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How does Shanghai develop its teachers?

This video demonstrates how China has organised its continuing professional development for mathematics education.
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In China, most mathematics teachers received their pre-service training in the Department of Mathematics of universities. Often is called normal universities. The training in China focuses both on mathematics and pedagogy. In compared to many other countries, including Western countries but also some Asian countries even like Singapore, Chinese mathematics teachers receive much more training in mathematics itself in the pre-service training. I mean it should be said that recently all university graduates in China can enter the teaching profession after they pass a newly established teaching qualification test, that is at the national level.
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About in-service teachers’ training or CPD, researchers generally agree that China has develop a coherent and institutionalized in-service training for teachers or professional development systems, in which peer collaboration and interaction play a crucial role in developing in-service teachers expertise and competence. More specifically, mathematic teachers in China are involved in various programs, such as in-service training programs specially designed for them, and school-based mentoring programs, and school-based teaching research activities and also public lesson development. The in-service training programs in China are mainly provided by institutes of education at the province or city levels, and the professional development is mainly organized by teaching research offices within the governmental education bureaus at county, district, city and provincial levels, but not at the national level.
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And teaching research offices is a very unique Chinese system. Those institutions or offices are responsible for guiding teaching research activities, overseeing teaching quality in schools on behalf of the education bureaus or the government. And it also provides consultation and teacher professional development programs, and promoting high quality classroom teaching. In each school, as for the case of other subjects, there is usually a mathematics teaching research group which is responsible for all mathematics teachers professional development in that schools in China.
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Teaching research group is also a unique organization in Chinese schools, in a sense the mathematics teaching research group is equivalent to the Department of Mathematics in many other countries, but the teaching research group in China focuses more on research on classroom teaching and professional development. It should also be noted that China has established a professional ranking in promoting systems since the mid 1980s. The ranking and promotion system provides teachers like university academics and teaching staffs with professional titles. So the titles include Senior Teacher, Intermediate Grade Teacher and Junior Grade Teacher. Earlier than that, the title Master Teachers was awarded. And more recently Full Senior Grade Teachers have also been used as a title in some regions in China.
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Full Senior Graded Teachers is equivalent to the professors in the universities, so this is a great honor. And this professional development system not only specifies components of teachers professional expertise and other related requirements for different grades of teachers, but also it provides teachers with professional recognition and incentives and a culturally support mechanism for teachers to seek a professional development at different levels. For example, from school levels to district levels, to county level, to city level, to provincial level and to national level. So it’s quite systematic. And it is also worth noting that professional communities with Chinese schools not only foster new teachers development, but also stimulate other in-service teachers’ professional development through various research approaches over time.
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Some professional communities from various schools also involve educational researchers doing action research collaboratively with teachers. One such approach recently well-known is through Ke-li, or lesson examples, or exemplary lesson development somehow like Japanese lesson studies, which we will mention later. According to Huang and Bao, two well-known researchers in math education in China, Chinese mathematics teachers collaboration are similar to Japanese lesson studies, in that both involve teachers collaboration on lesson planning, peer observation and post lesson discussion.

In this video Professor Fan introduces CPD in Shanghai.

In China, most mathematics teachers received their pre-service training in the departments of mathematics of universities, often called normal universities. The training focuses on both mathematics and pedagogy. Chinese teachers receive much more training in mathematics itself in their pre-service training, compared to many other countries, including western countries and also Asian countries such as Singapore. It is now possible for all universities graduates to enter teaching careers after they pass a newly established national teaching qualification test.

The in-service training programs in China are mainly provided by institutes of education at the province and city/district/county level. The professional development is mainly organised by Teaching Research Offices, within the governmental education bureaus at county, district, city, and provincial level. In each school, as for the case of other subjects, there is usually a mathematics Teaching Research Group (TRG), which is responsible for all mathematics teachers’ professional development in the school. TRG is a unique organisation in Chinese schools.

China has a well-established professional ranking and promotion system. The professional communities within Chinese schools not only foster new teachers’ development but also stimulate other in-service teachers’ professional development through various research approaches over time. Some school professional communities also involve educational researchers in research.

One such approach is Keli, similar to Japanese Lesson Study, both of which involve teachers’ collaboration on lesson planning, peer observation and post-lesson discussion. But Chinese Keli focuses more on experts’ input, revising lesson plans and carrying out new lessons subsequently. This paper describes Keli (Exemplary Lesson Development), as such a form of professional development.

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