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FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF DEVELOPING PRACTICE OF ON THE JOB ADVANCED TRAINING OF TEACHERS
B. Ch. Zhalmagambetova
There is a well-known thesis that the success of any educational organization depends on the qualifications and professionalism of the people working in it. The organization should have clear and universally accepted goals and strategies to achieve its goals. But it is also very important to ensure that people working in the organization want to know how to work to achieve these goals. The success of the organization primarily depends on this. The Institute of Advanced Training of Teachers in the Pavlodar Region (Kazakhstan) has started development of the research theme “Methodology and Methods of Implementation of Corporate Training in an Educational Organization” in the current year. There appeared a need for on the job training of teachers by means of inclusion of everyone into the process of corporate training. The activity focused on implementation of the research theme of the Institute includes research and experimental determination of the possibility of using corporate training in the development of professional competence of teachers. As a form of completion, we considered the need of creating and maintaining the University of Continuing Education for Pilot Schools, and holding an international conference “Corporate Training in the System of Advanced Training: Ideas, First Steps, Problems”.
In the process of developing the Action Program we have defined the basic stages of work on the implementation of corporate training: (1) identification of the needs of the teaching staff in training; the statement of the main tasks re: implementation of educational needs; (2) development of training modules of the Lifelong Education University Program; (3) implementation of the training Program content; (4) demonstration of the developed competencies by the teaching staff; (5) feedback (certification, external audit).
Activities of the branch focused on implementation of corporate training depend, of course, on the capabilities of the teaching staff, on the aspirations and desire of the school administrators to move forward, to grow, and to achieve high quality results. In this regard, to determine the expectations and health of the teaching staff, the work group of the Institute carried out a monitoring study in the form of questioning and testing. Based on the analysis of the received data, a generalized summary table according to a SWOT - analysis method was prepared. On the basis of the analytical information, the Program of the spring overview session was designed. The following tasks were identified: (a) to carry out training work on development of corporate “spirit of school”; (b) to organize efforts to analyze the needs of educators and the educational institution in order to identify problems of advanced training and to determine the components of the professional field of activity of teachers; (c) to organize educational activities of the teaching staff in the field of study of the theoretical and methodological content of the training modules; (d) to include teachers in the processes of teamwork.
Training modules of the Program of the spring session assumed participation of the pedagogical teams in the following activities: (a) psychological training to build corporate spirit in a team; (b) pedagogical training on designing
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promising activities of a school; (c) lecture - discussion on the implementation of the National Action Plan of the Republic of Kazakhstan focused on development of functional literacy of schoolchildren; (d) a lecture - dialogue and a “round table” on the state educational standard in 2012; (e) educational workshops on development of a school class from the standpoint of a competence-based approach, development of the learning activities in the subjects in accordance with Bloom's taxonomy.
By working together, the teaching teams developed a “Road Map”, which involves the organization of activity of a teacher according to the following stages: (1) understanding the structure and content of a new standard, and the requirements of its results; (2) identifying the fundamental differences with State Compulsory Educational Standards - 2012; (3) analysis of the training programs; (4) understanding capabilities concerning the technologies of organization of a lesson that guarantee the achievement of the expected results; (5) designing tasks that develop and test the diversity of the planned results (subject-based, system and activity-based, personality-based) according to the principles of the criteria-based assessment; (6) development of monitoring and measuring instrumentation for organizing control over the level of achievement of the planned results.
The first session made it possible to determine the priority directions of development of each school, and to ensure consolidation of efforts of the pedagogical teams in achieving new quality of the educational results, and developing a competitive status of the school. During the joint work, the teaching teams acquired a deep understanding of the current changes that are taking place in the educational system, and factors contributing to their emergence, at the stage of their formation - an ability to develop the learning tasks using the taxonomy of B. Bloom, to develop the learning tasks from the prospective of a competence-based approach, to solve the tasks of development of the functional literacy of students. Strengths of the teaching teams were identified, as well as the existing opportunities of the environment in addressing the identified problems. According to the opinion of the teaching staff, work should be continued, as the process of corporate training, on the one hand, contributed to the emergence of the new motives in raising the level of professional skills of teachers, knowledge and skills in the direction of implementation of the basic provisions of new State Compulsory Educational Standards - 2012; on the other hand - the fact was understood that no considerable changes have taken place so far in organization of a lesson and evaluation activity, that would reflect deep and full understanding of the new tasks determined by the Letter of President N. Nazarbaev addressed to the people of Kazakhstan “Kazakhstan's Way - 2050: One Goal, Common Interests, Common Future”, State Program of Education Development in Kazakhstan for 2011-2020.
Among the ways to solve the important problems of professional development of the teaching teams the following was mentioned: (a) to continue joint work with the Pavlodar branch of the Joint-Stock Company “Center for Advanced Training of the Teaching Staff “©рлеу”, to improve the professional skills of teachers in the process of development of functional literacy of students, development of training sessions from the perspective of a competence-based approach, training sessions in accordance with taxonomy of B. Bloom; (b) to carry out a series of seminars on the organization of criteria-based assessment of
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students, development of measuring instruments to assess students' achievements; (c) to contribute to the development of mechanisms for participation of parents in solving the tasks of improvement of functional literacy of students.
Thus, the first steps in the formation of the on the job educational practices indicate that success of learning depends, primarily, upon the involvement of the entire team in the process. The ways of organization of education shall encourage the teaching staff to show initiative and to undertake the responsibility in addressing professional development issues, and, as a consequence, to ensure the quality of the educational outcomes.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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