Search results for: Estonia

Novice teachers’ need for support and induction is widely recognized, and so is the role of principals in that process. Accountability-driven reforms in education have compelled principals to increasingly focus on managerial responsibilities, whereas teachers are subjected to external assessment of their professional qualities and their students’ learning outcomes. This role division can undermine the principals’ readiness for instructional leadership and can affect their perceptions of novice teachers’ needs, knowledge, skills, and attitudes, which in turn potentially inhibits adequate support given to novice teachers. Therefore, it is important to know how principals and novice teachers assess novice teachers’ professional qualities. In this study, the authors investigated the Estonian preschool principals’ and novice preschool teachers’ assessments of the professional skills of novice teachers. Fifty-seven principals and 61 first-year teachers responded to a written questionnaire. They first found that, in almost all aspects, the novice teachers assessed their professional skills higher than did the preschool principals. Second, they found that when combining the assessments of both groups of respondents, the lowest ratings were given on novice teachers’ skills in working with children with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and with children with special needs. They discuss relevant implications for early childhood teacher education.

The purpose of the study was to investigate school-based teacher educators’ teaching and supervising goals and to identify how teachers in the role of supervisors perceived university expectations. Thematic analysis indicated that teachers have difficulty establishing goals for themselves as teachers and supervisors. Their teaching goals proceeded from curricula and focused on their pupils’ cognitive development, whilst their perceptions about supporting pupils’ social development were vague. Teachers were unaware of what exactly universities expected of them as supervisors, and believed that providing teaching models for student teachers as a main supervisory goal. It is necessary to offer options to encourage cooperation between teachers and universities and maintain supervisors’ professional development.

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors within the school environment that enhance and facilitate a teachers’ innovative behavior. Furthermore, it aims to examine whether it is possible to predict a teachers’ innovative behaviour with the proposed two-layer model (with self-efficacy being the first layer and teaching practices being the second). In this study, a model for predicting teachers’ innovative behaviour was proposed, with three general factors of school environment: interaction and involvement, need for innovation and freedom for innovation. The authors conclude that a teachers’ innovative potential is developed and used in the best possible way, when the school environment provides them with possibilities for self-development, recognition for their innovative behaviour and professional development and also constructive feedback from school management and the students’ parents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what kind of emotions are significant as identity shaping for student teachers. The findings show that both positive and negative emotions influence the teaching experiences of the students. In addition, the study reveal that negative emotions exercised the strongest influence. Furthermore, it show that strong negative emotions were expressed related to teachers and supervisors.