A Study On The Professional Development Of Higher Vocational Teachers

Along with the popularization of China’s higher education, higher vocationaleducation has developed rapidly, but at the same time, higher vocational teachersproblems are also highlighted, which seriously restricts the development of highervocational education’s quality. Therefore, research of higher vocational teachers’professional development, especially the development approaches of highervocational education has vital significance.Based on Yunnan Technology and Business College as a case, this research,firstly, has a thorough investigation into the general situation of the teachers’professional development and teacher’s attitude toward professional development waythrough questionnaire and interview. The purpose of the research is to find out thepopular approaches and unpopular approaches according to the result of the survey.Secondly, analyzes the characteristics of these approaches, and summarized thefactors which influence teachers’ attitude to the professional development. Finally,come to the conclusion and suggestions.Results show that the popular ways are as follows: teaching reflection, collectivelesson preparation, class observation, educational degree promotion, learning at homeand abroad, project research, enterprise training, expert lectures, on boarding training,mentoring, teaching material development and outside-school learning. The first threepopular ways with the teachers are teaching reflection, collective lesson preparationand class observation. The last three popular ways with the teachers are mentoring,teaching material development and outside-school learning. The commoncharacteristic of popular ways is that they directly target to promote teaching practice.They are mainly about teaching technical guidance, from teaching basicspecifications, teaching procedures to teaching methods. They are intuitive, easy tounderstand, easy to learn and have good effect. While the common characteristics ofnot popular ways are that they have higher requirement about teachers’ teachingability and scientific research ability. They need long-term continuous learning and accumulation, what’s more they cannot directly promote the teaching practice, andthe effect is not obvious. Survey and the interview results also reflect the majorfactors affect teachers’ attitude to professional development ways. They are teachers’age, professional title, education degree and education background. Most teachers ofYunnan Technology and Business College are quite young at age, low at professiontitle and education degree. Nearly50%of the teachers are under30, and manyteachers are undergraduates of comprehensive universities. The factors lead to theirrequirement for teachers’ professional development and interests are mostly ways ofteaching techniques, because these pathways can directly apply to the practice ofteaching and improve the teaching effect.Through data analysis，this research has the following conclusion: First, theschool attaches great importance to teachers’ professional development, it provides agood development platform and has set some policies to ensure it, but it is not strictenough to monitor the process. Second, teachers’ professional developmentconsciousness is not strong. Third, the focus of teacher’s professional development ison teaching techniques.According to the conclusion, the research proposes that both the school andteachers should work hard to improve all teachers’ profession.