Organizational And Methodological Support For Certification Of Teachers Of Islamic Education

Abstract

Education has always been the most important and significant category for Muslims in terms of their religion, traditions and culture. In the Holy Quran, the acquisition of knowledge is seen as a necessity (from the cradle to the grave), which increases the dignity of a person. In this regard, improving the professional and pedagogical skills of teachers in the system of Islamic education is relevant, and a special role is played by the certification of their level of professional competence, skills and personality traits. However, a survey of teachers of Islamic disciplines shows that the biggest problem for them is lack of competence in the field of teaching Islamic disciplines, the design and implementation of the pedagogical process, the development of methodological support for the teaching process and the lack of information and communication competence of mugallim teachers. In conditions when, in relation to modern pedagogical workers, the religious education system does not define and does not fix normative requirements for their qualification level, psychological, pedagogical and religious training of mugallim teachers should be accompanied by certification, which allows differentiating mugallims in terms of professionalism, and, therefore, identify the carriers of pedagogical experience to be generalized and disseminated, on the one hand, and help the mugallim to realize the shortcomings in their professional pedagogical activity in order to build a focused process of self-improvement. To date, the experience of certification of teachers in the Islamic education system exists in various formats and at different levels.

Keywords: CertificationIslamic educationmugallimsportfoliosupport

Introduction

In the process of transforming the modern economy, production and the socio-spiritual sphere of society, key positions are given to the modernization of the vocational education system, in particular to the improvement of the system increasing the professional competence of teachers. One of the factors ensuring the professional growth of teachers is their certification, which is one of the mechanisms for managing education and its quality, as it stimulates and motivates teachers to more effective professional activities (Dorozhkin, Zeer, & Shevchenko, 2017). The certification procedure for teachers can be called a management evaluation tool; a mechanism of internal control over the results of professional activities of teachers; human resources for the education system and the educational process (Emanuilova, 1994; Kovina, 1997; Molchanov & Sadyikova, 2018).

In the system of seculareducation, the certification procedure for pedagogical personnel pursues such goals as continuous improvement of the professional level of teachers who implement pedagogical activities (Karpov, Kuznetzova, & Kuznetsova, 2011); regulation of the quality of education for the further professional development of teachers; identification of professional deficiencies of teachers for their further elimination through training, advanced training and professional retraining; identification of the best pedagogical practices to be studied and disseminated (Mahiyanova, 2018). Certification of the teachers of religious education today performs far from all of the above functions. Certification of mugallims does not fully comply with the principles of consistency, succession, and practice-oriented orientation.

Professional standards and corresponding funds of assessment tools that reflect both the pedagogical (methodological) component and the subject (professional) have been developed and approved for teachers of secular education. Since the systems of religious and non-religious education are separate and, having different goals and content, are implemented in isolation, the processes of organizational and methodological support of the educational process proceed in different ways. In particular, in the system of religious education due attention is not given to the certification and support of the methodological skills of mugallims.

Thus, the study of the experience of certification of teachers in the system of Islamic education made it possible to highlight the contradictions between:

– increasing demands made by society and Muslim religious organizations (MRO) on the quality of training of mugallim teachers, and insufficiently developed theoretical and practical foundations for certification to ensure that these requirements are met;

– the awareness of mugallim teachers and MRO managers about the need to modernize the process of preparing for certification and conducting certification procedures and the insufficiently developed set of methodological materials, algorithms, and certification procedures.

Problem Statement

In the context of the ongoing transformation of the spiritual and moral preferences of the society, a surge of interest in various religious movements and the intensive introduction of modern information technologies, the interaction of various religious cultures, teachers in the Islamic education system with a high level of professional competence, with a high methodological and pedagogical culture and skill are especially in demand (Gromova & Saitova, 2016). In the Holy Quran, the acquisition of knowledge is considered as a necessity that increases the dignity of a person, calls for constantly gaining knowledge, wandering in the name of their acquisition, praying for the increase of knowledge (Sayakhov & Aminov, 2018). In this regard, the improvement of teachers in the system of Islamic education is relevant. In this regard, a competent mugallim teacher with deep psychological and pedagogical knowledge, as well as the skills to organize interaction with the population and parishioners, the skills of conflict-free communication and strong religious convictions, capable of competently and convincingly spreading faith in modern society, is needed (Klarin, 1999).

A review and analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature showed that there are enough studies on the organization and conduct of certification among domestic scientists. The issues of lifelong education are disclosed in the writings of (Gershunskiy, 2008; Tryapitsina, 2001), the psychological aspects of continuing education of teachers are studied in the writings of Asmolov, to description of the process of expert examination the works of Simonovare devoted (Asmolov, 2003; Simonov, 2012). The theoretical foundations of the certification system for teaching staff were considered by (Kuzmina, 1970; Nemova, 2014).

Research Questions

The analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature and practice in the field of development of Muslim education made it possible to formulate the subject of research: organizational and methodological support for certification of teaching staff in the Islamic education system, which is a set of documents containing a systematic description of the certification process to be implemented in practice: systematization of requirements for professional skills and personal characteristics of mugallims, algorithm for preparing mugallims for certification, system of certification assessment tools, methods and forms of certification activities.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the current study is to develop and test the organizational and methodological support of certification of teachers in the system of Islamic education.

Research Methods

In the process of implementation the Roadmap for the realization of BSPU named after M.Akmullah in 2018, an action plan to ensure the training of specialists with in-depth knowledge of the history and culture of Islam in 2017-2020, approved by the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of November 18, 2016 No. 2452-r “Organization and holding of methodological seminars with the aim of discussing substantive aspects of implementing training programs for specialists with in-depth knowledge of the history and culture of Islam ”and the Order of the FSBEI of Higher Education ‘BSPU named after M. Akmullah’ dated July 6, 2018 No. 75 / n, a request to develop the methodological support and conduct a certification procedure for teachers of the Islamic education system was received.

At the first (preparatory) stage of the study, the Institute of extended educationof BSPU named after M.Akmullah carried out incoming monitoring of teachers from the schools of note, the Russian Islamic University (RIU) and colleges (madrasah) for compliance with their qualification requirements. The monitoring allowed us to conduct a self-assessment of the readiness of teachers to implement their professional duties, to identify a list of professional deficits that cause the most anxiety and concern (Table 01 ).

The existing professional deficits are due to the fact that part of the muggalim teachers have higher pedagogical education or secondary professional pedagogical education, the second part is higher or secondary vocational education, but technical (non-pedagogical), and part of the muggalim teachers have only religious education, therefore all of them have pedagogical skills and skills at different levels. As the monitoring analysis shows, some mugallims, possessing a sufficient level of subject (religious knowledge) competence, demonstrate an insufficient level of formation of psychological, pedagogical and methodological and informational and communicative competence, which does not allow achieving high levels of educational results of students.

A mandatory requirement for certification of teachers is the availability of the fund of assessment tools. The fund ofassessment tools (FAT) is a set of teaching materials that standardize the procedures for assessing the level of professional mastery of mugallim educators, which allows establishing the conformity of their professional achievements to the planned learning outcomes and the requirements of educational programs implemented in the Islamic education system (Bahtiyarova, Oruzbaeva, & Zaytunova, 2017, p. 35). When developing the fund of assessment tools for certification of mugallim teachers, we followed the following steps:

preliminary stage (certification planning): development of a complete set of requirements for levels or qualifications, determination of assessment indicators (structural matrix of labor actions and their behavioral indicators), determination of assessment activities, determination of the means necessary for certification. It is important to note that when developing the list of mugallim’s actions, the unambiguity of the wording of the control object (action) and its diagnostics was determined using B. Bloom's taxonomy;

methodological stage (development of the educational program content): selection in accordance with the indicators of assessment of control tasks, the results of which can be used to judge the level of professionalism of the mugallim teacher. When selecting the content and developing a fund of assessment tools, the structuring of control tasks occurred according to behavioral indicators or monitoring measures. Next, we determined the criteria for evaluating the results of the control tasks.

final stage (development of methodological materials for certification programme participants): instructions for assignments (cases), scripts for monitoring activities, assessment tools (checklists, answer forms, questionnaires, assessment sheets, review templates, etc.).

The basis for the creation of a fund of assessment toolsdetermining compliance with the requirements of mugallim educators of the position and their qualification categories is set by the professional standard. As a basis, we took the professional standard of the teacher, which includes a set of competencies and labor functions that provide solutions to the basic functional tasks of pedagogical activity, i.e. the totality of knowledge, skills, abilities and personal qualities that can successfully solve professional problems.

After creating the above organizational and methodological support, we started testing it, which was organized in 2018 at the premises of the local Muslim religious organization (LMRO) Ihlas (Ufa). The certification was attended by over 100 teachers. During certification, the competence of teachers was determined in the following areas:

• determination of the level of subject competence;

• determination of the level of informational and communicative competences;

• determination of the level of psychological and pedagogical competence;

• determination of the level of students’ achievements.

One of the most commonly used types of assessment tools for the level of assimilation of knowledge is tests, as a standardized measurement procedure, consisting of a series of relatively short tests, which can be various tasks, questions, situations. Tests compiled for the certification procedure of mugallim teachers included questions on the psychological and pedagogical disciplines and issues related to religious content (the Quran, hadiths, historical facts about the prophets and the emergence of the religion of Islam). The developed tests met the main quality criteria: reliability, objectivity, validity, representativeness, systematicity.

As tasks of a competency-based format, cases were developed as the most effective method for checking the quality of professional skills of mugallim teachers. The case study was a practice-oriented task, consisting of a description of the real professional situation and the totality of tasks and questions formulated for it, as well as instructions for completion. The case technology in the process of certification of mugallims includes the following steps: individual independent work with the case materials (analysis, problem identification, solution development, forecasting the expected result, fulfillment of the case tasks, execution of the answer); work in small groups to coordinate the vision of a key problem and its solutions; presentation and verification of the results of small groups in a general discussion or introspection of a case study.

At that stage of certification, the work was as follows. The qualifiable is given the situation presented in a descriptive plan, or in video format. He/she needs to get involved in resolving this situation, getting into the role of mugallim and in real actions show the most correct and optimal solution to the situation. The real behavior of the mugallim is evaluated from the position of three experts: a religious figure, a teacher and a psychologist, each having their own evaluation criteria. The points obtained from experts are added up and the arithmetic mean value is displayed. The maximum number of points awarded for this stage is 21. To establish the correspondence of the mugallim position, it is recommended to score at least 13 points (which is 61% of the maximum number of points). Evaluation criteria are presented in Table 02 .

Another evaluation tool for the certification was the portfolio of a mugallim teacher. During the implementation of the study, we developed the structure of the mugallim portfolio, which included several sections, as well as criteria and indicators, and a recommended list of supporting documents. The mugallim portfolio structure element is presented in Table 03 .

Findings

Analysis of the certification results showed that there is a number of problems in the activities of teachers and this necessitates constant work with the teaching staff in the format of training and retraining, as well as in the format of self-education and internal organizational methodological work.

The study of the motives for involving teachers-mugallim in the certification process showed that the following motives are the most significant ones (Table 04 ).

Measuring the level of professional competence of a teacher in the system of Islamic education in the process of his/her certification is carried out using various assessment tools. The professional competence of mugallim educators was measured by its following indicators: level of subject competence; level of informational and communicative competence; level of psychological and pedagogical competence; level of students’ achievements.

During the experiment, we needed to study the initial level of professional competence of mugallim educators; to test the developed organizational and methodological support of the certification procedure; check the level of professional competence of mugallim educators after the introduction of certification training courses and organizational and methodological support.

The first stage of the experimental work was aimed at identifying the initial level of the studied competence in accordance with the identified criteria and indicators. The level of professional competence at the stage of the ascertaining experiment was determined for each structural component using the following methods: interrogation, interdisciplinary tests (containing religious and psychological-pedagogical components), questioning, testing, pedagogical observation and self-observation of teachers, statistical processing of research materials (Table 05 ).

These research methods, including the certification procedure, have revealed the lack of motivation of teachers to professional development.

To identify the level of professional and pedagogical competences, namely the level of knowledge in the field of psychological and pedagogical disciplines, we chose such methods as interdisciplinary tests, combining the elements of psychological, pedagogical and religious components, analysis of educational documentation, survey, case methods, expert assessment, studying the products of teachers' activities (creative works, scripts, speeches, training plans), pedagogical observation, reflection maps, introspection.

The determination of the level of each component of professional competence was carried out as follows: at first, we determined the level of each indicator, then transferred the obtained data to the scale of percentages and determined the level of formation of the criteria as a whole by the average score. To ensure comparability of the results of our study, we used a single scale from 1 to 3 points.

Having processed the results of the indicators of each criterion, we obtained a level characteristic of the criteria of professional competence and reflected it in the diagrams.

Thus, in the course of the ascertaining experiment, a diagnostic study of the initial level of formation of the professional competence of the respondents was conducted. Identified quantitative indicators once again confirm the relevance and need for the application of organizational and methodological support and the certification procedure of mugallim teachers. An analysis of the data obtained as a result of the stating assessment allows us to conclude that if the process of forming professional competence is not changed, then the formation of this competency will be at a low and medium level.

One of the important research tasks was to identify the dynamics of the levels of professional competence’s components formation. We needed to prove that the organizational and methodological support we developed for the certification of teachers in the Islamic education system affects the formation of their professional competence as a whole. To verify this assumption, we re-diagnosed the levels of formation of the components of the competency under consideration (Figure 01 and 02).

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In general, summarizing the results of the experimental work, we can conclude that the targeted implementation of special organizational and methodological support for the certification procedure of mugallim teachers contributes to the formation of their professional competence as a whole.

Conclusion

In the course of the research conducted by the temporary research team, methodological materials for the certification of teaching staff in the Islamic education system were developed and tested:

• multilevel characteristics of the activities of a modern teacher in the system of Islamic education have been developed in accordance with trends in standardizing the activities of teachers;

• portfolio structure for a mugalim, a senior mugalim and a mugalim-mentor have been developed;

• criteria and indicators for assessing the professional activities of teachers are proposed;

• presentation forms of one’s pedagogical experience were selected (methodological development of educational and upbringing lessons, educational programs in the taught disciplines, monitoring program, articles, master classes, self-education plans, presentations, websites, blogs, educational content, etc.);

• evaluation materials were developed to diagnose the level of formation of pedagogical and special (in the taught disciplines) knowledge in the form of test tasks, as well as pedagogical cases for the diagnosis of professional and pedagogical skills for solving problematic situations in the educational process;

• the certification procedure for teachers was developed and tested in practice;

• methodological materials for the certification of teaching staff in the Islamic education system were developed and tested.

• programs for the training of teachers for certification were developed and implemented;

an algorithm was developed to create a fund of assessment tools for the certification procedure: determination by the level of labor functions and labor actions; in accordance with the level of qualification, determination of labor activities for each level; for each labor action, the definition of verification tools (valuation tools); determination of assessment tools for each stage; development of evaluation tools and criteria for its evaluation.

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