Modern Society's Need for Professional Teacher Preparation
Modern society faces an urgent need for professional teacher preparation as a result of the advancement of science and technology as well as the intensification of the material, social, and spiritual life of society, which place greater demands on the educational system and its topics. The implementation of vocational guidance for students in contemporary social life conditions is of particular importance in this regard due to the rapidly changing content, structure, and modes of operation of the various professions. In order to prepare students for careers in academia, it is necessary to equip them with new information, abilities, and skills. Only instructors are in charge of this. This paper aims at clarification of the kind of skills and approaches that are necessary for the improvement of the quality of education.
The Importance of Critical Thinking and Decision-Making Skills
1.Cochran-Smith et al. (2015) stated that the societies of teachers demand employees who are able to think critically and make decisions according to some certain unexpected situations. Such actions can be performed in a case when a teacher candidate has a specific character with a set of necessary character traits, or many of them can be developed through obtaining an intense education and practice. However, the authors agree that professional skills can also be developed in classrooms during the teaching process, transmitting factual information to learners (2015). Additionally, Hollins (2011) stated that the most important aspect of teaching and learning is having psychological skills, in the sense that any teacher should know learners as individuals; as members of social and cultural groups; as learners with particular characteristics; and as learners at a particular point in their academic, emotional, psychological, and social development (Hollins, 2011). Teachers are obliged to understand their roles in shaping the personality of a student, the personality of the information civilization. One of the main tasks of school education today is the preparation of learners for the rapid perception and processing of large amounts of information, equipping them with modern means and technology, and forming an information culture for them.
The Responsibility of Teachers in Providing Quality Education
2. In each family, parents make their own decisions as to which type of study will be the most suitable option for children. For certain reasons, some of them choose individual programs, with an in-depth study of mathematics or foreign languages. This is a very understandable request from the parents. However, now the quality of education is only on the responsibility of the teacher. There are argues concerning certification of teachers, which should be abandoned by states in order to remove "regulatory barriers" to teaching (Darling-Hammond et al., 2010). Having six students on individual programs and three to study the art of English, I need to be able to properly allocate my time so that I can give each of them enough time, explain the material and do it so that the student can get new information, and also they obtain new questions that require reflections.
Enhancing Interest and Knowledge through Varied Approaches
For example, if speaking of the science on the solar system, various approaches should be applied. The reasonable opposition of textbooks must be provided. In the science on the solar system, it would be much more interesting for pupils to study topics like "Small objects of the solar system", adding information about meteorites found on the territory of their native land. Or asteroids, whose names are associated with famous countrymen, for instance. In addition, it is necessary to develop ideas for humanization and show a number of phenomena in the historical plan, connecting astronomical material to physics. Developing some gradual interest in children would contribute to the quality of knowledge obtained in school and, eventually, it would influence their future in terms of the choice of future sphere of interests and profession.
References
Cochran-Smith, M., Villegas, A. M., Abrams, L., Chavez-Moreno, L., Mills, T., Stern, R. (2015). “Critiquing Teacher Preparation Research: An Overview of the Field, Part II”. Journal of Teacher Education 2015, Vol. 66(2) pp. 109–121.
Darling-Hammond, L., Chung Wei, R., Johnson, C. M. (2010). “Teacher Preparation and Teacher Learning. A Changing Policy Landscape”. Stanford University. Retrieved from https://scale.stanford.edu/system/files/Teacher_Preparation_and_Teacher_Learning_A_Changing_Policy_Landscape.pdf. Accessed 27 August, 2017.
Hollins, Etta R. (2011). “Teacher Preparation For Quality Teaching”. Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 62(4) pp. 395–407.
