（Source: World Education Information Magazine, Issue 23, 2016)
The article analyzes the efforts made by the Teaching and Teacher Development Center of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to promote teacher development, such as innovative guidance models, strengthening teacher evaluation and management mechanisms, creating professional platforms, etc., and explores how the University of Massachusetts Amherst can base itself on the actual situation of the w88 casino, make full use of resources, and solve the problems of career development of teachers throughout the w88 casino, improvement of teaching level, and balance between teaching and academics.
Innovative guidance model to help teachers grow
In the literature on teacher development, the term “mentor” is cited very frequently. Moreover, "guidance" is considered to be one of the basic means for teacher development centers in various universities in the United States to help teachers grow and develop.
1. Traditional guidance model
There are two main types of traditional guidance models: top-down guidance model and one-to-one guidance model. What they have in common is that experienced teachers provide support and assistance for the professional development of new teachers. This is also the basic guidance method commonly used by most university teacher development centers. Since its establishment, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has mainly adopted a "one-on-one" traditional guidance model to help new teachers develop. Its guidance areas involve all aspects of w88 casino work and life, including new teachers' career planning, new teachers' adaptation, processing and response to the classroom environment, new teachers' curriculum design and guidance, and the handling of new teachers' relationships with other teachers. This method promotes the establishment of meaningful connections between new and old teachers. The old teachers play the role of "managers" in the guidance process. With their own knowledge and experience, they can comprehensively manage the work and personal lives of new teachers by "passing on, helping and guiding", which can effectively promote the improvement of teachers' professional knowledge and teaching skills.
However, with the continuous development of education, students and teachers have shown an obvious trend of diversity. The "personalized" guidance of veteran teachers under this traditional guidance model can no longer meet the "diversified" needs of the new teacher group and cannot demonstrate the "personalization" of new teachers. To this end, teacher development centers in various universities in the United States have innovated guidance content suitable for the development of their own schools to ensure that the development needs of each educator are met and to promote the balanced development of teaching, scientific research and other aspects.
2.Co-mentoring model
The Center for Teaching and Teacher Development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst mainly serves new teachers and teachers who have not received tenure, and adopts a new "mutual mentoring" model (Mutual Mentoring) to encourage them to make full use of guidance funds and various guidance resources, select teachers of various professional levels from their own w88 casino or other schools as guidance partners, establish a professional teacher development guidance network, and promote the development of their own teaching, scientific research, etc. This model helps new teachers and teachers who have not been tenured to establish an active "co-mentoring network" and form mentoring partners in a fair and collaborative environment to jointly solve problems including scientific research, teaching, tenure, and work-life balance, gain relevant teaching knowledge and experience, and then promote their own professional development and meet the diverse needs of individuals for guidance in actual teaching.
Since various mentoring projects and activities carried out under the "co-mentoring" model are based on the "co-mentoring network" structure, it can be said that the "co-mentoring network" is also the core of the "co-mentoring" model.
Generally speaking, a complete co-mentoring network structure should include Peer Mentoring Partners, Near Peer Mentoring Partners, Senior Faculty Mentoring Partners, Professional Staff Mentoring Partners, Student Mentoring Partners, and Off-Campus Mentoring Partners, Administrators and others. Among them, peer mentoring partners refer to the mentoring network formed by teachers at the same level; recent mentoring partners refer to the mentoring network formed by teachers who are newly promoted to higher-level positions; senior faculty mentoring partners refer to the mentoring network formed by all associate professors and full professors at UMass Amherst; full-time mentoring partners refer to the mentoring network formed by all full-time staff at UMass Amherst, including librarians; student mentoring Partners refer to all undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; off-campus mentoring partners include all teachers from the five University of Massachusetts branches and other universities - which may also be regarded as peers, near-college or senior teacher mentoring partners; managers include the president, president, dean, associate dean, etc. of the University of Massachusetts Amherst; others refer to mentoring partners beyond the above scope, such as the project director of a foundation, etc. (see Figure 1).
The "co-mentoring" model is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with "mentoring for development" as its core. Through projects, it helps teachers solve various difficulties and problems encountered in teaching, scientific research, job promotion, and their own work and life, improves the teaching and professional development level of new teachers, and promotes teacher job promotion. Different from the "one-on-one" guidance model, this model mostly adopts a face-to-face method to specifically provide guidance for new teachers on a certain issue. The "mentor" here does not play the role of "manager" but forms a "partnership" with new teachers. "Guidance partners" are regarded as "good teachers and helpful friends". They can not only provide new teachers with suggestions for teaching, but also provide all-round guidance for new teachers' work and life. In addition, strong financial support enables teachers to participate more in various professional guidance conferences outside the w88 casino.
Integrate resources from all parties and balance teaching and scientific research
Since the early 1950s, American universities have always attached great importance to the cultivation and improvement of teachers’ academic abilities②. They believe that scientific research ability is an important sign that distinguishes a university teacher from teachers at other stages of education and is one of the indispensable abilities of university teachers. Especially at present, academic research has increasingly become an important criterion for evaluating whether a university is "first-class" and whether a teacher is excellent. Therefore, many universities and even teachers themselves have a phenomenon of "emphasis on scientific research and neglect of teaching".
1. Create a good academic atmosphere and improve the academic level of teachers
Since its establishment, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has attached great importance to the development of teachers’ academic abilities. Scientific research results have naturally become the main criteria for the w88 casino to recruit teachers, evaluate teacher promotions and teacher salary levels. According to a 2014 Thomson Reuters survey, in this year alone, eight teachers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst made outstanding contributions in their respective research fields, had outstanding research results, and were hailed as "the world's leading thinkers."
Indeed, the Teaching and Teacher Development Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst actively mobilizes resources from all aspects to comprehensively promote the academic development of teachers at the w88 casino.
For example, create a well-equipped teachers' writing room based on the w88 casino's own conditions and make it adjacent to the library to facilitate teachers' access to literature. At the same time, the comfortable lounge and free coffee in the writing room provide teachers with a quiet and comfortable environment, allowing them to concentrate on researching, organizing and revising manuscripts. Teacher writing seminars held regularly by the Teaching and Teacher Development Center not only ensure teachers' normal academic writing time and planning, but also strengthen communication and interaction between teachers. In addition, the summer online writing training makes full use of the advantages of the Internet to guide teachers' academic research and writing anytime and anywhere, and has also become a booster for academic development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It can be said that whether in terms of software (such as knowledge and technical guidance) or hardware (such as well-equipped and comfortable writing rooms), the w88 casino has created a high-quality environment and good services for teachers to carry out academic work, and accelerated teachers' academic progress. The w88 casino teaching and teacher development center not only provides convenience for teachers’ academic creation, but more importantly, helps teachers develop positive and good academic writing habits, which will benefit all teachers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for life.
2. Strengthen teacher management and incentive mechanisms to improve teaching quality
While ensuring continuous academic development and progress, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has not neglected the teaching work of the w88 casino. For example, the Lilly Fellowship Program for Teaching Excellence targets young teachers and aims to help them improve their teaching abilities and grow into excellent teachers through teaching seminars, student feedback and evaluation, and interactions with senior teachers. In addition, the w88 casino adopts various measures to encourage teachers at all professional levels to perform their duties and fulfill their responsibilities, and strive to improve teaching standards. For example, the Distinguished Teaching Award is open to all teachers, including graduate students who serve as teacher assistants at the w88 casino, and is the highest-level award in the teaching field at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The w88 casino also established the "College Outstanding Teacher Award" as an extension of the Outstanding Teaching Award. It is particularly emphasized that these awards established by the Center for Teaching and Teacher Development follow strict standards. These standards have also become the fundamental teaching standards for all teachers at the University of Massachusetts. There are four main points. First, the effectiveness and creativity of teaching. Effectiveness means that teachers should use effective teaching skills and techniques to allow students to fully participate in classroom teaching and implement effective teaching; creativity means that they must master and use new teaching techniques proficiently, stimulate students' learning motivation, and know that students are different, and static teaching cannot meet the needs of every student. Second, the influence on students requires teachers to have a correct view of students, respect students, communicate with students in a timely manner, and understand students' learning trends. Third, complete the teaching tasks well. Excellent teachers should constantly reflect on teaching and actively participate in various discussions related to teaching. Reflective teaching can continuously promote the progress of teaching. Fourth, taking an overall view requires teachers to have high organizational and management capabilities while doing a good job in relevant teaching work; to be able to integrate their own research into teaching, integrate scientific research into teaching, and pay equal attention to scientific research and teaching.
It can be seen that at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, academics and teaching are not antagonistic. The emergence of the phenomenon of "emphasis on teaching and neglect of academics" is related to the w88 casino's organizational management and reward and punishment mechanisms. While attaching great importance to teachers' academics, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has set up an effective teaching incentive mechanism and made unremitting efforts to reconcile the relationship between academics and teaching. To this end, colleges and universities should be based on the actual situation of the w88 casino, effectively integrate w88 casino resources, take into account the teaching and academic research of w88 casino teachers, and promote the balanced development of teaching and academics.
Strengthen teacher teaching evaluation and promote teaching development
Almost all books on "teacher development" and projects carried out by universities to promote teacher development reflect a basic proposition: teaching is an important aspect of teacher development in universities and must be highly valued. Steven R. Phillips believes: "The most basic function of an effective teacher development program is to promote the development of teacher teaching." Since the mid-1960s, American colleges and universities have always attached great importance to the development of teachers' teaching standards and emphasized effective teaching. The continuous improvement of teachers' teaching level is mainly achieved through evaluation.
The Center for Teaching and Teacher Development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst uses the Midterm Assessment Process, which is a form of student questionnaire, to realize students' evaluation of teachers' teaching.
The mid-term evaluation conducted by the Teaching and Teacher Development Center is an indirect evaluation method. The object of evaluation is the teacher. It aims to obtain feedback information about the teacher's teaching from students and grasp the teacher's teaching dynamics. It should be pointed out that the consultant of the Center for Teaching and Teacher Development plays an important role in the mid-term evaluation and serves as an important mediator. Its main responsibility is to collect and integrate student feedback information and provide direct feedback to classroom teachers. Teachers will comprehensively adjust teaching based on students' feedback to improve teaching quality and promote students' learning and development.
Depending on the size of the class, the mid-term evaluation chooses two methods to conduct teaching questionnaires on students, namely group teaching questionnaires and individual teaching questionnaires. The evaluation content involves three parts: personal teacher, curriculum and overall teaching effect, using a semi-closed questionnaire. Teachers can directly obtain students' overall feedback on the teacher's teaching from closed-ended questions and clarify their own strengths and weaknesses in teaching. For open-ended questions, teachers can intuitively and effectively capture students’ suggestions and opinions on teacher teaching, which can help teachers reflect on teaching from the perspective of students, thereby better promoting the improvement of teaching quality.
Compared with general student evaluations, mid-term evaluations can shorten the cycle of teacher teaching evaluation and continuously prompt teachers to reflect on teaching. In addition, the process and environment of the mid-term evaluation are similar to teachers' classroom teaching, and students can also share their own evaluation views and opinions in a real classroom environment based on the actual situation. The assessment atmosphere is relaxed yet rigorous. During the communication, students can make more comprehensive, accurate and reasonable evaluation and feedback on the teacher's teaching. Finally, mid-term evaluation can not only evaluate teachers' teaching, but also understand students' learning progress and students' mastery of knowledge, achieving the win-win goal of teachers' evaluation and grasping students' learning dynamics.
Create a new platform to train future teachers,
As a good public research university, the University of Massachusetts Amherst enrolls approximately 18,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students from 50 states in the United States and 100 other countries every year, and obtains degrees at all levels from the university's 10 undergraduate colleges and graduate schools. According to the 2015 U.S. News & World Report (US News &World Report) Ranking of undergraduate education in American universities, the University of Massachusetts Amherst ranks 29th among 600 public universities in the United States and is known as one of the best public universities in the United States. In 2015, the number of undergraduate students at the w88 casino reached 22,748, but the number of graduate students remained at around 6,000. It can be seen that the University of Massachusetts Amherst attaches great importance to undergraduate education, but pays relatively little attention to the development of graduate education. To measure the level of a university, especially a research-oriented university, both the quantity and quality of graduate education should become indispensable factors in the evaluation process. After realizing this problem, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst set up a sub-center, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, to provide services specifically to the w88 casino's graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, help them learn, improve the teaching standards of university teachers, and become the core platform for training future teachers.
As the name suggests, the "Integrated Center for Scientific Research, Teaching and Learning" is a comprehensive institution that integrates scientific research, teaching and learning. It provides a large number of public online courses for graduate students and postdoctoral students through the integrated center network, allowing students to choose courses that suit them according to their needs. In addition, the w88 casino organizes various campus activities for students every semester to help students learn while enriching student life and promoting the development of students' abilities in all aspects.
The integrated center takes improving students' abilities as its core goal in carrying out various activities, advocates the teaching concept of "teaching-as-research", requires building a learning community, respects students' differences, and helps students conduct diversified learning. "Teaching is research" is a systematic and effective teaching concept based on research, which can enrich teachers' teaching and students' learning experience, improve students' learning and research abilities, and is an excellent way of learning and teaching. In addition, "teaching as research" also emphasizes that students can evaluate teachers' teaching at any time, and teachers can reflect on teaching at all times, which is a dynamic and continuous teaching.
In short, the Research, Teaching and Learning Integration Center specializes in providing learning and teaching guidance services for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. While paying attention to the development of teachers, it also attaches importance to the cultivation of high-quality talents; advocates evidence-based teaching and focuses on teaching practice; builds a learning community and emphasizes the importance of cooperative learning and teaching; carries out diversified learning to encourage teachers to actively support and promote student learning on the basis of respecting and understanding the diversity of student groups.
