engleski

The Concept of Professional Learning and Building an Institutional Culture

The concept of professional learning in this paper is presented as a process of continuous and systemic work on investigation, familiarization, understanding, and creation of kindergarten culture, i.e., kindergarten reality. Concerning this process, kindergarten teachers and their roles become very significant when they take an active role and become the investigators of their own practice. Moreover, they become reflective practitioners as well as the initiators and authors of change, which affects their own development as well as the development of the kindergarten culture as a whole. The culture of the educational institution represents one of the key cornerstones of qualitative change in the practice and implementation of the fundamental provisions of the Croatian National Curriculum for Early and Preschool Education [1], particularly in the understanding of the importance of kindergarten teachers’ professional development. It is recognized through the mutual relations of the members of the institution and their joint work, the style of management, the organizational and physical environment, as well as the degree of focus on the continuous learning and research of the educational practice. The theoretical part of this research supports the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ professional learning and development and the development of the kindergarten culture. The research part provides an overview of the strategy of kindergarten teachers’ professional learning via an action research model that aims at creating the conditions where kindergarten teachers would have the opportunity to develop their own research and reflective skills as well as to investigate and question their own educational practice and also beliefs, i.e., 'their own' theories. The research focus is placed on the visible dimension of culture, i.e., the spatial-material kindergarten environment.

Action research ; The concept of professional learning ; The culture of the educational institution ; Reflective practice

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