Abstract:

We’re particularly lucky to witness so many swift changes the last two decades of the previous century and the first two decades of the new millennium have brought and keep bringing into our life. All these changes have contributed to the development of the new educational paradigm 3.0 that has been developing under the strong influence of information technologies on the one hand, and the swiftly clarifying vision of new world – that of creative and knowledge economies on the other.

The new educational paradigm differs from the previous paradigms with a scope of features not found in the previous periods, with its core trait – that of eternal need for non-stop professional development in every sphere of human activities, accompanied, according to Hannon (2013) with a number of distinguishing traits including technological boost and globalisation, the environment at a critical point, globalised economies in flux, and mutually affecting each other, demographic issues, including the rapid growth in the proportion of older citizens, rapid and unsustainable growth, and new biological, biogenetic, biochemical, genetic and materials technologies that are enabling us to seize active control over evolution [Hannon 2013].

It’s clear that in the era of information technologies, barely controllable information flows and swiftly changing knowledge paradigms, the only remedy securing ever-recognized professionalism is continuing education. University teachers working at the vanguard of professional development and engaged in new knowledge generation and dissemination and competencies formation need constant professional development like no one else. Professionals involved in teaching, assessment and supporting learning should be provided with coherent and flexible pathways for continuing development. The binary specificity of their work makes their life twice more difficult, i.e. they in most cases work with young people who first, challenge them as they keep challenging the world trying to develop self-confidence as part of their personalities and seeking approval and respect of everyone around, particularly their classmates, and second, University teachers have to cope with two swiftly developing spheres – their subject / discipline sphere (like physics, public communications or foreign languages) and teaching methodology changing very quickly indeed thanks to information technologies and e-learning techniques and teachers’ eternal strive for development boosted by highly professional international assemblies like EDULEARN and other conferences of the kind.

Teachers have always been in the glare sun of public attention – like Russians say, “everyone knows how to be a perfect teacher and a perfect doctor as everyone knows how to teach and to treat.” The problem is that unlike in many other professions, perfection is practically unreachable in these two spheres. But that doesn’t stop teachers in their eternal strive for perfection.

It is evident that in the highly demanding world of today, teachers constitute the primary group of specialists that have to constantly develop professionally.
As Varnava-Marouchou (2014) correctly puts it, under the current conditions teacher learning is a necessary condition for student learning, with several studies highlighting the importance of making teacher education programmes compulsory to all professionals (including University teachers) wishing to teach [Varnava-Marouchou 2014].

In many countries government authorities recognizing the need for teachers’ continuing professional development, introduce state recertification requirements. And many Universities today try to meet the actual professionals requirements offering teachers various programmes of professional development and, like Baker University, promising to turn excellent educators into exceptional. The programmes are intended to increase teachers’ knowledge in a particular subject area, increase their classroom effectiveness and professional efficiency, and enhance their earning power.
The paper analyses professional development programmes offered by leading Universities, reveals the core concepts used as their bases and offers some interesting conclusions.

Keywords:

new educational environment, professional development, professional excellence, teachers’ effectiveness and efficiency.