Sonja Čotar Konrad / Tina ŠtembergerCHILDREN MATTER
Empowering teachers for generations to come

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Throughout history, teachers and schools have always presented the reflection of societies, their priorities, needs and their orientation. Today, in the fast-changing world, teachers’ roles are changing, as are the expectations directed towards them. Teachers are faced with demands in terms of in-depth subject knowledge, advanced pedagogical skills, reflective practice and ability to adapt teaching to the needs of each individual as well as to the needs of the group of learners as a whole.

Furthermore, teachers need to help students acquire not only “the skills that are easiest to teach and easiest to test”, also named ’hard skills’, but more importantly, the ’soft skills’, as ways of thinking (creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and persisting, self-regulated learning, etc.); ways of working (communication and collaboration); tools for working (including information and communications technologies); and skills pertiaining to citizenship, life and career as well as personal and social responsibility for success in modern democracies” (OECD, 2011).

In this book, we first focus on teachers’ professional development, their competences and continuous professional development. We first discuss the concept of professional development, present different models of this phenomena and problematize the issue of measuring it. The subject of tea chers’ competences is discussed on various levels, starting with trying to define which competences teachers need in order to successfully fulfil their roles in preschools and schools of the 21st century.

Based on the assumption that teachers gain their competences throughout their professional career, we highlight the importance of initial teacher education (ITE) as well as the importance of continuous professional development (CPD). In the context of initial teacher education, we further analyze the roles of teacher educators, i.e mentor teachers and university-based teachers, who are important factors at the beginnng of teachers’ professional career. As for continuous professional development, we present different models, understandings and possible outcomes of this essential part of teachers’ careers.

Ihr Werk im Verlag Dr. Kovač

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