Community of Inquiry as Teacher Professional Development in China
Over the past decades, improving teacher instructional quality has been a top priority in the Chinese government's K-12 educational reform agenda. Within this reform context, the purposes of this chapter are to share: (a) a community of inquiry model of professional development on new literacies that is being used with teachers in China; and (b) qualitative data from three teachers' perceptions of the professional development, their classroom practices, and challenges they are confronting as they implement changes in their educational system. Emerging themes indicated that teachers embraced pedagogical change along a continuum, from resistant to completely open, within the context of their school culture. Challenges to pedagogical change included teacher cultural identity and lack of time and commitment needed for implementation. Future research will include more in-depth analysis of the change process that Chinese teachers embrace as they conceptualize and apply new literacies and innovative pedagogies in their classrooms.