Abstract:

In this study we checked the development in the perceptions of training teachers who see the training of teacher-students as a vocation and a part of their educational role. The study follows three training teachers who have at least three years of teaching experience in junior high school in three schools in Israel. These teachers led a pedagogical and organizational change that took shape and was driven within the student training process, in which they took part.

This study is part of the follow-up after "Academy-Class" program, a training program whose goals are to deepen the clinical and practical training and influence the professional development of the teachers. After ten years of the "Academy Class" program in Israel, there have been significant changes in the teaching training process for teachers-students as a result of the deepening and expansion of practical experience in schools. Additional changes are also evident in some of the training teachers. They expressed satisfaction with the "Academy-Class" program due to its contribution to all its participants. The contribution was expressed in providing a differential response to the students' needs, in re-examining and diversifying the teaching methods, in improving the guidance skills, in strengthening the motivation to continue engaging in teaching and learning new things.

This qualitative research was conducted with a descriptive-interpretive approach. The research tools were: in-depth interviews with the teachers, with the teachers-students, with the principals of the schools and with the pedagogical instructors who maintain a partnership with the training teachers. The conversations at the learning community meetings were recorded, and teachers-students' written reflections at the end of the training year were also analyzed.

The analysis of the findings revealed that the changes in the three schools, which started as a top-down movement, changed their direction with the expansion and deepening of the training process. The initiation and execution of the changes by the teaching teachers caused their different characterization according to the set of considerations, preferences and data that the training teacher brought into account to create an optimal training process, and thus the direction of the changes was reversed already in its initial stages and became bottom-up; the training teachers, the recipients of the change, became its initiators, developers and leaders.

The study's conclusions relate to deepening the relationship between the academy and the training schools in the pursuit of cultivating teachers who can be agents of change in their school and leaders of the school's teacher community. It is also important to help school administrators initiate changes as part of the concept of pedagogical innovation.

Keywords:

Teacher education, training teacher, training models, educational leadership.