Petr
MACH
FPE ZČU v Plzni,
Department of Technical Education, Czech Republic
Paper deals with
the issue of teacher and pupil competences in vocational education that are
becoming the most important features of innovation and modernisation of the
educational process. They represent possibility of creative approach to the
development of didactic key competences.
Since mid 20th
century European educational system has been undergoing significant changes.
This development is the result of social changes of global character. Processes
of integration and globalisation of economics, migration of inhabitants,
mingling of cultural and religious worlds, and changes in value systems cause
changes in social-cultural superstructure. These are then inevitably reflected
in the area of upbringing and education. Council of Europe in their Lisbon
Summit in 2000 declared that the economic changes stated above and its planned
radical growth can be only materialized in the society based on knowledge. For
the region of education the following strategic aims were defined:
· Considerable
increase of expanses in human resources
· Support of
Life-long Education
· Adaptation of skills
and qualification to the knowledge based society needs
· Improvement of the system
of qualification recognition
· Implementation of
European dimension of education and support of language education
· Support of school partnership
via the Internet
The following debates in Stockholm (2001), Barcelona (2002), and
Brussels (2003) developed the programme of educational systems aims and
increase in level of education and qualification. During 2004 it was obvious that many of expected outcomes (mainly
the economic ones) will not be reached At the meeting of ministers of education
in Maastricht at the end of the year 2004 Copenhagen declaration was
updated and adjusted priorities were defined on national and European level,
focused especially on vocational education. These programme conceptions of European system of education must
be reflected in the transformation processes of Czech schools.
Most European
countries are now changed their educational policy as for their curricula. Curriculum
is here understood as defining obligatory aims, providing conditions for these
aims completion and creating evaluation tools for objective assessment of
meeting required targets. All three
components of the curriculum are guaranteed by the state. Target categories are
defined as national standards. In the Czech Republic it is Standard of
Secondary Vocational Education (1). In different countries the documents can
differ. The EU tries to create European framework for vocational education.
European framework should respect national frameworks unify basic requirements
for vocational education and enable to
recognize outcome documents (School leaving examinations, vocational training
certificate etc.) at different school levels according to ISCED qualification.
European recognition of qualifications will be the basis for efficiently
operating labour market. Qualification framework can be also described using
profession profiles – for particular directions, fields and
specialisations. Classification
frameworks are being developed in Czech education and are called National System
of Classification (NSK). The integrating element is here key competences. For
the area of education these were defined in Lisbon strategy. The focus is on
pupils competences and teacher’s competences are marginal.
The second part of curricular policy is to provide
conditions for implementation of educational system. It means not only money
invested by state to teaching aids and other equipment such as textbooks or ICT
technologies. It is also monitoring of labour market needs, coordination of
educational system and social partners from government, private and non-
governmental organisations. Last but not least it also deals with the
standardization of teaching profession, social position of the teacher, life-long
education of teachers etc.
Last part of the
curriculum is the counselling, informing and monitoring function. The
diagnostic system is the most important one. It means creating objective
evaluation tools for assessing pupils and schools results. Evaluation tools
have a form of production (evaluation) standards. Evaluation standards draw on
target standards (systems of qualifications) and include tools for meeting them
and methods for results verification. (Mainly
criteria evaluation).
Professional profile should provide entire information
about qualification requirements for the profession. School reform brings new
demands on teachers and thus new dimensions of teacher profession. Teaching has
been long understood as some kind of mission and the society expected a lot
from teachers. The teacher must have subject knowledge as well as pedagogical,
psychological, sociological, language and cultural education. Teacher must be
patient, just, fair, diligent, resourceful, creative, systematic, emphatic ….(2).
Because of school models in the EU and change of the teacher role it is
necessary for the teacher profession to be defined by professional standard. It
is an obligatory system of knowledge, skills, experience with knowledge application
in the field of pedagogy, pedagogy-psychology, didactics, management, all of
these necessary for successful execution of teacher profession – it means
upbringing and education. Teacher standard should be the basis for further
education of teachers and related career system. It would provide basis for
objective and state guaranteed evaluation tool for teachers, school, and school
system. Professional standard must be guaranteed by the state. In the Czech
Republic a generally accepted Professional teacher standard has not been
introduced yet. The teacher profession is only defined by qualification
requirement (Law no. 563/2004 for teachers).
A substantial part
of professional standard should be teacher competences. The issue of teacher
competences is being solved by contemporary pedagogy experts.
Also many Czech
experts defined normative boundaries of teacher competences with similar
results. Teacher competences for Technical Education in primary and lower
secondary education were defined by. I. Procházková (3). Also J.
Vašutová (4) dealt with the issues. Her group defined 8 areas of
abilities (competences): competence in subject area, competence in didactics,
and psycho didactic; competence in general pedagogy; competence in diagnostics
and intervention; competence in social communication; competence in management
and law; competence in professional reflection. All areas are worked out into
many basic skills. .
Based on empirical experience,
analysis of foreign and home resources and on regional research I defined a set
of key competences for teachers. The aim of the research was to find out the
attitudes of teachers to the issue of teacher competences, what attitudes they
find vital and their precise definition. 5 % of respondents were not able to precisely answer the basic
items of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was or too complicated or the
teachers have never dealt seriously with this matter. . Respondents of the
research were teacher from secondary vocational schools in Pilsen region (30
respondents). The results were difficult to process and thus they cannot be
considered as representative.
The final hierarchical order
of teacher competences and their articulation is as follows:
·
Competence in subject area. The teacher is able to manage the knowledge
of the subject, transform the subject into the curriculum, apply general
didactics into the subject methodology, use integration link between subjects.
·
Competence in subject methodology. The teacher is capable of creativity
in the field of aims, methods, innovations, and can provide individual approach
to pupils.
·
Competences in pedagogy and psychology. The teacher is able to solve
pedagogical and psychological problems in school practice, develop pupils’
personality including special needs, and create educational atmosphere respect
the child right.
·
Competences in diagnostics. The teacher is able to use all tools of
pedagogical diagnostics, identify social pathological behaviour of the pupil,
identify and support pupils with special needs, use auto diagnostics for
improving professional identity.
·
Competences in communication. The teacher is able to use information and
communication technologies to develop his professional level, to effectively
use means of communication in pedagogical environment.
This system of competences should not become
a matrix. The whole system should have a dynamic character where the
competences could be adjusted to particular conditions in schools as well as in
the society.
One of the ways of creative development of didactic competences while studying at
Pedagogical Faculty is to solve case studies.
The
aim is to provide students with basic knowledge of pedagogical procedures
related with pedagogical procedures called micro teaching. The purpose is to
get acquainted with methods that contribute to forming professional skills in
simulated or real school conditions. Case studies develop pedagogical and
communicative predispositions in school-like situations in four levels:
1.
preparation of didactic situation– so called preconcept
2.
its realisation in the form of simulated teaching
3.
reflection and self-reflection
4.
Re-drafting the situation – so-called postconcept.
Solution of case
studies in an inseparable part of the subject Didactics. Students get case
study of didactic skills. The chosen topic must be processed from the
vocational, pedagogical, psychological and didactical perspective. Students
describe the basic ideas and processes of the solution and their justification.
They form the conditions of case study implementation (environment, level of
pupils, teaching aids etc.).In this phase flexibility is developed, it means
ability to transform the given conditions into a virtual form. Then students
make the preconcept of the whole study. In the simulated environment (where
other students participate) they present the study. In this phase elaboration
and originality is developed. The study is video recorded, so it is microteaching
(video simulation). The record is used for final defence, where ale students
and the tutor participate. For this phase sensibility and redefinition is
typical. After this reflection students create the corrected version of the
study – postconcept.
Survey
of developed partial skills:
Design
diagnostic situation within the study
Create
preconcept
Anticipate
the course of presentation
Realize
situation in simulated or real environment
Compare
preconcept with realised situation
Analyze
the course of situation using video record and evaluation of participants
Use
self-reflection to redesign the study.
Method of case studies is appreciated by the students,
but it requires a lot of time and creative abilities of the tutor.
The paper was created inside the specific research.
1. MŠMT ČR. Standard středoškolského
odborného vzdělávání. Praha:
VÚOŠ, 1997. 101 s.
2.
Honzíková, J. Hospitace
v primárním školství. ℮-Pedagogium [online]. 2004, č. 3 [cit.2004-09-10].
Dostupné na :<http://epedagog.upol.cz/eped3.2004/index.htm>.
3. Procházková,
I. K problematice kompetencí učitele ve výuce
technické výchovy v primárním
vzdělávání. In Modernizace
vysokoškolské výuky technických
předmětů. Hradec Králové: Gaudeamus, 2001.
s.161 – 164. ISBN 80-7041-424-3.
4.
VAŠUTOVÁ,
J. Model tvorby profesního standardu. In Učitelé jako
profesní skupina, jejich vzdělávání a
podpůrný systém. 2.díl. Praha : UK PedF, 2001, s. 23-27 a s.
236-247.