Abstract:

Childhood is considered a critical age for personality development. It is during this period that the foundations of thinking, creativity, and imagination are formed in the child, which will subsequently influence success in school and in life. But, unfortunately, preschool educators do not always have certain qualities and willingness to stimulate children’s creative thinking.

The reason may be both insufficient knowledge and lack of skills to effectively encourage creative thinking in children, as well as the use of traditional teaching methods focused on memorizing and reproducing information, which cannot contribute to the development of creative thinking of children, and finally, high standards of education, when the emphasis on effectiveness puts teachers in conditions of fierce competition, which sometimes hinders the development of creativity. In this study we considered the main aspects of the formation of creative thinking, offered diagnostic material for monitoring, presented the results of a study of preschool educators readiness to form the creative thinking of children, presented an analysis of primary and secondary diagnostics, and described the main problems and difficulties. The article also considers a program to improve the competences of preschool educators in the formation of creative thinking, which is carried out within the framework of professional development courses which makes it possible to increase the readiness to form creative thinking of children.

Research methods: theoretical analysis of the subject and object of study; system approach; system analysis of psychological and pedagogical, methodical and scientific-technical literature on the direction of research.

The experimental work was carried out at the Volga Regional Center for Advanced Training and Professional Retraining at the Institute of Psychology and Education of Kazan Federal University. The study involved 873 preschool educators who took advanced training courses for educators in 2023.

During the study, we tested diagnostic tools and presented an effective program for improving the professional competencies of educators in the formation of creative thinking. During the implementation of this program, it was possible to increase the theoretical, methodological and internal readiness of the preschool educators to develop the creative thinking of children (3-7 years old).

The materials of the article are of practical value for managers and employees of centers for advanced training of teachers when designing individual educational path in the system of continuing professional education for educators.

Keywords:

Creative thinking, functional literacy, monitoring, pre-school educator, system of professional development of educators.