engleski

PRESCHOOL TEACHER AS A REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER AND THE ROLE OF DOCUMENTATION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE: TOWARDS THE RESEARCH FEATURE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The paradigmatic shift, from the empirical- analytical, positivist paradigm to the interpretive, critical paradigm, has caused, among other things, a change in the preschool teachers’ role in the educational process, given that research has shown that the practitioner, i.e., teacher or preschool teacher is the most critical factor influencing pupils' or children's success. In the construct of preschool teachers’ new professionalism, [1], [2], and others, modern practitioners are called theorists in action, theoretical practitioners, systematic thinkers, and new theorists. Preschool teachers can no longer be understood as "passive technicians, " who, through initial education, learn skills that they will later be able to copy or transfer into educational practice. For this reason, it is necessary to provide forms of preschool teachers' professional development that have a research character and allow the questioning of preschool teachers' beliefs, experiences, and daily practice. The transformational potential of such forms lies in the constant purification and deepening of the personal vision, directing one’s efforts, objective knowledge of the reality of institutional context through continuous examination, reflection, and discussion of the objective reality, as indicated by many authors cited in this research. Documentation, understood as alternating collection and reflection, is not a one-time phenomenon but a process in which preschool teachers find importance for further improvement of educational practice and a better understanding of children and their role in the educational process. Action research was chosen as a basic methodological strategy, which focuses on the development of preschool teachers' reflective practice and the process of researching one's own educational practice.

action research, documentation, discourse, reflective practice, video-reflective methodology

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