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Professional Educational Researchers (PER) are a crucial component of China's Five-Level Education and Teaching Research System (ETRS), which has been of fundamental importance to Chinese basic education development. PERs play a significant role in directing teachers' professional development, advancing basic education curriculum reform, and supporting educational decision-making. This article explains the concept of the PER in the context of the ETRS, describes the professional criteria for being a PER, and expounds on their significance for basic education advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of digital transformation in education and the implementation of the "Three Links and Two Platforms Program," teaching research among Chinese teachers has exhibited a growing tendency towards informatization. Information technology has been increasingly leveraged by teachers not only to organize teaching research activities and analyze research data but also to demonstrate their research outcomes. This article aims to give an overview of the history of online teaching research in China and pinpoint the promotional factors underlying its development. Inadequacies in current online teaching research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have been recognized as a promising infrastructure for teacher professional development and student achievement. There has been increasing research interest in PLCs outside mainstream Western contexts. Based on literature and documentary analysis, this paper outlines the historical development of PLCs in mainland China over the past seven decades. It further analyses the continuities and changes in the development of PLCs in mainland China since its establishment. The main changes identified include increased administrative duties, a shift in the orientation of collective work, and increased integration with other professional development efforts, though PLCs in China remain a top-down teacher collaboration strategy for their professional development. Lessons from the development experiences of China highlighted in this paper enrich the global discussion of PLC implementation for promoting teacher professional development across different educational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapidly changing twenty-first-century educational environment is full of daunting challenges. Education is becoming ever more difficult as schools need to prepare their students for newly emerging challenges, new technologies and unpredictable problems. Many countries are seeking to establish effective learning cultures as a priority. However, teacher learning is generally more difficult to facilitate than student learning. This study examined the effectiveness of the open-class teaching approach in nurturing a new twenty-first-century learning culture among teachers. The framework of the open-class approach was adapted to the local pre-service teacher education programme in Macao. Two case studies of open-class mathematics teaching practices in Macao were conducted using reflective discussions of the lessons, videotapes of the open-classes, interviews with the respective teachers and the reflective journals of the pre-service teachers. The aim of the study was to identity the optimum open-class model to incorporate into Macao’s teacher preparation programme and to address the central issue of the unity of theory and practice in pre-service teacher education, which represents a significant policy and research gap. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teaching how to conduct productive research in a classroom setting is a challenge. This article reports on an attempt to scale up the research training in a class of 41 undergraduate and graduate students. The research topic, information aesthetics, covers information visualization and generative art. Seven teams were set up to conduct seven different projects within the topic, and several were able to produce quality research papers published or accepted by journals and conferences. The authors report on their approaches to teaching information aesthetics as a research topic, team set up, and team assessment as well as on the final results in terms of research output. The most important learning experiences in teaching this class were determining how to enable effective team work and maximize the students' research potential. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines existing research in the field of language learning advising (LLA) with the aim of establishing a professional validation framework which can inform the development of a systematic and structured preparation of language learning advisers with appropriate associated authority. The role of language learning advisers emerged about two decades ago as a result of the expansion of self-access centres in higher education and their pivotal position in the promotion of autonomous language learning. This resulted in a proliferation of studies focused on describing LLA activities and skills as clearly distinct from those of language teaching. Through the analysis of some extracts from LLA sessions, advisers' individual and peer reflective accounts, and a shared group debriefing, this study attempts to illustrate how the use of intentional dialogue as a pedagogic device and discourse analysis as a methodological approach, can positively trigger a transformative process in the professional development of advisers and can support them in becoming reflective practitioners and practitioner researchers. Although this is a preliminary, small-scale, localised study, it offers an insight into this emerging professional practice; it explains the need for advisers to develop their set of tools and discourses to describe and evaluate their practice; it contextualises the importance of grounding this emerging professional practice within specific theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Finally, it highlights the limited availability of LLA data and the need to create an accessible corpus to be used for continuing professional development (CPD) and to further pedagogic research in this emerging field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years, the study of language teachers' beliefs has attracted much attention. One important strand of this research has been the exploration of the relationship between teachers' beliefs and their practice, generating a recurring research theme of identifying ‘consistency’ and ‘inconsistency’ between teachers' beliefs and practice. The relationship between the two has been shown to be highly complex, dialectic and interactive. The present study employs complexity theory to illuminate aspects of the dynamic interactive relationship between Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning and their instructional practice in the context of the National Curriculum Reform in China. It comprises a case study focusing on six EFL teachers from five secondary schools in China. The data were collected over a period of six months using semi-structured interviews, observations and stimulated recall interviews. The study revealed the co-existence of core and peripheral beliefs. Drawing on evidence of interaction between core and peripheral beliefs, the study indicated that the teachers' core beliefs about EFL teaching objectives and EFL learning processes played an important role in influencing their practice. Evidence from the teachers' classroom actions implied variability in their understanding of the national curriculum standards. Some theoretically supported notions had not been strongly established because the teachers lacked first-hand experience of the effectiveness of these notions in promoting immediate learning outcomes. An eclectic approach to classroom practice was adopted by the teachers to meet different teaching objectives, which sometimes resulted in inconsistency between beliefs and practice. Therefore, the mechanism underlying the relationship between the teachers' beliefs and practices lies in the interaction between their core and peripheral beliefs in different teaching contexts. In this sense, the network of interactions between beliefs and practice can be theorised to be complex, dynamic and interactive, which more accurately represents the diversity of teachers' belief systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study adopted an empirical study to examine the application of the blended learning approach to Web-based College English Teaching Platform (WCETP) in a medical university in eastern China. The study was conducted on 40 students majoring in Clinical Medicine from two classes and raised two questions: (1) Is there a significant difference between the blended learning approach and the traditional classroom learning approach in terms of students' attitudes and satisfaction? (2) Is there a significant difference between the blended learning approach and the traditional classroom learning approach in terms of students' academic achievement? By analyzing and discussing the resultant statistics, the author drew the conclusion that compared with the traditional teaching approach, participants held more positive attitudes towards the blended learning model. Besides, participants preferred to this new blended learning model, which could better stimulate their interest, foster their autonomous learning and collaborative learning and prompt their confidence. What is more, the quantitative research with the comparisons of language learning achievement between the experimental group and the control group revealed that there was a significant difference in terms of students' academic achievement between the traditional classroom learning approach and the blended learning approach. Furthermore, students performed better in language learning under the blended learning model than those under the traditional model. The findings of the study indicate that as the brand-new learning approach, the blended learning approach which integrates the advantages of online learning and face-to-face classroom teaching could enhance students' comprehensive language skills, improve students' self-confidence in learning English, and cultivate the learners' ability of self-learning. Therefore, study on the application of blended learning for college English learning has an important reference value and practical significance for the reform of College English Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study which investigated the motivation to teach and the commitment to teaching among non-local prospective student teachers from China and their counterparts in Hong Kong. Particular focus is given to the student teachers' reasons for choosing the teacher education program, their understanding of teaching and their experiences. Findings revealed that altruistic and intrinsic incentives are important reasons for joining the program. The participants wanted to teach because of their love for children and their belief that teaching is a noble profession. Results also showed that participants from China emphasized the attraction and benefits of studying in Hong Kong, especially its bilingualism and multiculturalism.

Online study collaboration is a recent professional development approach that goes beyond school and regional boundaries and even helps reach rural schools in China. In this study, we focused on a specific online study collaboration program to examine its potential benefits for improving participating teachers' expertise in instructional design. Data were collected from the online study collaboration organizers and four main participating schools. The results reveal the program's well-structured process and organization for planning and conducting the online study collaboration. Participating teachers benefited from their sharing and discussions with experts and other teachers. Their instructional designs show many important changes that are aligned with experts' comments. Selected teachers' expertise improvement includes their knowledge about the textbook and content, their perspectives about students' learning and instruction, and their learning of different instructional approaches to engage students in classroom instruction. The use of online study collaboration for improving teachers' expertise and the study's limitations are then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the influence of a three-week professional development workshop in the teaching of writing on the views of Chinese English teachers about teaching writing. Chinese teachers of English in an urban school district in southeast China experimented with a variety of genres as they experienced the writing processes. The workshop improved the writing skills of teachers and change their beliefs about teaching writing.

The article presents a case study of English language teachers in a professional development program in China to illustrate how research into English language teaching can improve teacher effectiveness. The program was intended to help teachers identify what form of research methodology would address a specific problem. Respondents used a narrative frame to present their reflections and experiences, which were used to identify classroom problems, define research projects and note limitations.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the moderating effects of learning-teaching fit and cross-cultural differences on the relationships between expatriate training and training effectiveness. Survey methodology was adopted to obtain data from the opinions of expatriates in foreign companies within Taiwan and China. Quantitative data analyses were adopted to answer the study research questions. Results of this study revealed that perceived needs for expatriate training have significant impacts on the training effectiveness of expatriates. The level of fit between the expatriate's learning style and the instructor's teaching method, and the degree of perceived cross-cultural differences between parent country and host country could moderate the effectiveness of expatriate training. These results implied that expatriates who perceived higher levels of fit between their learning styles and instructor teaching method, perceived lower cross-cultural differences and perceived higher demand for training tended to achieve higher training effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes Keli (Exemplary Lesson Development), a new model of in-service teacher education in China, implemented within a broader program of Xingdong Jiaoyu (Action Education), which has been implemented since 2003. This paper sets out how to implement the innovative Keli model. Finally, the implications for the practical community, including teachers and researchers, are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]