Fulfillment of the Professional Development Plan of Pre-Primary School Teachers

Abstract

This document presents the components of the professional devel-opment of pre-primary school teachers, in which the teacher plans her own professional development in educational fields. These are based on the teacher’s conscious educational needs stemming from her self-reflection on her profes-sional activities. A teacher’s preparatory pedagogical education plays an impor-tant role in pre-primary school teacher professional development planning. One of the forms of preparatory pedagogical education leading to the profession of pre-primary school teacher is study at a higher education institution/university. This form of study has been included in our investigation. At this institution, we investigated the expressed educational needs that represent the content of the professional development plan of students in the third year of combined study in pre-primary school education. This professional development plan includes students’ statement of educational fields in which they have a need for further education following the completion of their studies. The educational needs of students were investigated in relation to the length of their pedagogical expe-rience. Our aim was to determine specific educational fields for the students’ professional development plan, for which we assumed that the structure of the educational fields in relation to the length of their work experience would be dis-parate. We also investigated the source of their educational needs, e.g. the forms and methods of their self-reflection on their professional activities. We were furthermore interested in the obstacles that they face in the implementation op-portunities of their professional development plan.

Keywords

• PPS teacher
• professional development
• continuing education
• selfreflection