Abstract
The initial and continuous formation of the teaching staff implies the development of certain professional competences, but also of certain transversal competences. In this present study, we are interested in the way in which the competence for individual studying is developed in the students enrolled in the teacher training program and we aspired to establish the sub-competences relevant in this context, to which we have subsumed their characteristic activities as well. Following that line of thought, we have initiated a research through which we endeavored to determine the opinions of the teaching staff (those that teach the students of the teacher training program) in what concerns the manner in which they strive to develop this competence in their students. Thus, we were concerned with finding out the methods through which the teachers process and systematize the information during lectures and seminars with the purpose of facilitating the individual study of the students, in what manner the students’ reflection is being stimulated during said lectures and seminars, and the modalities through which the retention of information by the students is facilitated with the aim of enabling their individual studying. The present study encompasses the results of this research, and these results determine us to consider that the selfstudy of the future teacher must involve didactic activities through which reflection becomes one of the primary elements, as we consider that through reflection the student achieves control over his own learning process.
Keywords: Competencesub-competencestudentsteacher training programprospective teachers
Introduction
The present study aims at presenting the results of the research we have undertaken concerning the
way in which the teaching staff develops the competence for individual studying in their students.
Furthermore, based on those findings, we intend to establish the sub-competences necessary to the development of the competence for individual studying, while simultaneously identifying the types of
didactical activities specific to each sub-competence.
‘Competence is the ability to perform activities related to an occupation or function at the standard
defined by the employers’ (National Curriculum and Vocational Qualifications). The competency-based
system on which the occupational standards for the progression in a teaching career relies on assumes and
adapts the categories and levels of competence with which the European Qualifications Framework
(EQF), the Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the National
Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (NQFHE) operate with to the specific of the teaching
profession and to the requirements of the Romanian educational system (Potolea, & Toma, 2013). Thus,
the initial and continuous formation of the teaching staff relies on the competency-based approach and on
the concept of cumulative development of the competence level (The Methodology of Continuous
Professional Development). The specialized competences are defined in accordance with the NQFHE
Methodology, the professional competences which we wish to ingrain into prospective teachers referring
to the cognitive dimension (knowledge, understanding and the use of specific language, explanation and
interpretation) and to the functional-actional dimension (application, transfer and problem solving, critical
and constructive reflection, creativity and innovation) (Potolea, & Toma, 2013). The transversal
competences concern autonomy and responsibility, social interaction, and personal and professional
development (Potolea, & Toma, 2013). We consider that for the future teaching staff, the competence for
individual studying (with its specific sub-competences) is absolutely necessary. It is for this reason that
we consider it beneficial to dedicate an exhaustive analysis to it, in this context.
We regard individual studying as being a professional competence which involves an integrated
array of abilities and skills for the application, the operation, but especially for the transfer of the
pedagogical acquirements, abilities which enable the efficient conduct of an activity, in our case namely
the didactic activity, and the functional use of the didactical knowledge, acquirements, and skills within
varied educational contexts (Jucan, 2009). We consider that the development of the competence for self-
study in the students enrolled in the teacher training program (and not only) is achieved during lectures,
and especially during seminars.
Research Methodology
In order to determine the opinions of the teaching staff regarding the methods for stimulating the
development of the competence for individual studying in students, we have designed and administered a
semi-structured interview to 12 members of the academic staff who teach the students enrolled in the
teacher training program, an interview comprised of 10 questions. We were concerned with determining
the modalities through which the members of the academic staff process and systematize the information
in lectures and seminars with the purpose of facilitating the self-study of the students, in what manner the
students’ reflection is being stimulated during said lectures and seminars, and the methods through which
the retention of information by the students is facilitated with the aim of enabling their individual
studying.
The Findings of the Research
For the question ‘Do you make use of charts, diagrams, tables, cognitive organizers in order to
help students study easier, individually?’ the answers were as follows:
The majority of the teachers interviewed, a number of five, have answered that they generally do
not use charts, diagrams, tables, cognitive organizers during teaching in order to facilitate the students’
individual studying. Only three of the professors interviewed have stated that they generally use charts,
diagrams, tables, cognitive organizers during teaching. Only two members of the academic staff have
stated that they always employ charts, diagrams, tables, cognitive organizers during their teaching. The
teaching style of the remaining two members of the academic staff, according to their statements, never
include charts, diagrams, tables, and cognitive organizers. The conclusion reached, in this case, is that
teachers do not seem to be interested in the manner in which they synthesize the information taught to the
students with the aim of, subsequently, facilitating their understanding during their self-study.
By studying the fifth item of the interview guide, we intended to determine to what extent the
teachers are concerned with ascertaining whether the students have understood the content taught or the
learning tasks (by asking questions), to thus aid the students’ self-study.
‘Always’ is the answer given by one teacher, and a number of three teachers have answered that
generally, yes, they do ask questions of the students in order to enable their individual studying. The
majority, namely five of the members of the academic staff interviewed, have answered that they do not
usually ask questions of the students with the purpose of promoting their individual studying, and three of
the teachers have claimed that asking questions in order to verify the extent of the students’ understanding
of the content or of the learning tasks is not a method used by them. The distribution of the answers given
by the teachers on this item indicates that teachers place a higher emphasis on the transmission of the
informational content and are less focused on the students’ understanding and on individual studying.
Through the sixth item of the interview guide, we aim to determine whether the teachers are directly interested in creating moments for reflection or for individual study during the lectures or
seminars.
Out of the interviewed teachers, three of them have stated that they generally strive to create
moments for the students’ reflection or individual study during their lectures or seminars, and five of
them have answered that they usually do not create moments for reflection or for self-studying. The
answers at the extremes of the scale were offered by a small number of teachers, only a single teacher
stating that during their classes and seminars they always create moments for the students’ reflection and
individual study, and three teachers have answered that they never create said moments of reflection or
individual study during their lectures or seminars. It is worrying that the interviewed teachers do not seem
concerned with exploiting the students’ reflectiveness during the teaching-learning process, nor with
providing opportune moments for the students’ individual studying during lectures or seminars.
The seventh item of the interview guide refers to the students’ individual studying process, namely
the approach they use in relation to a specific learning task.
The answers obtained on this item indicates that the interviewed teachers are not preoccupied with
the manner in which their students study individually, the answers given by them being as follows: five of
the teachers have stated that they never ask their students to describe the approach they have used in
solving a task, four of the teachers have declared that they generally do not ask of their students that,
when they have a task, they should describe the moment of individual studying, two of the teachers have
answered that they generally ask the students to describe the learning process they use when they have a
certain task, and only a single teacher has stated that they always ask the students to describe their
studying process.
The analysis of the answers to this question of the interview leads us to the conclusion that the
teaching staff is more centered on the teaching process, to the detriment of the observation of the
individual study process.
The eighth item from the interview guide asked the teachers to identify the concrete methods
through which they consider that they would be able to support the retention of information by students
and, implicitly, their individual study.
One of the teachers offered the following answer to this item: ‘For the themes that I approach, I
will attempt to use teaching methods that are as interactive as possible and ask the students to
demonstrate that they have understood the content, by applying what I have told them in a practical
manner.’
We have introduced this particular item in order to verify if the teachers performed any personal
reflections concerning the methods they use in order to facilitate the individual study of the students,
methods which, due to the variety of answers obtained, have been grouped in categories and ordered
based on their frequency.
We can observe that the modalities preferred by the teachers and aimed at facilitating the retention
of information by the students are as follows: nine answers were centered on employing modern
didactical methods, another nine answers referred to teaching with the help of modern teaching aids,
seven answers stated that the teachers will employ charts, four answers claimed that they will use
explanation as a teaching method, another four answers specified that they will start writing down the main ideas on the blackboard, and the final three answers opted for emphasizing the important ideas
during their teaching. These answers indicate, nonetheless, the readiness of the teachers to facilitate the
students’ self-study by assuming the role of mediator and mentor in the students’ learning process,
through their involvement and the use of modern didactical means. The answers demonstrate that the
teachers do, in fact, want to help the students, they want to enable the individual studying of the students,
practically, they aspire to streamline their teaching style.
The Conclusions of the Conducted Study
The conclusions of the conducted study lead to the idea that in the framework of efficient teaching,
most of the teachers are focused on the transmission of contents and less on exercising the skill sets
necessary to the students during their self-study; the teachers attach great importance to understanding the
informational content and less to the methods through which they can facilitate the students’ individual
studying; the teachers do not appear to be concerned with the individual study the students employ for
their discipline; the teachers do not associate efficiency in learning with the ability of the students to
describe the process undertaken in their self-study. However, a gratifying aspect is the fact that the
teachers interviewed wish to employ modern didactical methods and want to teach with the use of modern
teaching aids, and in this manner, facilitate the individual study of the students.
Conclusions
Consequently, we consider that through the learning situations presented during lectures and
seminars, the teaching staff can develop in the prospective teachers the competence for individual
studying, through the following sub-competences (Jucan, 2009), which we will analyze in what follows
and we will associate their related activities:
The ability to understand the pedagogical information and knowledge;
The ability to explain, analyze and exemplify them;
The continuous development of a personal reflection process;
The ability to realize connections between the pedagogical contents;
The ability to organize and systematize the didactical knowledge within the individual study;
The ability to take notes in a systematic, organized and structured manner.
In order to be able to transmit information in accordance with the current standards, the future
teachers must have an in-depth knowledge of the subject matter and demonstrate intellectual mobility, so
that they would be capable of helping the pupils to create ‘cognitive maps’, to operate with connections
between varied ideas, and to address biases (Jucan, 2009).
Teachers must know how to structure the interdisciplinary connections and how to apply the
theoretical ideas to everyday activities. This type of understanding provides the foundation for knowledge
of the subject matter, from a pedagogical perspective, a fact which enables the prospective teacher to
transmit said knowledge and make it accessible to others (Shulman, 1987).
1Developing the Ability to Comprehend Information and Knowledge of a Pedagogical Type
Teaching others means first and foremost understanding the goals, the deep structures of the
subject being taught, and the fundamental ideas promoted by said subject matter, as well as those ideas
which have an effect outside of the strict framework of the discipline. The prospective teachers must
understand ‘what’ they are teaching and, where possible, they must comprehend this issue in multiple
manners (Tăuşan, 2016).
Comprehension at the level of the objectives is extremely important. Through the activities during
the courses and seminars of the teacher training module, the teaching staff engages in the pedagogic
process (of teaching) in order to achieve the following educational goals:
Instilling intellectual curiosity and the desire to acquire new information into students, by presenting the educational objectives, using accessible language, at the beginning of each course and seminar;
Helping the students achieve a broader understanding of the information accumulated by using graphic organizers, modern teaching methods, predominantly, explanation and problem-solving during seminars; Helping the students to develop a number of skills and a system of values required for the
integration in a society of liberty and justice (Shulman, 1992); helping the students to accept the
evolution of their responsibility, teaching them to trust others and manifest respect towards
them, by putting forward models of good practice;
5.2Developing the Ability to Reflect upon the Pedagogical Content
Reflection represents a mental process which, when applied to the act of learning pedagogical
content, stimulates the students to make use of their critical reasoning in the examination of the
information presented to them, question its validity, and reach conclusions based on the resulting ideas.
This continuous process enables the students of the teacher training module to restrict the area of possible
solutions and, ultimately, draw a conclusion. The result of this effort is the achievement of a better
understanding of pedagogical concepts. Without reflection, the learning of didactical content becomes
‘lacking in the reorganization of reasoning imposed by an in-depth learning’ (Ewell, 1997). The situations
of self-study in which efficient learning is achieved require thinking time. The students think of
themselves as individuals that are learning, all the while evaluating their own cognitive processes used to
decide which are the best strategies. They will then be able to apply this new information when
confronted with a future learning situation, either in pedagogy, or a different discipline. The teachers,
during their lectures and seminars, will, therefore, strive to create learning situations in which students
must employ their critical thinking in regards to given problem situations, to explain these, to find
solutions and original methods for resolving problematic situations.
5.3Developing the Ability to Explain, Analyze and Exemplify the Pedagogical Content
The possibility to understand the foundation of the knowledge of pedagogical activities lies at the
intersection between the content and the elements of pedagogy, and consists of the capacity of the
prospective teacher to transform the knowledge of the content in forms that are less influential from a
pedagogical perspective, but adaptable to the variety of abilities of the students. The didactic activities
undertaken in this context, aim at the possibilities of the student teacher to deduce, describe, explain, and
analyze the educational phenomenon by making connections, initiating debates, exemplifying within
educational contexts.
Reflection implies the revision, reconstruction, restoration, and critical analysis of the personal
didactical abilities, followed by synthesizing these observations with the intent of instituting changes that
may improve the future teacher’s performance. This is generally what a teacher does when they analyze
their activity in retrospective – reconstructs, restores, remembers events, feelings, and personal
achievements. Lucas (as cited in Ornstein, Thomas, & Lasley, 2000) has argued that reflection is an
important element of professional evolution. All prospective teachers must learn to observe the outcomes
and determine the causes for their success or failure. The learning situations during the lectures and
seminars of the teacher training program will center, therefore, on examples of good practice, which will
allow the students to observe, to critically analyze, to reflect, and especially to argue their chosen
approach.
Through acts of teaching, the prospective teacher acquires a new type of comprehension of the
goals of the educational process, of the subject matter taught, of the pupils, and in general of the
pedagogical mechanisms (Brodkey, 1986).
The studying framework created through the courses and the seminars enables the prospective
teachers to build their foundation of pedagogical knowledge (Grimmet, & MacKinnon, 1992), to explore
new ideas, to acquire and synthesize information, to formulate and resolve problem situations. To
accomplish this requires the creation of special learning situations, more relevant than the simple lecture
and heuristic conversation on the topic of the new pedagogical concepts acquired (Ball, & Cohen, 1996).
The future teachers learn best by studying, applying, and reflecting upon that which they studied,
collaborating with their colleagues, communicating the observations they make. A suitable setting for
training teachers provides numerous opportunities for the research and examination of the issues, for trial
and error, for discussing and evaluating the outcomes of the learning and teaching activities. The
combination between theory and practice (Miller, & Silvernail, 1994) is best achieved when there are
problems to be solved in a real context, during an ongoing seminar, within an environment in which the
theory acquired can be implemented.
We argue that the individual studying of the prospective teachers requires a model through which
reflection becomes one of the key elements, as we believe that through reflection the student assumes
control over his own learning process, during each lecture or seminar. Practicing reflection during each of
these will enrich their self-evaluation skills which, in turn, will help the prospective teachers to identify
their successes, as well as the inefficient procedures used by them in their learning process. During the
seminars, the students’ ability to apply their acquired knowledge in new contexts will be practiced, which
will result in a considerable impact on their process of knowledge acquisition, in the long-term.
Therefore, the teaching staff should strive to construct, during their courses and seminars, learning
situations through which the student teachers will be able to expand their theoretical knowledge,
inclusively through its operationalization and redefinition in the themes and tasks suggested for their
individual studying.
References
- Ball, D. L. & Cohen, D. K. (1996). Reform by the book: What is-or might be-the role of curriculum
- materials in teacher learning and instructional reform? Educational Researcher, 25(9), 6-8.
- Brodkey, J. J. (1986). Learning while teaching. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford
- University.
- Ewell, P. T. (1997). Identifying indicators of curricular quality. In G.J. Gaff, L.G. Ratcliff, &Associates (Eds.), Handbook of the undergraduate curriculum: A comprehensive guide to purposes, structures, practices, and change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Grimmet, P. & MacKinnon, A. (1992). Craft knowledge and the education of teachers. Review of research in education, 18(1), 385-456.
- Jucan, D. (2009). Strategii de activitate intelectuală a studenţilor. Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţă. Miller, L. & Silvernail, D., L. (1994). Wells Junior High School: Evolution of a professional development school. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Professional development schools: Schools for developing a profession (pp.56-80). New York: Teachers College Press.
- Ornstein, A. C., Thomas, J. & Lasley, I. (2000). Strategies for effective teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Potolea, D. & Toma, S. (2013). Standarde pentru profesia didactică, Congresul educaţiei. Bucureşti: (n.p.).
- Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22.
- Tăuşan, L. (2016).The centrality of the student in the instructive-educational process – A method of
- optimization of the school adaptation. Journal Plus Education, 14(1), 381-391.
Copyright information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
About this article
Publication Date
25 May 2017
Article Doi
eBook ISBN
978-1-80296-022-8
Publisher
Future Academy
Volume
23
Print ISBN (optional)
-
Edition Number
1st Edition
Pages
1-2032
Subjects
Educational strategies, educational policy, organization of education, management of education, teacher, teacher training
Cite this article as:
Jucan, D. (2017). The Individual Study – Competence Specific to Students of the Teacher Training Program. In E. Soare, & C. Langa (Eds.), Education Facing Contemporary World Issues, vol 23. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 713-721). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2017.05.02.87