Pre-service teachers training for efficient health promoting school activities performance

All over the world the health of children and youth is considered to be the most important value. Therefore, one task of teachers’ education is to train pre-service primary school and kindergarten teachers in a way that enables them to maintain and strengthen their own and their students’ health. The aim of this article is to present the comparative results of a study of pre-service teachers’ majoring in “Primary Education” and “Preschool Education” readiness to perform health promotion activities, to disclose ways of higher education optimisation to find new content, methods and forms of improving the quality of pre-service school and preschool teachers’ training to conduct health promotion work. Our study employed a mixed research method. We developed a questionnaire that consisted of closed-ended and open-ended questions, combined into several sets. We also carried out an anonymous survey of second and third-year students of the Department of Pedagogy of Primary Education (n=133) and the Department of Preschool Education (n=145) of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University. The survey was conducted in March-April of 2019. The conducted research shows that the training of pre-service primary school and preschool teachers at higher educational establishments for health maintenance is effective, but needs some improvement. Regarding the motivational indicator of students’ readiness for health-promoting work, almost 65% of the respondents believe, that preserving the health of children and youth is the task of educational institutions. As for the cognitive component, more than one-half of our students demonstrate a sufficient level of the relevant knowledge, but their number depends on the problem and the academic discipline. There is also a slight difference in students’ answers concerning effective forms and methods of health promotion activity. The results of the study indicate that improvement is possible under the following conditions: purposeful and systematic implementation of pre-service teachers' health education, thorough refining of the course contents, the purpose and tasks of which are related to the development of healthcare competencies; an increase in academic hours for practical training; creation of high-quality textbooks and teaching aids; expanding the curricula of higher educational institutions through optional subjects aimed at the development of students’ competencies for their own and their students’ health maintenance, as well as habits of exercising in their free time

FORMATION OF FUTURE TEACHERS' VALUE ATTITUDE TO THE TEACHING PROFESSION: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

Pedagogical education determines the quality of professional training of specialists in all spheres of functioning of society and the state, which therefore contributes to their stability and development. In this regard, serious requirements are put forward to the personality of a modern teacher. However, the training of a teacher with an innovative type of thinking, ready for self-improvement throughout life, faces a number of problems: organizational, content, financial, etc. The development of modern pedagogical education is greatly influenced by informatization and the development of an open society, the development of civil society, the need to form a new cultural type of personality, etc. High requirements for the training of future teachers in modern conditions are in conflict with the falling prestige of this profession. In modern Ukrainian society the pedagogical profession is usually highly appreciated at the scientific and theoretical level, as well as at the declarative state level. However, despite this, in practice this assessment in terms of salary and working conditions is low. After all, the assessment of teachers by themselves as well as parents is not very high. The survey of future teachers (n=102) also confirmed this tendency. This circumstance actualizes the search for ways to form future teachers' value attitude to the teaching profession. Value attitude is the subject's internal acceptance of an object as a value. The value attitude to the pedagogical profession is represented by the unity of three components: cognitive, emotional and functional. In order to form in the mind of future teachers a value attitude to the teaching profession in the educational process of a higher education institution, a system was created in which the emphasis was placed on the formation of motivation for professional activity, modeling and solving professional and pedagogical tasks, as well as the permanent involvement of students in practical activities. The implemented pedagogical experiment proved the effectiveness of such a system

DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY VALUES IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

The modern world is extremely diverse. The processes of globalization in it contribute to the disappearance of borders: political, economic, religious, informational, etc. Personality is continuously facing the values of other cultures and other religions. By the way, he or she is not always able to properly evaluate and interpret them, what in its turn leads to the situation of conflict of values. The choice of necessary values becomes a complicated task and it definitely arises the need of pedagogical support of the process of values developing. Therefore, the situation described makes the problem of looking for the best ways of developing the values of the modern individual who lives in the world of values, where the chaos dominates, really topical, and that was the purpose of our research. Our poll conducted among teenagers and adolescents (n=120) proved an orientation towards their own and their family's problems, especially material ones. Instead, the decline in morality is an important social and personal problem for only a quarter of respondents, which makes the necessity to acquaint modern children and young people with higher values even more urgent. Educational institutions are challenged to assist students in the process of values choice in the complex axiological situations existing in the world, which is in the constant process of globalization. The search for ways of developing the values of the modern personality allowed us to identify the specific methods that contribute to the mastering of socially and personally significant values. These include text analysis (artistic, documentary, etc.), biographical methods, crystallization of values, problem solving, and more. These methods imply the active work of the pupil in the selection, mastering and appropriation of values, which will contribute to the formation of a highly moral personality with an active life position.

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TRAINING FOR EFFICIENT HEALTH PROMOTING SCHOOL ACTIVITIES PERFORMANCE

All over the world the health of children and youth is considered to be the most important value. Therefore, one task of teachers’ education is to train pre-service primary school and kindergarten teachers in a way that enables them to maintain and strengthen their own and their students’ health. The aim of this article is to present the comparative results of a study of pre-service teachers’ majoring in “Primary Education” and “Preschool Education” readiness to perform health promotion activities, to disclose ways of higher education optimisation to find new content, methods and forms of improving the quality of pre-service school and preschool teachers’ training to conduct health promotion work. Our study employed a mixed research method. We developed a questionnaire that consisted of closed-ended and open-ended questions, combined into several sets. We also carried out an anonymous survey of second and third-year students of the Department of Pedagogy of Primary Education (n=133) and the Department of Preschool Education (n=145) of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University. The survey was conducted in March-April of 2019. The conducted research shows that the training of pre-service primary school and preschool teachers at higher educational establishments for health maintenance is effective, but needs some improvement. Regarding the motivational indicator of students’ readiness for health-promoting work, almost 65% of the respondents believe, that preserving the health of children and youth is the task of educational institutions. As for the cognitive component, more than one-half of our students demonstrate a sufficient level of the relevant knowledge, but their number depends on the problem and the academic discipline. There is also a slight difference in students’ answers concerning effective forms and methods of health promotion activity. The results of the study indicate that improvement is possible under the following conditions: purposeful and systematic implementation of pre-service teachers' health education, thorough refining of the course contents, the purpose and tasks of which are related to the development of healthcare competencies; an increase in academic hours for practical training; creation of high-quality textbooks and teaching aids; expanding the curricula of higher educational institutions through optional subjects aimed at the development of students’ competencies for their own and their students’ health maintenance, as well as habits of exercising in their free time.