Innovative Practice in Initial Professional Studies for Czech Pre-School Teachers

Abstract

Over the last three decades, there has been an increase in university level education for pre-school teachers in the Czech Republic. The aim of the paper is to present part of the results of a research study comparing the Bachelor's degree programmes in pre-school pedagogy at ten of the country's universities. Conducted between 2020-2022, the research found that although the national minimum qualification for pre-school teachers remains at secondary vocational level, tertiary level qualifications are much more common among more recently qualified pre-teachers. The democratic transformation of the Czech education system during the last 30 years introduced many improvements such as innovation in the conception, structure, content and organisation of Bachelor's degree programmes. Especially in the last decade, these mainly relate to greater integration of teaching theory, didactics and practical training of students. In some universities these initiatives have also resulted in modularisation of courses and cooperation between lecturers from different subject disciplines and departments. This article presents examples from two Czech universities to illustrate how these new approaches were successfully implemented and resulted in positive feedback from students.

Video in Blendend Teacher Education: A Tool for Practicing Teaching Analysis

“…The teacher facilitated the discussion to reach collective agreement among all groups on the typical characteristics of good teaching. The result of the joint discussion was then compared with the list of observable teacher skills formulated in the document Framework of Teacher Professional Qualities (PQF) (Tomková et al, 2012), which is one of the tools used for self-assessment and evaluation of teaching in the Czech Republic in conditions where there is no standard for the teaching profession (Loudová Stralczynská et al, 2022). The aim of this part of the lesson was to make students realize that they can intuitively identify many of the teaching qualities, but at the same time, that opinions on what can be considered quality vary.…”

“…It is also necessary to recruit candidates for teacher education from among people who have been working in the field of education for a long time and who therefore, often because of family commitments, cannot pursue a full-time form of study (Brücknerová et al, 2020). Teacher educators are faced with the challenge of designing their courses to achieve maximum effect with a limited number of faceto-face meetings and practice in schools under the supervision of selected teachers (Loudová Stralczynská et al, 2022;Stará et al, 2020). The notion of the teacher as a reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983) requires finding new ways to link theory and practice even in these limiting conditions.…”