Discussion on the Ecological Concern of Preschool Teacher Continuing Education
The continuing education of preschool teachers urges for further improvement and promotion. This essay surveys the continuing education of preschool teachers in the perspective of ecology. The current utility and mission oriented preschool teacher continuing education is paying unduly attention to the theoretical knowledge indoctrination and the generality cultivation while neglecting the subject consciousness, practice and personality concern. Neither the trainers nor the trainees can develop in harmony. The continuing education of preschool teachers should build the idea of ecological concern which persists from curriculum design to mode innovation. Ecological concern, which tries to survey the ecological field in the perspective of ecology in constructing the members of the field into a new system to focus on the positive, active, healthy and harmonious development of every member, is a new topic comes from educational concern and humanistic concern. The core idea of ecological concern is to focus on the aspiration of the members for development to help them enjoy happy lives, in which they seek natural, healthy and harmonious development. Ecological concern on the continuing education for preschool teachers is to survey the education in the perspective of ecology to build a new system of preschool teacher continuing education. It is the microscopic embodiment of ecology theories in preschool teacher continuing education. The absent of ecological concern for preschool teacher continuing education The absent of ecological concern exits in the current preschool teacher continuing education and expresses in the following facts. Unduly theory indoctrination with insufficient practice At present, preschool teacher continuing education is mostly organized in the forms of in-service training, mid-career training, professional titles evaluation, kindergarten director training, kindergarten-based training and so on. Wile influenced by the trend of praising high education background and high professional titles, some kindergartens had employed several teachers with high degrees; there are still teachers of low quality and low education background. Training organizations providing continuing education for preschool teachers, however, have theoretical courses far from the reality of preschool education. Courses with superior difficulty and full of theories can do little to the improvement and promotion to the knowledge or the professional quality of preschool teachers. The study of Houqin Liu revealed that due to the large proportion of theoretical courses and art skill courses, courses of high practicality focusing on the teaching skills are insufficient. The lack of courses focusing on teacher morality cultivation and infant mental health intensifies the absent of comprehensive teaching contents, especially the humanities and social sciences and natural science. Most courses in the continuing education of preschool teachers fail to have close relation with actual teaching due to the teaching contents with strong theoretical property and academic nature while low practicality. Preschool teachers are having difficulty not only in understanding the essence of teaching theories, but also overstepping the gap between theory and practice [1]. The unduly theory indoctrination regards preschool teachers receiving training only as knowledge containers rather than real person, therefore paying little attention to their requirements. International Conference on Education, Management and Computing Technology (ICEMCT 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 1262 More casual organizations with less coherent system The organizations of continuing education for preschool teachers are mostly included in the continuing education organization for primary and secondary school teachers. Factors such as complicated constitution of preschool teachers lead to the casualness of continuing education organization. While related organizations have been built and cycle plans have been made, detailed duties and content arrangements still urge long-term planning. In the continuing education for preschool teachers, the lack of active incentive policies weakens the enthusiasm of teachers, only to take part in for some situations such as professional titles evaluation and post position.[2] Therefore, preschool teachers tended to choose quick method when choosing the subjects and forms of continuing education while neglecting practicality. The training they received can hardly promote their teaching ability. This gives the green light to unplanned continuing education. Too much generality cultivation with little personality development The content of continuing education is a Procrustean bed restricting the personality of preschool teachers. Preschool teachers have the most uneven formal schooling among all groups of teachers, ranging from postgraduates to middle school graduates. While kindergartens of different qualities run parallel to each other. A complicated teaching group needs corresponding varied teachers’ continuing education. In the real educational training, however, theories are simply instilled rather than explained and demonstrated. The simple and obsolete teaching method fails to help teachers fully participate in the teaching activities of continuing education. While many lively teaching methods with strong practicality, such as role playing, case teaching, and which can improve the teaching skills and actual managing abilities of the trainees, are hardly applied in continuing education. Personality development is almost lost in this training mode, which can only develop well-behaved preschool teachers that cannot adapt themselves to the development of preschool education. More rigid evaluation than flexible assessment Corresponding evaluation, an important part of continuing education, is also needed by preschool teacher continuing education. In the real work of preschool teacher continuing education, especially those for improving education background, the current evaluation system pays little attention to the real situation of the trainees in regarding them as the pure acceptor in the teaching process and the container of knowledge. Either the method of homework plus tests or with course-completion papers are only mechanic cope with no incentives as tests are like transcriptions while papers are like copying and pasting games. Preschool teachers can hardly develop in this kind of continuing education. Evaluation system of preschool teacher continuing education should be reasonable and scientific, a flexible evaluation system considering the complicated situation of kindergarten education would help improve the potency of continuing education and meanwhile promote the activeness and creativity of the teachers receiving the continuing education. Discussion on the reasons causing the lack of ecological concern on preschool teacher continuing education We are now discussing the lack of ecological concern on preschool teacher continuing education in the perspective of ecological concern in a time when ecological theories have been widely applied in the field of education. There are several reasons.
The Relationship Between Preschool Teachers' Professional Ethical Behavior Perceptions, Moral Judgment Levels and Attitudes to Teaching
Morality is the stance and attitude that makes a social human being; the display of behaviors such as praise, criticism, tolerance and intolerance, confirmation and rejection; the taking of sides by stating what one finds good or bad, right or wrong, instead of staying indifferent to what other people say and do (Pieper, 1999). Moral development needs to be taught at schools from the personality-shaping years of preschool so as to raise individuals with a strong sense of morality. Teachers are as important as families in children's moral development. Although parents may play a crucial role in child development within the family environment, once children start school, teachers take the primary importance in children's lives. As pointed out by Dewey (1995), telling preschool children to behave morally has very little contribution towards the development of moral behavior. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that teachers involved in morality education act as models for children by displaying ethical and moral behavior. As a discipline, morality is the collection of ethical codes reflected in practical everyday life; they constitute the value system guiding a society's behaviors, attitudes and beliefs. In their studies, Oser (1991) and Terhart (1998) state that teachers' professional quality depend on the development of cognitive, moral and practical domains, and that these three together define teacher competencies. Therefore, it is not enough for teacher education programs to improve teachers in only one domain; moral judgment levels and teaching attitudes play a determining role in the identification of teacher ethical behaviors. Starting from this, the present study investigates the relationship between preschool teachers' professional ethical behavior perceptions, moral judgment levels and teaching attitudes. The sample includes 464 randomly selected preschool teachers working in 10 different regions of Istanbul. Three different measurement tools were used: Preschool Teacher Ethical Behaviors Scale, Moral Judgment Test, and Teaching Attitudes Scale. The results seem to imply that a linear relationship exists between the variable of ‘preschool teachers’ ethical behavior perceptions’ and the variables of ‘moral judgment level’, ‘democratic attitude’, ‘autocratic attitude’ and ‘apathetic attitude’. Put differently, preschool teachers' perceptions about ethical behaviors are predicted by moral judgment level, democratic attitude, autocratic attitude and apathetic attitude.
Educational innovation in Musical Language Course: responses and the overcoming of limitations
This article presents an innovative methodological proposal for the development of auditory education in the course of the Language of Music. Based on this proposal, we analyze an educational community’s response to the innovations implemented, and we identify the limitations recognized throughout the learning and teaching process, as well as the strategies developed to overcome them. To this end, we applied a qualitative methodology with the classroom-based research method. The compilation of data was carried out through participant observation, captured in the journals of the professor and researcher, interviews and analysis of documents. The research results demonstrate that patience, responsibility and perseverance in their work on behalf of the professors have been key to overcoming the limitations identified and in promoting that students enjoy and learn their class contents in meaningful ways. Recibido 05/02/2018 Aceptado: 09/03/2018