School-based staff development of Shanghai children's palaces : a case study of No.2 Children's Palace of Jinshan District

Abstract

Although school-based teacher developmental activities have been launched for years in general education system, such comparatively systematic and effective work have yet been thoroughly adopted by most of the out-of-school educational institutions. Studies on Children’s Palaces education and school-based teacher development are extremely limited, not only because the overall management of out-of-school education system is not as complete as that of general education system, but also the features of Children’s Palace education made the study hard but more and more necessary. Guided by the theoretical framework of Lifelong Education and Professionalism Theory, the purpose of this dissertation aims at finding out the problems of the children’s palace school-based staff development, and exploring reasons behind through analyzing quantitative and qualitative research data from the case study of No.2 Children’s Palace of Jinshan District, give recommendations so that teachers may gain more concrete benefit through the system of school-based teacher development. The questionnaire for quantitative research contains two parts. Part I contains questions about the need of teacher development in No.2 CP, and Part II contains question about perspectives and current situation concerning school-based teacher development in No.2 CP. After the quantitative approach and research data analysis, qualitative approach of follow-up interviews will be carried out. Synthesized data analysis aims at answering research questions such as current status of school-based teacher development in No.2 CP and mode and examples that might be drawn to inspire the school-based teacher development in Children’s Palaces in Shanghai.