THE DEVELOPMENT OF REFLECTIVE TEACHING SKILLS OF PRESERVICE HIGHER SCHOOL TEACHERS

Nowadays higher school teachers should possess a wide range of teaching skills to be good professionals, as university students have a strong professional motivation, and place high demands on the interaction with the teacher and his or her competence. Therefore, organizational and substantive issues of training qualified teachers for higher schools become topical, and many universities in different countries are developing training programs for preparing future teachers. The purpose of our study was to investigate the effect of the training program for pre-service university lecturers applied in St-Petersburg State University. We assume that one of the effective ways of preparing of prospective university teachers is the development of their reflective teaching skills by means of special training program. Our program based on the principles of activity and involvement, and on encouraging participants to take responsibility for learning. It relied on the multi-strategy which included informing of participants, training simulations, case studies, focus group discussions and reflection of teaching skills, manifested both in simulated situations of teaching and in the real teaching experience. The sample included 45 postgraduates (mean age 27.3 +/- 1.9) who had primary teaching practice and intention to work as a university lecturer. We used the questionnaire and eighteen 10-point scales (representing the necessary qualities of university teachers, including competence, communicative skills, motivation, didactic skills, etc) to study the self-assessment of participants, Eysenck Personality Inventory to study their emotional stability and extraversion/ introversion, and Yusupov technique to study their empathy. The final work of participants, with reflective writing of the experience, and the individual program of their further professional growth were subjected to content analysis. The effect of the program was also revealed by expert estimates. SPSS-20 was used for data processing. Results showed a high appreciation of the training program by participants. They got the greatest experience in reflection of their communicative teaching skills including the skills of analyzing of a teaching situation and their own behavior, contact with students, raising interest and activity of the audience, and skills of self-presentation; they mentioned as a very essential point the awareness of the individual temperamental characteristics, and the acquisition knowledge of the difficulties in communicating with students and ways of resolution of conflict teaching situations. Among further directions of professional growth the participants noted the necessity of development of communicative, organizational and public speaking skills, acquisition of modern educational technologies, and also the development of self-regulation skills, including self-control, coping with stressful situations, and care about health. Another direction was concerned with self-development, including the increase of self-confidence, development of self-knowledge and broadening of outlook. Based on the results obtained in the study, and expert assessment some additions and improvements in the program were made.