The modern educational environment of the university is at the stage of active development of digital solutions to improve the learning process of students. The article discusses the possibilities of using virtual reality technology in the preparation of a future teacher. The approaches to the development of a project for the creation of a simulation simulator for the development of conflictological competence of students of pedagogical specialties, designed for training in immersive environments, are presented. The importance of using situational and constructivist learning in virtual reality is shown. The substantiation is given for the selected set of situational cases, the solution of which is possible in a virtual environment and will allow the future teacher to determine his behavior in pre-conflict and conflict situations with the aim of constructively resolving them or preventing them. The components of conflictological competence are described and an approach to assessing the effectiveness of its development is presented.
Keyword(s) : teacher training
Mechanisms for Optimizing and Updating the Content and Methodological Training of Future Primary School Teachers
The article presents a structural practice-oriented model of preparing a future teacher for an active
professional activity, taking into account the educational standards of primary general education,
based on practical forms of educational activity, provided with a high level of theoretical knowledge
and possession of the methodology and technologies of self-knowledge. The model embodies the
original scientific and methodological support for the process of professional training of future
teachers at Kazan University, the system priority of which was the realization of the student’s
personal capabilities through interactive methods of his cognitive, communicative and axiological
activities. Scientific and methodological support is considered as an applied empirical mechanism
for optimizing and updating the content and methodological training of future teachers who are
capable of creative organization of the process of teaching younger students, of effective adjustment
and development of basic educational programs in elementary school.
The information-logistical approach has become the leading one in the study of the problem,
which is important in conditions when the content of education is shifting from memorization to
the search, selection and comprehension of information, and teacher training is carried out in an
environment that provides an integrated perception of experience, allowing him to be included in
the advanced design of the content of education.
The article describes a system of interrelated practice-oriented activities, determined by the dynamics
of content modules, the conditions for their implementation and evaluation criteria, aimed at
developing the professional competencies of future teachers, improving their qualifications and
professional skills in obtaining personal, meta-subject and subject results. The original scientific and
methodological support for the process of professional training of future teachers offers interactive
methods that represent innovative and unique tools for designing the learning process and predicting
its effectiveness, allowing you to most accurately determine the advantages and problems of the real
educational process of teacher training when testing new technologies and teaching methods. The
implementation of the proposed scientific and methodological support expands and actualizes the
resource content of the educational process through empirical research based on the study, analysis
and generalization of real innovative pedagogical experience.
Methodological Training of Special Education Teachers in Belarus: State and Development Strategies
The widespread dissemination of humanitarian ideas, integration and inclusive processes create new challenges for the professional education of special education teachers. The focus is on methodological training, the ability to work with different children, organizational and methodological heterogeneity. A new social order is the methodological competence of a specialist who does not have just knowledge and skills, but experience in effectively solving the pedagogical problems of students with special education needs. The aim of the article is to identify the state of the methodological competence of Belarusian future special education teachers (graduates of higher educational institutions), to see the features of the existing methodological training, to determine the main strategies for increasing its effectiveness at the national level. The leading method is self-assessment of students’ state of methodological competence. The study involved 578 students from four Belarusian universities. The article describes the structure and content of future teachers’ methodological competence (4th year students) in the context of the ability to implement the educational process in the new conditions of variable educational practice. The research materials allow us to see the problem areas of the existing practice of methodological training in Belarusian universities and to assess the possible directions of its modernization.
Teacher Training on Data Literacy for School Evaluation and Improvement: A Teacher Professional Development Experience in Italy
This paper presents a teacher training experience involving 674 Italian teachers working in primary
and secondary schools in Liguria Region, in the North of Italy. The course aims to train teachers in
analysis, interpretation and use of data emerging from the census-standardized tests by the Italian
National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education System (INVALSI) for the assessment of
students’ learning in Reading, Mathematics and English language at different school levels. The
paper contributes to the debate on teachers’ data literacy by describing the experience and discussing
preliminary results from two online surveys of teachers attending the training course (completed
respectively, by 452 teachers, totaling 67.1% of the overall population attending the course, and
by 413 out of 515). The first survey was administered at the beginning of the experience, exploring
teachers’ previous professional development experiences of evaluation topics, their expectations in
relation to the course and self-efficacy of evaluative and educational strategies. The second survey
was administered as a satisfaction questionnaire at the end of the training course to teachers who
attended the online laboratories. Differences among primary and secondary school teachers are
discussed, together with teachers’ level of satisfaction for the training course. The paper stresses the
importance to train teachers in data literacy, as a challenge for training teachers in the 21st century,
and it encourages teacher professional development initiatives promoted by public authorities at
local levels in order to better meet the specific local needs.
Inclusive education and its implementation: International practices
Research problem. There is a big demand for high level competencies in an increasingly knowledge driven society. Ensuring that each individual has an equal opportunity for educational progress is a challenge worldwide; inclusive education is a question of equity and a premise for active contribution to society by all people, included the weakest. Inclusive schools work to ensure full participation and access to quality learning opportunities for all learners, respecting and valuing diversity, and fighting discrimination in and through education.
The aim of this paper is to study and select the best strategies for empowerment, talent development and raising achievement of all students, including the students with disabilities and special education needs. It explores the area of educational measures both for talented learners, and for upskilling staff to address a heterogeneous student population.
Research methods: The methodology implies the use of authoritative studies and of official documents from national, and the International Bodies, linking them to the author’s personal experience in teaching and in project management, especially keeping in mind the inclusive tradition in Italy. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art.24) stipulates that countries must take steps to ensure that persons with disabilities can access an inclusive primary and secondary education on an equal basis with others in the communities in which they live.
Conclusions and recommendations. We need to understand the importance of inclusivity, to widen the empirical research, to develop, and implement measures to capture the learners’ potential, their academic, and personal development, improving teaching strategies, and guidance. Families and society also make a contribution. It is a challenging task, where teachers play a key role in innovative school systems. The results of the study can be used in policy making, curricula development, teaching programs, and improving the quality of education for all learners.
The place of research and creative skills in the training of future teachers
Among the priorities of the 21st-century education and school, and therefore, of teachers as well,
is developing students’ creative skills, teaching them to take advantage of diverse information and educational resources, to find quickly new and reliable information, which they need in order to manage their learning tasks and life problems. This “navigation” through information is one of the important research skills are needed by the young citizens of the technologized, dynamic world and must be purposefully formed and developed. This means that teachers themselves have to acquire and develop these skills, and the place where this should be accomplished is the university.
The aim of this article is to present the experience of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in developing students’ research skills through assignments for self- dependent work. The paper provides an analysis of the students’ opinions included in three studies: of the University Center for Quality Management, of a research team within an intra-university project, and a survey conducted by the author.
The conclusion is that, according to the students, basic university training is sufficient to develop their research and creative skills through various forms of individual and group work, in line with the skills necessary for 21st-century teachers.
Post-Soviet Identity and Teacher Education: Past, Present, Future
Research into the historical background of ongoing global and national reforms is essential for the development of effective strategies, models and content of teacher education. Historical and anthropological research in education offers a good perspective on the matter as it draws from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural scientific approaches, thus helping to fully comprehend socio- cultural processes.
The article explores the development of teacher education in the Post-Soviet countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine) from its beginning in pre-revolutionary Russia up to the present day. The purpose of the research is to analyze the evolution of initial teacher education up to the end of the 20th century and its further transformation during the past thirty years. Until the early 1990s, the teacher education system represented a common education area that shared the same content and approaches to pedagogical education. After that, compromised by political factors, the system was transformed.
The juxtaposition of convergent trends and national features of teacher education systems in the Post-Soviet countries provides an opportunity to thoroughly assess current teacher education policies through the lens of pedagogical, geopolitical, economic and cultural partnership of the CIS countries.
Teacher Training in Austria with special consideration of Mentoring in the induction phase
Teacher training courses are currently being restructured not only in Austria but throughout Europe.
This involves a qualitative and a quantitative expansion of practical school studies. In Austria, in
addition to practical school experience during training, an induction phase is to take place after
completion of studies, in which young teachers are accompanied by a mentor.
Mentoring in the induction phase as support for career entry offers many opportunities, but
also requires careful implementation. This article points out possible challenges and theoretical
approaches.
Generating Self-reflection: Findings from self-development workshops in teacher training curriculum
Teacher education and development practices across the globe today, insist on having reflective
practices at their core. Given that self-reflective process rests upon psychological education, it is
widely agreed that student-teachers should be provided opportunities for self-learning through reflection
and assimilation of new ideas. However, self-development being a subjective concept, there
is lack of established methods for training teachers for self-reflective practices leading to self-development.
One such method is the self-development workshops recently added to pre-service teachertraining
in India. The present paper analyses the effectiveness of the self-development workshops in
teacher education curriculum. Drawing data from self-development workshops, based on Rogerian
approach, as part of a teacher training course, the paper traces and documents the intra-personal
and interpersonal growth of its participants.
A didactic model for managing the application of information and communications technologies for teacher training and qualifications in Bulgaria
The rapid development of informational and communicational technologies (ICT) presents many
challenges and problems for education. It is necessary to adapt existing training models for use with
different technologies. It also creates the need for an adequate qualification of teachers for their effective
application.
The purpose of this inquiry is to present a comprehensive Didactic Model for classroom management
through the application of specialized software Mythware. The article summarizes the
outcomes from the application of this software for teacher training and qualification. The model
supports in-service teacher training and enables more effective work on the implementation of information
and communication technologies in the training process.
Integration of pedagogical and classical philological education in preparing future teachers of philology
Integration of classical university and teacher training in the Kazan Federal University is carried out in the framework of the Strategic Academic Unit (SAE) “The teacher of the XXI century”. It is implemented under conditions of modern higher education in the context of perspective directions and key points in resolving the problem of teacher training for the modern school. Integration of classical university and teacher training in Kazan Federal University while training philologists allows, on the one hand, strengthening the fundamental nature of the subject training for future teachers of Russian, Tatar, foreign languages, literature, and, on the other hand, strengthening the pedagogical orientation of training philologists. Teacher training is an important component of any educational policy of the state and has a high degree of flexibility and availability. The purpose of the article is to show the positive aspects of the integration of teaching and classical university training in terms of joint activities of two Kazan Federal University institutions – that of Philology and Intercultural Communication and that of Psychology and Education; identify opportunities to improve teacher training at the university. The main method is descriptive. Projective research technique is applied as well. We came to the conclusion that there are several variants for training future teachers, which satisfy the Professional teacher standard and new federal state educational standard for secondary school. The first variant is a more advanced teacher training version. It implies taking a magistracy course on the direction “Teacher education”.
“Philological Education” is implemented in cooperation with the Institute of Psychology and Educa-tion. This educational route allows combining harmoniously practical professional orientation and fun-damental scientific basis while training teachers. The second variant is providing a bachelor with teacher training opportunities along with basic education for two. This will ensure that graduates can get a serious psycho-pedagogical and methodological preparation for a future profession. We believe that the integra-tion of classical university and teacher training in Kazan Federal University in the teacher training con-tributes to the following: Firstly, it optimizes the period of teacher training; secondly, it improves the teacher training quality in accordance with the requirements of national education modernization; Thirdly, it improves the professional teacher competence in accordance with the requirements of national education modernization. Fourthly, it improves the education quality in regional educational institutions. Fifthly, it increases the graduates’ competitiveness. Our study is of interest to all those involved in the problems of training and re-training future teachers.
The new organizational structure of the Master’s program in teacher education: formulation of the problem and further strategic guidelines
Modern education, changing the educational paradigm place special demands on the teacher’s personality and level of development of his competences. They make a significant change in the content of teacher training, involve completely different mechanisms of organi-zation of educational process at all levels of training, including the master’s level, which involves in-depth training of innovative character. Expanding the methodological aspects of the problem, the article focuses on the design used by the authors of Master training programs for teachers, so-called “3D-approach” of the complex integration of the three approaches, namely: the subject-activity approach, сompetence-activity approach, and reflec-tive-activity approach. This approach, according to the authors, could be the methodological basis for the design and implementation of teacher education process, from the position of which its modernization must be carried out.
The article deals with various models of teacher training at the Kazan Federal University, presents the benefits and challenges of the process and the components of classical and pedagogical universities. The authors emphasize that the association of scientific, educational, human, material and technical capacities within a single university is a good basis for the further modernization of teacher education at the present stage.
Analysis of the existing practice of the implementation of Master’s programs in the direction of prep-aration- “Teacher education” made it possible to identify a number of problems, which are conditionally divided into two groups. The first group of problems is organizational in nature and is related to the struc-ture of the Master’s programme in Teacher Education, the second group of problems is related to the substantive nature of the master’s program content.
The authors give characteristics of the new organizational structure of the Master’s teaching at Kazan Federal University, revealed its benefits and possible risks of implementation. The article outlines targets and strategy for the modernization of educational graduate programs in the federal university environment. The article is addressed to the administrative and teaching staff of higher education institutions, interested in the modernization of master teachers training programs.
Developing a model of professional training in the Discipline “Teacher education” at the Federal University
The topic of the article is relevant due to to the fact that there is a meaningful inquiry into the organization of teaching process at the Federal University in the discipline major- “Teacher Education”. The au-thors developed the educational standard of additional vocational training program in “Teacher Educa-tion”.
We offer the model of the organization of teacher education in the framework of professional train-ing, which is a project aimed at solving the problem of providing a new format of establishing and maintaining the training program for trainees, to focus on the competences specified in the federal state educational standard (GEF).
The purpose of the article is to describe the developed model of professional training, based on the implementation of the new structural and functional model of teacher training at the Federal University in the conditions of modern education.
The leading method to the study of this problem is the modeling method, we consider this issue as an integrative model of teacher training, which is based on flexible bachelors curricula of classical training areas (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) and provides the opportunity to change for pedagogical training profiles after the third or fourth year of study or after graduating from the University.
The model assumes the implementation of different trajectories (tracks) to “enter” teacher education through the organization of training under the program of professional retraining. The structure of the organization of different trajectories (tracks) of the retraining is propounded. We developed and proposed the model of organization of psychological monitoring and support of teacher training for discussion within professional training program.
Тhus, one of the possibilities to continue the construction of a new model of Teacher Education is to include it in the KFU Strategic Academic unit (SAE) “Teacher of the XXI century”. The area of teacher education transformation allows “in the framework of classical university, the development and imple-mentation of several models of teacher education organizations” (Tayurskii, 2016). One of these models is the model of the additional professional education (retraining) in the major of Teacher Education.
The bases of the model described are the following principles (Novik, 2015):
– Negotiation of dominance of normative over subjective;
– Change of orientation from decision making to solving problems;
– Negotiation of dominance of analysis towards the composition of solutions;
– Negotiation of dominance of “subject-object” orientation in teaching.
The term “learning outcomes” was proposed in order to determine exactly what a student should achieve, in terms of “forms of education” and “diagnostic procedure” which refers to the way he achieves this and the way he is able to demonstrate his achievements.