Integration of Russian and Foreign Practice in the Model of In-Service Teacher Training Center

Abstract

The article discusses the results of research aimed to reveal successful in-service teacher’s training models basing on Russian and international experience. The authors make an attempt to identify the nature and specific features of the phenomenon of in-service teacher’s training, as well as levels of communication and cooperation of teachers at the in-service teaching training center. The terms and factors contributing to the effective practiceoriented in-service teacher’s training are revealed.

Keywords: Teacher professional growth, in-service training center, teacher support, teacher’s training

1. Introduction

The choice of the research base defines its originality – complex approach to support teacher

professional development using personalized activity-based methods of teacher training. The approach

is also focused on reflexive and communicative skills teachers need in their work, and complex

pedagogical tasks in teacher training.

2.Problem Statement

The review of literature and Internet resources revealed various models and practices of teacher

professional development in different countries (Lee, et al., 2013). In Russian practice, we point out a

range of pedagogical internship programs (successful but cost-based) and common teacher training

courses achieving typical goals of teacher professional development (Gevorkyan et al., 2013). Through

this stage of research we found the following challenges:

-Traditional teacher training practices are oriented on assimilation of another’s experience and are

built in traditional programs of teacher education. We did not find any model supporting teachers’

cooperative learning based on individualized routes, work in dialogue with tutor or coach, reflexive

practices, and self-development strategies.

-We identify a need of finding new forms and mechanisms of system cooperation between

academic institutions and teacher’s training centers with a common goal.

-Common methods of constructing linear education routes of teacher training do not meet anymore

the variety of teacher’s demands. Also we clearly see a need to formulate these demands.

The research goal is to construct a model of in-service teacher’s training considering not only

positive experience of teacher profession development found in content, technologies, and procedure,

but mostly implementing coaching methods, trainee’s individual support, and personal trajectory

development. It is also important to develop stages, terms, diagnostics, organizational and methodical

support of teacher-trainees’ activity.

3.Research questions

The main research objectives are developing the concept of in-service teacher’s training based on

complex approach, shaping a multilevel model of such a training, and its’ procedural guidelines.

Complexity of the approach allows talking about entire psychological and professional teacher

formation through different stages. Complex structure of the approach also allows combining different

types of resources to construct the education program more oriented to personal and professional

teacher growth.

4.Purpose of the study

The main goal of the research is to develop a teacher training model based on the analysis of

existing practices and taking advantages of new approaches, methods, contents and support techniques

of the teacher training process. The results of such training should differ in quality.

5. Research Methods

In the research we used comparative analysis of Russian and foreign experience of teacher training

organization. We also used modelling of in-service teacher training system based on activity

approach with consideration for complex balance of teacher professional and personal goals.

6. Findings

The study of existing practices of teacher training in Russia shows that there are mostly traditional

forms: seminars, workshops, panels, excursions, demonstration lessons, discussions on solving

pedagogical tasks used during training sessions, as well as more advanced forms: webinars, chats, on-

line teaching, seminar-presentations, colloquiums, teaching improvisations etc.

In Russian modern education reality, the term “stazhirovochnaiya ploschadka” for which we have

chosen the translation –«in-service training center» – means a school that announces itself as a study

placement after some competition procedure and usually becomes a place where teachers share their

experience in certain area with others. The products manufactured there are educational and teaching

programs, projects and models, digital educational resources, study and assessment guides, trainees’

diary books, lesson development plans, source books, information packages etc. Such training centers

serve as places for development of successful models for municipal education departments with their

further implementation elsewhere.

Our research on current work of study placements in Russia revealed that not whole potential of

methods of individualized teacher support are used in this mass campaign. In most cases routine and

formal teacher development programs took place there. One can hardly notice activities including

effective teacher support by tutors, effective module-based teacher skills development, teachers getting

new reflexive lesson experience, work with children with special needs, actualizing humanist values

etc. Another challenge we found was a diagnostics of individual (including personal) results at the end

of in-service teacher’s training.

The analysis of this issue in the international context showed that in New Zealand, Australia, Korea,

Switzerland, France and Japan, teacher’s training centers work with individualized trajectories of

teachers. Portfolios and reflexive diaries are often used here. In most teacher educational policies, it is

common for teacher training to be person- and practice-oriented (Sergienko, Panfilova, Sokolova,

2015). Also specific professional goals of each trainee have to be achieved there.

After we did a complex theoretical analysis of international in-service teachers’ training methods,

we can articulate that to be effective, it should be based on perfection of teaching practice and also be

very similar to teacher’s real work place (Sokolova, Shilova, Ilyushin, 2015). If so, during the training

program, teacher does not only discover new experience, teaching methods and techniques, but “lives”

it altogether with colleagues and students.

We developed methodological criteria for in-service teacher’s training center development and

functioning. They are listed below.

1) Basic (specific) goals of in-service teacher’s training are:

Institutionalization of approaches to teacher professional growth and personal development.

Development of teacher personal and professional growth. Attainment of the sense of his/her professional work by teacher.

Recognition of the challenges from the system of education and school practice by the teacher. Joint positive experience teacher get together with tutor and colleagues in solving professional tasks

in live school environment.

2) Specific content of the training is in the context of actual formats and in-demand educational

ideas:

Exploring through the training methods to evaluate students’ levels of understanding and interest. Maintaining teacher’s attention to such important areas as students’ exploratory behavior, notional

reading and project skills.

Mastering available and creating teacher’s own didactic materials concerning alternative assessment, e-teaching, overcoming student difficulties, developing persistent student attention and

interest during lessons and non-school hours.

 Personal teacher’s identity formation in terms of teaching style, communicative culture, and skills of behavior in conflict situations.

Psychological consulting and pedagogical audit of axiological and methodological aspects of teacher’s work upon request.

 Developing teachers’ academic notations within their subject areas and allied sciences and culture. 3) Technologies used as a factor of practically oriented training: construction and analysis of case

studies; team/pair work; reflexive and adaptive behavior trainings; transactional and discourse analysis;

road mapping of pedagogical interaction; expertise of work materials; teacher-trainee’s portfolio; self-

observation; sense metaphors; master-classes; simulations.

4) Expected results of teacher’s training at the in-service training center:

Development of teacher’s motivated behavior as a result of mastering new teaching methods and instruments.

Acquisition of internal contradictions and self-deficiencies in professional activity by the teacher. Readiness to breakdown teaching stereotypes of perception children and their parents in the light of

new social reality and changes of general education goals.

Growth of teacher’s social optimism under the conditions of trouble-free emotionally positive atmosphere of the study placement.

Teacher’s professional information search algorithms, investigative dialogue, and overt observation in order to generate own creative solutions in teaching.

Teacher’s vocabulary expansion together with mastering empathic speech to enhance more efficient dialogue with children.

 Actualization of teacher’s personal need to get an attractive present-day look and development of charismatic aspects of own behavior.

5)Final presentation formats are: trainee diary; structured self-observation list; video record of

trainee’s practices during the training; performance evaluation report by tutor etc.

6)Internal and external diagnostics instruments are:

Starting interview with teacher-trainees in order to identify professional and personalized requests for the training.

Structured interview with teacher-trainees at the end of the training.

Intra-school evaluation of new teaching practices proposed by the trainee after the training.

Teacher’s public report on the results of the training to the children’s parents and colleagues. Instruments allowing receiving feed-back from tutor, children, and parents involved in the teacher’s

training.

7) The model includes the following levels of subject-to-subject interaction during the in-service

teacher’s training:

Level of trainee’s overt observation on master practice given by tutor or co-trainee.

Level of collective projects, peer evaluation, search and divided reflection during the training. Level of individual conscious implementation of teacher’s pedagogical position during the training. Level of transfer, transmission of knowledge, skills, value judgments, and emotional context gained

at the training center into the environment of teacher’s own school.

8) The model sets out the principles of interaction between the participants of teacher’s training

process. This interaction become actualized through:

Research based learning strategies and implementation of their results into teaching practice. Integrated learning strategies (integration of professional education master-classes and personal

development trainings).

Learning succession planning strategies.

Cooperative learning strategies.

Communication learning strategies.

Social network learning strategies.

Strategic training of life purpose actualization.

The study of business conditions and factors of effective in-service teacher’s training revealed the

following:

-Support of such a training requires special financial plan considering tutor assistance,

administration support, changes in a scheme of school life;

-Such a training should be held on the base of educational institutions that already use innovative

education practices, that give rise to new actual technologies and patterns;

-It is reasonable to integrate teacher’s training centers making a network structure;

-Their transparent work should be supported by a singular federal web portal that would allow a

public discussion on educational projects (including Internet-conferences, forums, and more);

-To make the teacher’s training effective, there is a need to organize special tutor’s training.

The teacher’s training programs should create teacher’s supportive environment rather than give

information and knowledge. The sense of teacher’s competency is in teaching, which is based on

feedback, readiness to build the reflective path: I see children have a problem, I’m looking for the

instrument to solve it, I estimate the result, I put new professional task, I elaborate a strategy to solve

problems creatively. Consequently the teacher’s training should take place within real educational

process, when teachers can watch their colleagues solving (but not just talking about solving)

pedagogical tasks, and derive their own pedagogical solutions.

7. Conclusions

The research allows the making of reasonable theoretical statement, saying that the phenomenon of

in-service teacher’s training, first of all, should involve teachers living through their new professional

experience with a sense of success in teaching and acceptance of changes without stress. As a result

teachers would reasonably use new senses and practices they got after the training, in their everyday

teaching.

We suggest that the objectives of the in-service teacher’s training model allow evaluating how the

teachers are satisfied after the training. The objectives are based on teachers’ key demands for their

professional development:

• Relevance (pragmatic meaning);
• Interest (emotional engagement);
• Comfort (ergonomics and friendliness of environment);
• Availability (financial aspect and logistics);
• Communication potential (connections, contacts).

The research was funded by Russian Foundation for Humanities grant “Complex approach to

teacher training in the context of education lab”, project #15-06-10679a.

References

• Gevorkyan, E.N., Savenkov, A.I., Egorov, I.V., Vachkova, S.N. (2013). Internship as a Form of

• Organization of Post-graduation Practice in the System of Higher Professional Education. Vestnik of Moscow City Teacher Training University,2 (24), 32–43.

• Lee, D., Hong, H., Tay, W., & Lee, W. O. (2013). Professional Learning Сommunities in Singapore Schools. Journal of Cooperative Studies, 46(2), 53-56.

• Sergienko, A.Yu., Panfilova, L.G., Sokolova, I.I. (2015) Study Placement Experience in Russian and Foreign Education Practice, Man and Education, 3(44), 151 – 159.

• Sokolova, I.I., Ilyushin, L.S., Shilova, O.N. (2015) Influence of Socio-Cultural Circumstances on the Changes in the Training of the Modern Teacher, Man and Education, 3(44), 45-52.