Self-reflection of pedagogic practice of pedagogy students in terms of quality of their own outcomes in school facilities The profession of an educator requires, first of all, enthusiasm for working with children, youth and adults in their free time. In order to rightly speak of an educator, we must underline the basic requirement - education. It is a profession that requires pedagogical and psychological expertise, creativity, courage in thinking, flexibility in social communication. Its demanding professional training compared to teaching can be seen in the fact that we prepare educators to work with different age categories for various schools, non-profit organizations and other institutions. The educator works in diverse conditions in which he educates, but also teaches. As an example, we can cite organizational activities in the children's school club - preparation for lessons or activities of interest. The demandingness of the professional training of this profession, its planning, implementation phase and reflective phase, can also be seen in the fact that there is no current or updated professional-methodical material for educators. We believe that great emphasis should be placed on the training of educators in order to develop their expertise and creativity at the same time. We would like to recall the seriousness of the educator's profession in the words of M. Kouteková (2007, p. 128), who claims that it is "a means of prevention, re-education and therapy". Educator - the one who listens, advises, explains, encourages, guides outside the formal educational reality, in his daily educational work he also takes on other roles: student – it is assumed that he is educated throughout his life in order to grow professionally, systematically studies and prepares for professional educational work, based on research findings that he tries to apply in practice, participates in professional-methodological seminars; teacher - uses educational methods to affect the cognitive side of the personality, stimulates children, youth, adults with pedagogical-didactic procedures and activities for interest-based learning, analyzes with them the consequences of educational activities, helps with homework; psychologist – since he can work with different age categories, he should respect developmental peculiarities in terms of maintaining attention, interests, safety, use of language in relation to age, social status, health handicap, find suitable means of motivation; expert consultant – for parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians in the area of individual requirements and children's specific interests, consultant of colleagues in the area of extracurricular education and educational work methodology; project manager – creates, leads and evaluates projects, writes interim and final evaluation reports, manages cooperation with other institutions within the framework of discussions, trips, excursions, theatrical performances, actions aimed at cooperation with parents; administrative worker – participates in the creation of assignments, manages the class agenda, preparations and evaluation, writes invitations, announcements, posters, communicates with parents in writing, collects school fees, etc.; researcher – it is assumed that he should enrich not only his work, or the work of the institution for research activity - applied and action research that would help children, youth, at least for the given institution; partner who encourages (in communication) – we mean the word "parent" or therapist, but let's talk more about a partner in whom the child has emotional support, in whom he finds trust, security in communication, or encouragement in unsuccessful communication situations; partner in the game – we can talk about a teammate who is interested in showing the possibilities of how activating methods can be used to penetrate socio-cultural interests, aesthetic-educational areas, natural science, physical education, work.
Based on the positions in which he can find himself during his daily work, we can also talk, similar to the teacher, about his competences. An educator or free-time educator should be able to master the following competences - pedagogical competences (designing, activities, its implementation - motivation and methodical activity), creating and maintaining an atmosphere and climate, evaluating one's own activities and the activities of children, organizing and managing activities in cooperation with parents and institutions in the village), social competences (communication skills, emotional stability, perceptual abilities, problem-solving abilities, a sense of cooperation and teamwork), personal competences (emotional stability, responsibility, the ability to self-reflect and self-regulate, the ability to adapt to changes and the ability of research thinking to apply the results), creativity competencies (the ability to search for, discover and process new activities and knowledge, the ability to flexibly solve educational problems, pedagogical problems, methodically and organizationally handle non-standard situations, etc.) We are convinced that all the above activities can improve the work of an educator, and perhaps even increase the effectiveness of his work. J. Ivanovičová (2007, p. 168) reminds that it is important that the practical training of the student is carried out not only on the level of cognitive and learning, but also on the level of affective guidance, for the educational formation of the student, for his self-building and for the development of his entire personality.
We dare to say that the social status of the educator in the current cultural and social conditions is still undervalued. As a result, we can also explain the reduced interest in the field of education in recent years. However, it is gratifying that the students of the study program Pedagogy in combination show interest in the extended subject study Pedagogy of free time (three semesters) in addition to the two approved teaching subjects. Pedagogical practice is part of the university training for the teacher profession. Various forms of pedagogical practice offer students the opportunity to observe, try out, compare, or fix approaches to education. Students of education do not have a precisely defined field of future competence. In future pedagogical practice, they can therefore be applied in various school facilities, cultural and educational facilities, civic associations, church associations, etc. They have the opportunity to verify their acquired knowledge, abilities, and skills during university training with various tools - observation, assisting, own outputs and self-reflection. That is why we guide students during their studies to be able to observe, think about observed educational phenomena in educational reality, lead them to analyze these phenomena, reveal the causes and consequences of the educational problems that have arisen and the interventions of the educator, and thus learn to draw their own conclusions. G. Petrová (2007, p. 291) from the point of view of developing the personality of the future teacher at the PF UKF in Nitra emphasizes that we focus not only on understanding the educational process, its content-process side, but we also emphasize the interactive side of this process and the creation of a positive school climate, the elimination of tension and stress, and this with the right motivation, we try to make students understand the process of social interaction and communication in order to acquire professional responsibility and learn to understand and apply professional relationships with parents and the local community, which leads to the building of self-confidence of the teacher.
During his studies at PF UKF in Nitra, a student completes several types of internships: introductory motivational internship, residential internship, assistant-hospital internship, exit internship, continuous block internship. The student chooses the last, continuous practice in an educational institution in the place of residence. With this practice, the student should complete his theoretical-practical preparation for university studies. It is assumed that this systematic daily contact with the educational reality, which includes the daily preparation of the project, implementation and reflective phase of pedagogical practice, enables the student to change his view of the future profession, and to this he necessarily adapts his behavior, actions, and attitudes. Daily entry into educational situations requires its preparation, methodology of educational work, variability in motivation, ability to organize and manage activities, notice changes and evaluate them - not only of children, but also changes in one's work. We agree with the statement of J. Gubricová (2007, p. 95) that while the inpatient practice should focus on a thorough analysis of activities, the output practice is oriented towards the development and support of the competencies necessary for performing the profession of an educator. In connection with the profession of an educator, one fundamental moment must be taken into account. The fact that the educational process takes place within the framework of informal education. And the main difference between formal and informal education is that it works informally on the basis of interests and voluntariness.
During the entire teaching experience, students create a portfolio. The portfolio contains data about the student and the facility where the student completes the internship. Another part of it consists of records from observations or own preparations for education, followed by their analysis and a final report from pedagogical practice. The last part consists of topics for practical activities, both for the educator and the student, which the student can later use in his own practice or with another group during his studies. As J. Ivanovičová points out (2007, p. 167), the goal of pedagogical practice depends on the profile of the graduate, and is specified in the development of a positive relationship to the profession, self-reflection of the student, cooperation with the trainee teacher and didactics of the specialized department, and the acquisition of organizational-school competencies. He reminds that basic skills are acquired: planning skills, management skills, skills necessary for the implementation of teaching units, skills leading to ensuring a favorable climate in the school and in the classroom, maintaining discipline, diagnostic skills and self-diagnostic skills. We focused on the last capabilities in our research.
Investigating the quality of one's own outputs through children's activities or (un)certainty in children's approach and activities as a mirror of didactic steps
In the last year of study, we gave the students a research tool that contained groups of categories according to which the students had to evaluate their outputs in pedagogical practice by expressing themselves using a five-point scale. Through self-reflection, which is characterized by going back to our own thinking, decision-making and actions, the students were supposed to find out what causes them the biggest problems, and conversely, what they feel confident about in their work with children and youth. Aye. B. Kosová (2008, p. 11) points out that one of the serious tasks is to teach students structured self-reflection of practice. B. Kasáčová (2005, p. 77), referring to Wright, reminds that only after the emergence of a cognitive conflict in the student's head, real reflection begins as self-reflection in the sense of analyzing one's thoughts and actions, as a teacher, and their consequences in the actions of students.
36 respondents were involved in the research, it was the final, fifth year of the final semester of master's studies. We did not include part-time study students in the research, who could be assumed to have different social experiences due to their age or different work professions. From the point of view of evaluating the quality of outputs, we focused on the following areas: evaluation of own pedagogical activity and evaluation of children's activity, which, however, is the result of their pedagogical procedures.
In the evaluation of their own outputs, the listeners had to comment on three areas that affected the quality of the evaluation of their own educational procedures. They evaluated - activities of the teacher: internal factors - the ability to recognize, evaluate and choose an adequate (subjective) strategy of educational reality. Here they had to express the level of confidence and ability to perceive the extent to which they can respond to children's social communication (ability to establish contact, communicate individually, support children's self-reflection); didactic factors – the ability to organize the environment with regard to activities, to adapt educational, or interaction style in relation to the group, ability to include age-appropriate activities in relation to children's interests; content page – the ability to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of education taking into account the content, goals with respect to the topic, the ability to recognize pros and cons and correct them in the process and to choose appropriate educational stimuli, the ability to clearly enter instructions for the activity.
Evaluation of children's activities, was conditioned by the mentioned interventions from the previous three areas mentioned above: ability to activate and motivate the child - expressed to what extent the teacher succeeds in arousing children's interest in activities through his pedagogical interventions, keeping their attention so that they respond to stimuli, actively participate in activities and encourage children to cooperate, become aware of and develop their value and emotional attitudes, and to what extent children's self-evaluation was represented; ability to stimulate communication skills - to what extent does the teacher develop skills so that the child can apply educational rules in life, evaluate whether he shows his independence, creativity, whether he has enough space for verbal and non-verbal communication in relation to the topic, how he evaluates the level of his written and graphic expression of communication and to what extent is their overall maturity to handle the topic; ability to support activities of interest - when choosing educational procedures, the educator should use various activities that awaken children's interest in activities, that is why they commented on the categories that expressed the level of their stimuli for children's movement activities, the level of musical activities, literary activities and feeling for language, environmental activities, creative activities and practical skills, knowledge about human rights and their respect, and we included the cognitive level in relation to the topic and activities.
We will draw attention to some of the more significant results of the conducted research. In the first area, listeners feel the greatest confidence in the ability to communicate and in the ability to approach children individually, it is more than 73%. A little less (64%) feel safe in establishing contact with children. What they don't feel confident about is their ability to respect children's feedback (50%) and they see equally big gaps in their ability to create an atmosphere and maintain a climate, it's only 39%. Attention should be drawn to an important indicator, which is the ability to support children's self-reflection. The respondents consider this to be their biggest shortcoming (25%), even 8% of them expressed their complete inability to capture and process this educational phenomenon in education.
In the ability to use didactic tools effectively, the respondents feel the greatest confidence in the ability to ensure the organization in such a way that order, hygiene requirements and children's safety are maintained (70%). Similarly, relatively high (78%) rate the ability to organize the environment in a purposeful manner with regard to activities. The other categories had a relatively large variance in this area, and many were negatively expressed. They see minor deficiencies in their professional ability in the ability to perform continuous evaluation (56%). It must be said that there were also two cases of negative evaluation. Similarly, in the range of 50-55%, they are also evaluated in the purposefulness of the choice of teaching aids, in the ability to use the teaching time effectively and include age-appropriate activities. They feel slightly less confident (47%) in their ability to adapt their interaction style to the group. A large dispersion of evaluations, even a negative attitude (22%) was recorded when estimating when to include a relaxation break, only (31%) respondents trust themselves here. A surprising finding was that up to 47% of respondents are unable to choose special educational methods, which also include methods with elements of supportive therapies, and they also do not feel confident in the application of alternative or innovative educational methods. Only 5% of respondents are completely sure and 60% are partially sure. Similar results were also shown in the ability to adapt the organization of activities to the activities, (8%) can adapt it with complete confidence and 56% with partial confidence. It must be said that 11% cannot classify it and 25% could not rate it. We consider this to be an unreasonably high failure rate. It can be explained by the fact that the listeners make little use of the activities, or work in a space that would simulate the spatial conditions of school facilities.
From the point of view of the third area focused on the content side, regarding the fulfillment of the goals and the development of the topic, we did not record negative values in the statements of the respondents. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the respondents feel the greatest confidence in the choice of activities with respect to the goal and topic (70%). In second place, they can evaluate children's attitudes at the end of educational activities and similarly (61%) are confident that they can understandably enter instructions for the activity. We recorded a lower degree of certainty in the categories set goals for the chosen topic (53%) and the smallest recorded value of complete certainty (39%) was evaluate children's attitudes at the beginning of educational activities.
In the second area, respondents commented on children's activities. Based on their activities, they evaluated their education strategies in the areas we mentioned above. It must be said that there were also negative values in all three areas. In the first area - ability to activate and motivate the child, we recorded a 20% share of negative evaluations in the occurrence, or not creating an opportunity for children's self-evaluation. Similarly, a relatively high percentage (28%) of respondents could not express themselves in a positive or negative sense, whether they can motivate children to be able to evaluate themselves. The remaining 58% of respondents can create such a space for children's self-evaluation. In addition to this item, in which the percentage of negative evaluation appeared, there was one more - ability of children to maintain attention. Despite the fact that there were negative evaluations (5%), we can say that it is gratifying that 81% of respondents feel confident in this ability and no, the rest are completely sure (13%). It must be said that this is a gratifying finding. Especially in the current conditions, when children and youth are under the influence of mass media, which have a large effect on their attention and often raise the bar of noise, color, contrast, and action relatively high. This then requires great mastery from the educator to motivate the child with his activities and fulfill his expectations during the entire play, interest activity. Other items in this area were evaluated rather positively, only occasionally there were undecided statements. It has been proven in pedagogical practice that the students make daily preparations, the content of which are activities that the children do not know. Perhaps this is also why the listener has an advantage in that the children look forward to new, previously uncompleted activities. The consequence of this is a relatively high percentage of positive evaluation - up to 58% fully and 33% partially expressed interest in new activities, which they voluntarily and with interest entered. The respondents evaluated their level of activity at 50% with voluntary entry and 44% with additional motivation of the children. However, no respondent stated that it would cause them problems. Respondents would need to gain more confidence in the fact that children respond to all stimuli that the teacher presents during the activities. Up to 53% would like to continue to work on developing their skills in this area, because only 36% of them feel confident. It is similar in the support of children's emotional attitudes towards activities. 44% of respondents can confidently stimulate the emotional sphere and 50% of respondents are partially successful. The dimension of values is inextricably linked to interest-based activities within informal education. In this area, 36% of respondents feel prepared to be able to develop them in their children, and the majority (61%) feel not completely confident in this area.
The second area within the assessment of children's activities was the assessment of ability to stimulate communication skills. It is gratifying that up to 72% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the fact that they can choose a topic and appropriate activities for it, considering the interests and age characteristics of children and youth. These skills of the educator reflected at the same time the children's creativity and their verbal communication in relation to the chosen topic and the content of the activities. 58% of respondents expressed complete satisfaction with themselves, and 36% (in creativity) and 31% in communication expressed partial satisfaction. The other respondents could not rate themselves. The evaluation of the cognitive level of the children, which was seen by 97% of the respondents, was also proof of the interest and adequacy of the content. The results in the assessment of children's non-verbal communication were different, respectively. creating space for this kind of communication. There was even a negative assessment (5%). Less than 14% could not assess themselves and 36% stated that they could partially classify activities for this type of communication. 44% of respondents feel complete confidence in choosing such activities. A negative assessment from this area also occurred in the assessment of children's written and graphic communication. Respondents commented on the evaluation of how they can create space for this type of activity with activities. 8% of respondents expressed themselves negatively, 17% could not express themselves and 61% of respondents evaluated themselves rather positively. Only 14% of respondents are able to stimulate this type of communication activity as part of an interest activity. We will highlight the ability to stimulate children to apply educational rules in life. Here, 64% of respondents gave a positive opinion, but 25% said they were absolutely sure. There was a similar assessment in stimulating such activities that lead children to independence. 61% feel there are still significant gaps in this support, but 22% said they can do it. The other respondents were undecided in their testimony. Social skills also concern the development of spatial imagination, or the level of respect for the partner in the space
The last researched area was the ability to support children's activities of interest. In this area, we recorded the most uncertainty expressed by the respondents in their self-reflection. Only a quarter of the respondents expressed complete satisfaction with the fact that it can stimulate children's sense of music and interest in musical activities. We do not consider it negative if 48% stated that they can partially do it, and that 17% look at their abilities with uncertainty. They also expressed a similar amount of uncertainty in stimulating environmental feelings. 22% of respondents see partial certainty in these activities, and what is gratifying, 42% can cope with these activities without any problems. A slightly smaller percentage (14%) than in previous activities feels their shortcomings in mastering and classifying literary activities. In them, however, the percentage of complete certainty and partial certainty was the same (36%). By combining them, we get a relatively high percentage (72%), which we consider gratifying because it is precisely in literary activities that we can develop children's relationship not only to the book, but to the reading process itself, and this has a significant impact on the development of communication skills. It is equally gratifying that only 5% of respondents expressed their complete uncertainty in organizing and classifying activities in the field of human and children's rights. However, it must be said that only 17% of respondents do not have any problem with these activities, but 67% are only partially sure of encouraging this area. 11% of respondents expressed neither positive nor negative views on this item. These results indicate that more attention should be paid to this issue within the methodology. In what the respondents feel the greatest competence is to organize and manage movement activities with children, respectively. develop their motor skills. 78% of the respondents said that it is not a problem for them, and the remaining 22% classify these activities with less certainty. The ability to classify creative and work activities can be achieved by 56% of respondents without any problems and 39% with partial problems. We can explain it as a consequence of one's own creative activity within formal and informal education, but it should be remembered that it is a specific artistic-educational area for which there is enough methodological material and at the same time activities that do not require demanding verbal or movement expression.
In conclusion
We consider the stated results to be a non-closed process. Its indicators signal to us which areas should be given more attention in professional training within the individual courses prescribed by the study program. It will be interesting to compare these results with other graduating years, in order to be able to evaluate whether vocational training really responds to practical training. In the future, we would like to give a similar research tool to practicing teachers, which would allow us to compare the reflection of the outputs, with which optics they look at the outputs of the listeners. Of course, research requires a deeper analysis in addition to interpretation, but in this post we were more concerned with the inspiration of university teachers and their students, whether they also realize in retrospect in their work what they have to prepare future teachers for, what kind of responsibility and demanding work is involved in this case. The students' final reports from practice, which were based on their results of the research tools, were in this case "readable". Dynamic and verbal didactic analyzes of pedagogical practice were also dynamic, because they wanted to talk not only about what it was like, but why it was like that. The positive should be seen in the fact that if we give students stimuli, for example in the form of the mentioned categories, they will learn to think about education and realize that its consequences are partly their actions.
Authors: PaedDr. Dana Kollárová, PhD., PaedDr. Lívia Fenyvesiová, PhD. Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Education UKF in Nitra Reference list:
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