Document Type: Conference Papers
Year published: 2009
Conference: International Conference on Educational Research (ICER) 2009: Learning Community for Sustainable Development (2009: Khon Kaen University, Thailand)
This paper aims to explore management practices in school organization for sustaining teacher collective learning by using a quasi-experiment design. Secondary schools in Hong Kong are seeking ways to sustain their development in terms of teaching and learning under the 334 New Senior Secondary Reform. Enhancing teacher professional competency via collective learning is the radical key to developing the capacity of schools for coping with this change. Teacher collective learning is conceptualized as team learning of Sengeûs (1990) Learning organization model which is important for school development and individual professional development. By adopting Sengeûs (1990) five disciplines of learning organization as the theoretical framework, this research study has constructed a path model for providing school administrator practical steps to facilitate teacher collective learning effectively under the reform. 20 aided secondary schools in Hong Kong were selected by cluster sampling. 777 teachers took part in the questionnaire survey. A structural equation model was applied to identify the path model for the five disciplines of Sengeûs learning organization model. Results showed that there are predictive effects of personal mastery and system thinking on team learning, while mental model, shared vision are sequential path predictors of system thinking. A path model for predicting teacher collective learning was validated in this study. Enhancing teacher professional development, nurturing a culture of trust, communicating with professional dialogue, negotiating a shared vision and provoking system thinking are recommended to school administrators for sustaining teacher collective learning in coping with the change generated from the reform.