A Study Of The Impacts Of Teacher Professional Learning Community On The Teaching Practice Of Preservice Teachers During The Teaching Practicum

The concept "teacher professional learning community"(TPLC)was put forward in the 1990s(Hord,1997).Many previous researchers explored teacher professional learning community from theoretical and empirical perspectives.Many scholars also investigated preservice teachers’ teaching perceptions and the transformation of preservice teachers’ classroom teaching competence during the teaching practicum.However,the subjects of these empirical studies on the impacts of TPLC are mainly in-service teachers.Besides,the influence of mentors supervisors and peers in the teacher professional learning community is not discussed specifically and systematically.Until now,the exploration about the impacts of teacher professional learning community on preservice teachers,teaching perceptions and classroom teaching competence remains a gap.Therefore,there is a necessity to get richer information with a new sample by referring to previous research(Dufour,2006;Ackerman,2011;吴艳茹,2015).For this purpose,this study used two research instruments which were questionnaire and interview.56 preservice teachers were involved in this questionnaire and 8 preservice teachers were interviewed.The questionnaire was distributed online and collected within one day.All the questionnaire data was analyzed by SPSS.The interviews were recorded by cellphone and then transcribed into written texts.The data from interviews were analyzed by summarizing interviewees’ words into different categories.In this study,three research questions are addressed:(1)What is the relationship between activities in TPLC and preservice teachers’improvement in teaching practice?(2)What are the positive impacts of activities in TPLC on preservice teachers’teaching practice?(3)What unrealized impacts of activities in TPLC are there on preservice teachers’teaching practice?The findings of this study can be summarized as follows:(1).Many of the activities in teacher professionSpecificallyal learning community are helpful in preservice teachers’ teaching practice..in the aspect of teaching perceptions,activities in TPLC have positive impacts on preservice teachers’ teacher belief,self-efficacy,and teacher identity.In the aspect of teaching design,the activities in TPLC have huge influence on preservice teachers’ design of teaching objectives,classroom activity,teaching creativity,teaching resource searching,question-raising skills and multimedia technologies.In the aspect of teacher qualities,preservice teachers have made great progress in their qualities of teamwork and reflection.In the aspect of classroom teaching behaviors,many activities in TPLC have good impacts on preservice teachers’ classroom teaching behaviors in the aspects of time arrangement,interaction with students,classroom teaching languages,movement,and feedback.(2)There are also some inconspicuous impacts of activities in TPLC on preservice teachers’ teaching practice.In the aspect of teaching design,they have little improvement in evaluation,textbook interpretation and homework design.As for teacher qualities,many teachers haven’t made much progress in their teaching style,English knowledge,and spoken English.In the aspect of classroom teaching behaviors,preservice teachers are still insufficient in the ability of activity organization,body language,and blackboard use.According to the research findings,some suggestions are proposed to improve the model of teacher professional learning community.In the aspect of activity organization,more activities should be conducted during the first period of practicum.And more formal and systematic construction should be set up in some activities.In the aspect of different members’ roles in teacher professional learning community,mentors in the practicum schools should give more formal instructions to preservice teachers.Supervisors in university should have more interaction with mentors and preservice teachers in the practicum schools.And preservice teachers should seek more active communication and collaboration with other members.