Shulman believes that teachers' professional knowledge should be composed of three aspects: first, knowledge of principles and rules; The second is professional case knowledge; The third is to apply the knowledge of principles and rules to the strategic knowledge in the case. Schulman's contribution lies in incorporating case knowledge into teachers' professional knowledge, emphasizing that teachers accumulate a large number of cases in creative teaching work and gain rich concrete situations and educational experience from cases, thus improving their decision-making and action ability in education and teaching. No matter how to classify teachers' professional knowledge, it reflects the complexity and diversity of teachers' knowledge structure. Moreover, they all pay attention to the integration of all kinds of knowledge and emphasize the continuous enrichment and acquisition of practical knowledge and procedural knowledge.
As a special group of teachers, preschool teachers have their own characteristics and requirements, and their professional knowledge structure is different from other groups of teachers. Referring to Hai Xia's point of view on teachers' knowledge structure of the Comparative Education Research Center of the Ministry of Education, the author believes that a kindergarten teacher with professional literacy should have the following knowledge:
First, the knowledge about self, that is, the knowledge of educators. Lin Gelun, an American educational psychologist, once pointed out that "the first thing a teacher needs to know is the psychological factors and strength of himself and his surroundings". "Teachers need to know their own behaviors, just as they need to know the students they teach." Preschool teachers should first have a clear understanding and objective evaluation of themselves, including their own cultural literacy, hobbies, attitude and ability, experience accumulation and so on. This understanding helps teachers to make correct judgments when accepting new things and new ideas, and to supplement their own shortcomings in a targeted manner; It is beneficial for teachers to objectively evaluate their teaching behavior when organizing teaching activities, and it is beneficial for teachers to influence their children's learning without their own preferences.
Second, the knowledge about children, that is, the knowledge of learners. Kindergarten teachers are faced with children aged 3-6 or even 0-3. Whether physically or psychologically, infancy is the fastest developing period in a person's life, and the critical period of many abilities is formed at this age. Therefore, as a professional preschool teacher, we must have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the object of education, master the characteristics of children's physical and mental development and cognitive characteristics, consider problems from the perspective of benefiting children's lifelong and all-round development, and organize teaching.
Third, the knowledge about educational media, such as teaching material content, subject knowledge, curriculum structure, modern educational tools, etc. The subject knowledge of preschool teachers is a general concept, which does not necessarily require teachers to have profound and unique research on a certain subject, but must have as wide a knowledge as possible and form a relatively correct cognition. Preschool education is relatively free in the use of teaching materials, and the range of choices is relatively broad, which requires preschool teachers to be familiar with all kinds of teaching materials and make reasonable choices according to their own teaching needs.
Fourthly, integrate and coordinate the knowledge of educators, learners and educational media and organize educational activities, including kindergarten teaching methods, educational concepts, situational knowledge and methodology. This kind of knowledge is the organic integration of declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and strategic knowledge in teachers' teaching activities, and it is a kind of dynamic knowledge, such as the integrated application of educational theory and modern information technology, constantly updated educational concepts, interaction with children, good educational wit and so on. This kind of knowledge needs teachers to accumulate in the actual teaching process.
Two, from the characteristics of early childhood education to see the needs of professional development of preschool teachers
Professor Li Jimei of China Normal University believes that Article 4 of the General Principles of the Outline stipulates that "kindergartens should provide healthy and rich living and activity environments for children, meet their various development needs, and enable them to gain experiences beneficial to physical and mental development in a happy childhood." It highlights the characteristics of kindergarten education itself, that is, it emphasizes that kindergartens help children learn by creating a healthy and rich living and activity environment, while children gain experience by living with others in the environment. They develop in life and live in development, instead of acquiring indirect knowledge mainly through subject teaching like primary and secondary school students. This characteristic essentially determines that the professional development of preschool teachers has different needs.
At the symposium on preschool education held in June 2003+June 2003+10/October, Professor Pang of Beijing Normal University pointed out that today's preschool teachers should have four basic professional qualities: they should be fully responsible for the physical and mental development of children; The ability to understand and know children comprehensively and correctly; Can effectively organize educational content; The ability to create an environment conducive to development. As far as the characteristics of early childhood education are concerned, the author thinks that the second and fourth qualities are particularly important.
(A) a comprehensive and correct understanding of children's abilities
In education, we are faced with a group of children with different personalities. They come from different families, have different preferences and living habits, and have different intellectual advantages and ways of thinking. On the original basis, our education strives to promote the full and all-round development of each child, carry forward the personality and tap the potential. At the same time, a comprehensive and correct understanding of children has become the premise of all educational activities.
1, respect children's subjectivity. First of all, the child is a complete person with developmental ability. Their physical and psychological, intellectual and non-intellectual factors are constantly maturing and developing. Secondly, children are independent people, and each child has his own unique personality, needs, likes and dislikes, emotional world and emotional tendency. Furthermore, children are the masters of their own life and study, and have the power and ability to choose activities according to their own needs, interests and abilities. Finally, children will have an internal dynamic response when they are stimulated by external things. However, children's subjective development is still low, their subjective consciousness is not strong, and they are easily influenced by the environment. Therefore, teachers should respect children's different personalities, different levels of development and different needs, strive to create various conditions for children, enhance children's subjective consciousness and promote children's subjective development in activities.
2. Correctly understand individual differences and face the whole. The principle of paying attention to individual differences and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude is no longer strange to every kindergarten teacher. The elaboration of multiple intelligences reveals the significant differences among individuals from the perspective of different intelligences. But now many teachers only position individual differences at different levels of development, or understand them as children's intelligence level and development level, while ignoring the differences of different characteristics of children's development. Preschool teachers should be able to identify different types of differences in order to truly teach students in accordance with their aptitude.
At the same time, early childhood education is for everyone. Early childhood education should face every child with special needs, ensure the growth of all children and the development of every child, and fully reflect the fairness and consistency of education. Preschool teachers should realize that, fundamentally speaking, facing the whole is to teach students in accordance with their aptitude for each different individual, and individual differences are the fundamental differences in the all-round development of each different individual.
(b) Ability to create an environment conducive to development
With the development of curriculum, the environment gradually shows its role and value in education. However, at present, most teachers insist on a static and maintainable model in the creation of environment, lacking the connotation of dynamic development. For example, the classroom is too closed and uniform, every child has a fixed position, and teachers also have a fixed place to teach collectively. This environment obviously embodies the teacher-led indoctrination teaching mode. Reggio regards the environment as "a container that can support social interaction, exploration and learning." It endows the environment with rich and meaningful connotations, and can support and accommodate all social, emotional and cognitive interactions and development. It has at least the following two inspirations for us:
1, the kindergarten environment should be dynamic. Dynamic environment is manifested in the following aspects: the environment contains rich information and resources, which can make children produce new themes and form new courses in their interaction with the environment; Environment can show the process of children's mental maturity, record and reflect the footprint of children's growth; The environment can support the communication and interaction between people and things in kindergartens. Only a dynamic environment can promote the interaction of these factors.
2. Environment can promote children's sustainable development. An effective environment can stimulate children's cognition, make children in a state of active exploration, find problems and solve problems in interaction with materials; Children can be guided to acquire knowledge of the world around them through interaction with materials. Education should focus on children's long-term development and lay the foundation for their follow-up study and lifelong development. Therefore, when creating environment, teachers should make the environment have educational function, and use every environment in kindergarten to provide children with information with educational connotation; Let the environment have certain problem situations, so that children can constantly generate and explore new problems in the environment; Make the environment relevant to a certain extent, and combine various environmental factors that cause relevant experiences; Make the environment flexible and constantly change according to the needs of children and adults, and encourage children to participate in the creation of the environment.
Thirdly, the direction of preschool teachers' professional development is viewed from the needs of curriculum reform.
The new Outline shows us a brand-new view of knowledge, that is, it emphasizes the learning and accumulation of "procedural knowledge and tacit knowledge", which impacts and challenges the traditional view of knowledge with "declarative knowledge and explicit knowledge" as the main body in China. The change of knowledge concept affects the whole curriculum and teaching system. At this time, teachers are no longer the intermediary or authority to impart knowledge, but the "supporters, helpers and guides" of children's learning activities. However, no matter what status, only teachers with rich educational practical knowledge and educational wisdom can adapt to the needs of curriculum reform and let themselves calmly deal with the ball thrown by children in teaching and interaction with children.
Ron Young, a western scholar, once said: "Explicit knowledge can be said to be the tip of the iceberg, while tacit knowledge is most hidden at the bottom of the iceberg. Tacit knowledge is intellectual capital and the root of providing nutrition. Explicit knowledge is just the fruit on the tree. " Our education often pays attention to the acquisition of explicit knowledge, because this kind of knowledge is usually proved or tested by science and is a kind of scientific knowledge. But we ignore the fact that the acquisition and expression of any explicit knowledge must depend on certain tacit knowledge. Moreover, if the explicit knowledge we have obtained is to be transformed into the individual's practical behavior, it must be linked or interacted with the individual's existing tacit knowledge. Just as preschool teachers can clearly understand children's cognitive characteristics from books, they often can't grasp them well in specific teaching and can't judge their development level from their current situation. Another example is that in the same teaching situation, some teachers can keenly capture children's learning interests or highlights and make good use of them, while others are at a loss. This kind of tacit knowledge needs teachers to "experience" and accumulate in practice, refine and sublimate constantly in reflection, and finally transform into a kind of teaching wisdom of teachers. Suhomlinski once quoted a history teacher as saying, "I have been preparing for this class all my life. Generally speaking, I have spent my whole life preparing for each class." The lesson of preparing lessons directly, or preparing lessons on the spot, only takes about 15 minutes. "It is not difficult to understand that this teacher's skill, wisdom and innovation in this 15 minute come from his long-term accumulation and precipitation. Curriculum reform requires preschool teachers to improve and develop their own cultural literacy and knowledge from a new perspective of knowledge, so that they can "read" and "see through" the inner world of children and actively interact with them to create the most suitable environment and conditions for their all-round development.
Four, from the characteristics of kindergarten-based training to see the way of teachers' professional development.
Kindergarten teachers are faced with a group of children who mainly gain direct knowledge and experience. They need to infect and influence them with teachers' innate tacit knowledge and personality charm more than any other subject. Therefore, the professional development of preschool teachers can not be achieved only by learning explicit knowledge, but by more abundant and effective ways.
Lawrence Steinhaus, a famous British curriculum theorist, pointed out that there are three ways for teachers' professional development: first, through systematic theoretical study; Second, by learning the experience of other teachers (including myself); The third is to test the existing experience in the classroom. Obviously, the latter two of these three ways are aimed at hidden practical procedural knowledge, which can only be achieved in kindergarten-based training.
Compared with other training channels, the advantages of kindergarten-based training are as follows:
First, develop in practice. In organizing teaching activities and communicating with parents, teachers realize the difference between the implementation of knowledge from the theoretical level to specific educational behavior, and realize that there are many problems that cannot be solved by their own theoretical knowledge. In activities, they must have a correct evaluation and judgment on children's overall and individual development, so as to adjust teaching behavior in time and adapt to children's development. These abilities and knowledge need teachers to accumulate, comprehend and internalize in practice, and turn them into their own teaching wisdom. In addition, through the establishment of "mentoring system" and "peer assistance", senior teachers can use their teaching experience and wisdom to influence other teachers and promote their growth.
Second, improve in reflection. G.J. Posner once pointed out that the simple formula of teacher growth is: experience+reflection = growth. It is also pointed out that experience without reflection is narrow experience and can only form superficial knowledge at most. If a teacher is only satisfied with gaining experience without thinking deeply, his development will be greatly limited. It can be seen that reflection is of great significance to the growth of teachers. Teachers' reflection is essentially the process of externalizing their tacit knowledge. In kindergarten-based training, teachers confirm and recall their teaching methods and experience through life cases, then make them explicit and symbolic, and then test and correct them. This process is a process in which teachers criticize and analyze the existing shortcomings and problems. Teachers re-examine their teaching ideas and actively explore new ideas and strategies to solve the problems they face, so as to improve their professional level.
With the deepening of curriculum reform in China today, teacher professionalization is bound to be the key to the success or failure of curriculum reform. However, the professional quality of teachers required by different types of education needs our targeted research. Among them, the professional development of preschool teachers also needs full attention.