Lesson Burnishing,Teachers Perfecting

MOKE is a kind of teachers' collective researching activity that aims to improve the classroom teaching.This is a professional development activity with Chinese characteristics.To help a contestant teacher prepare for the on-site competitive teaching in the teaching contest,a certain form of MOKE will be implemented in teachers' community.This form of MOKE is usually performed in serialized iterations for several times before the contest.Many in-service teachers who have experienced MOKE for competitive teaching strongly share the same feeling of “Lesson Burnishing,Teachers Perfecting”.This research uses Phenomenology of Practice as methodology.From a perspective of analyzing the process,it focuses on the improvement methods of the competitive teaching given by the contestant teacher during serialized iterations of this form of MOKE and on the professional development of all participant teachers after serialized iterations of this form of MOKE.Here are two main research questions:1.How will a particular mathematics lesson given by the contestant teacher be improved during serialized iterations of MOKE for competitive teaching?2.What professional development will mathematics participant teachers get after serialized iterations of MOKE for competitive teaching?Complying with the guidance of Phenomenology of Practice,the researcher regarded herself as the research tool,after arguing research resources,her intentionality and competencies sufficiently.The whole research process is as follows: Firstly,the researcher gathered available materials from many sources(including literatures)and tried to comprehend other teachers' opinions about this form of MOKE.Secondly,the researcher experienced and observed two series of iterations of this form of MOKE.During all iterations,she both played as an insider and an outsider and tried to understand those activities as deeply as possible.At the same time,she collected and analyzed large amounts of first-hand data by using different research methods.Thirdly,the researcher completed “the fusion of horizons” with other teachers through her continuing reflections,then achieved the themes and their structures of research findings respectively through “seeing the essence”.Meanwhile,the researcher arranged different specific data into every theme flexibly in line with the meaning of the theme.At last,the researcher interpreted all the findings carefully using writing methods recommended by Phenomenology of Practices.Here are the main findings of this research:For the first research question:According to rules of the teaching contest,it is possible for the contestant teacher to prepare for the teaching as the lesson topic is pre-known before the contest.The main challenge of the teaching in the on-site teaching contest is that the contestant teacher should give high-quality teaching to unpredictable students.In order to help the contestant teacher overcome the challenge effectively,the teachers' community hold serialized iterations of MOKE.Every iteration of MOKE begins with a trial-teaching of the pre-known topic given by the contestant teacher,and it is observed by other teachers in community aiming to find related research problems to discuss.This is usually divided into two parts:“finding critical teaching incidents according to the performances of the students”,and“analyzing critical incidents and raising research problems”.Understanding related contexts and essence of mathematics in the lesson will always be treated cautiously.This includes “exploring writing logics and intentions of the textbooks”,“acquiring enlightenments from different versions of textbooks”,and “seeking for the essence of the contents in the lesson from mathematical knowledge system”.Being aware of the unknown learning situation by using empirical reasoning is the base of implementing community's discussions.The teachers' community needs to “discover the features and demands of different learning situations” and to “set up teaching objectives pointed at potential difficulties of the lesson”.It's especially crucial to design a creative teaching structure and creative tasks for the lesson.It contains “building up simple but deeplysignificant structure of the lesson”,“planning reasonable-creative activities and questions”,and “keeping balance between contents and their lengths of time”.In this form of MOKE,designing flexible heuristic opportunities and strategies happens from time to time.Based on “inferring possible ways and process of students' thinking”,the teachers' community will “preset adjustable heuristic strategies at appropriate moments”and “plan directions of the in-the-moment teaching decision-making”.Supporting the contestant teacher in accordance of his/her aptitudes and solving research problems iteratively are two trends when serialized MOKEs mature.Those trends are reflected as “laying emphasis on the contestant teacher's self-characteristics and selfconstruction”,and also as “doing trail-teaching to different students many times aiming at habituating unpredictable learning situation in order to adapt the teaching accordingly”.In serialized iterations of MOKE,all the teachers in community share their strengths,communicate with each other,build up ideas together,and integrate community's thoughts.Gradually,they continuously form intensive and significant understandings of the lesson from multiple perspectives,and form twisting but advancing diverse suggestions.Those ideas help the contestant teacher design the lesson plan,keep improving its quality,and support him/her giving excellent teaching when facing unpredictable students.For the second research question:As long as having experienced this form of MOKE,contestant teachers,teaching research specialists,expert teachers,and the educational researcher will all gain their professional development,no matter long or short they participated in it.The development of contestant teachers is shown in their competencies' growths on in-the-moment judgement ability,in-the-moment decision-making ability,understanding ability and expressing ability during doing collective researches on teaching,reflecting ability after doing collective researches on teaching,the ability of teaching rebuilding,and the overall improvement on teaching-research-oriented thinking.The development of teaching research specialists is shown in their progressive perfecting on understanding teachers,designing lessons,organizing MOKEs,and also on teaching-research-oriented thinking.The development of expert teachers is shown in their continuous advancing of creative ability on designing teaching,methods of guiding other teachers,sense of cooperation of doing collective researches on teaching,and breakthroughs of teaching-research-oriented thinking.The development of the educational researcher is shown in her growths of competencies both on two roles.As an insider,the researcher obtains development on the improvement of big ideas about teaching,the accumulation of effective methods of lesson planning,the strong motivation of doing excellent teaching,and the progression on the sense of cooperating with others when doing researches on teaching.As an outsider,the researcher obtains development on research methods and their applications,presenting research results,the understanding of educational practice,and the understanding of teachers' professional development.Besides,the researcher develops her thinking of doing educational research by integrating her ways of thinking both as an insider and an outsider.As a whole,there are relativities among different teachers' performances and degrees of their professional development after having experienced this form of MOKE.All the developments are related to teachers' competencies growths on selfunderstanding,the understanding of the others,and the thinking of doing research on teaching.They also have positive influences on teachers' long-time professional development.At last,based on four reasons,the researcher proposed that the research of MOKE for competitive teaching is a preliminary exploration at the present stage.