Competency of Specialized High School Teachers According to Professional Standards for General Education Teachers

1.2.3. Competency framework for teachers of specialized high schools

1.2.3.1. Concept of capacity

There are many concepts and definitions of competence such as: " Competence is the ability to apply knowledge, experience, skills, attitudes and interests to act appropriately and effectively in a variety of life situations" (Québec- Ministere de l'Education, 2004); " Competence is expressed as a system of abilities, proficiency or essential skills that can help people qualify to reach a specific goal " (FE Weinert, OECD, 2001). Competence includes the ability to meet complex demands/requirements through the effort to make good use of knowledge, skills and mobilize the most appropriate resources in each specific situation. Competence can be seen as the ability to receive and apply comprehensively and effectively all human potentials (knowledge, skills, attitudes, physical strength, beliefs, etc.) to perform work or deal with a certain situation or state in life and professional work under specific conditions and according to certain standards [18].

Talking about competence means talking about the ability to successfully perform a certain activity. Competence is individualized, competence can be formed and developed through training, fostering and self-experience through practice. Competence is “ the ability to act, achieve results and develop to enable appropriate performance of tasks and activities in professional or private life and this ability is based on a set of organized knowledge: Multidisciplinary knowledge and skills, strategies, perceptions and attitudes …” [18].

According to the documents of the International Labor Organization and the German International Development Organization, MES presents the vocational skills module: Competence is the application of skills, knowledge and attitudes to perform tasks according to industrial and commercial standards under current conditions. According to the Dictionary of Education: " Competence, the ability to form or develop allows a person to achieve success in a physical, mental or professional activity. Competence is expressed in the ability to perform an activity, perform a task ".

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According to author Pham Minh Hac: Capacity is an individual's psychological characteristic that meets the requirements of a certain activity and is a condition for successfully performing that activity [44].

According to the author Nguyen Duc Tri - Ho Ngoc Vinh in the book " Teaching methods in vocational training " put forward the concept: Competence is the ability to apply knowledge, skills and attitudes to perform a job effectively in certain conditions. Competence is the ability of each individual to have a combination of psychological attributes suitable to the requirements of a certain activity in order to perform the activity effectively [106].

According to author Tran Kiem in the book " Effective school management and leadership " [75], he puts forward some concepts: Capacity is a synthesis of characteristics and psychological attributes of an individual that are suitable for the specific requirements of a certain activity to ensure that the activity is highly effective. Capacity refers to the input factors required for a specific job/field, promising the subject to do well in that job/field. In addition, capacity is also a combination of unique psychological attributes of an individual that are suitable for the requirements of a certain activity, ensuring that the activity quickly achieves effectiveness.

Competence has the following three characteristics:

- Formed and expressed in activities.

- Associated with a specific activity

- Influenced by factors: innate, genetic, environmental and individual activities

Within the scope of the topic, the concept of capacity is understood as: Capacity is an organic combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to perform professional activities according to the standards set for each task and job.

1.2.3.2. Professional standards for teachers of general education institutions

Professional standards for teachers of general education institutions are a system of qualities and competencies that teachers need to achieve to perform the tasks of teaching and educating students in general education institutions, specifically:

- Teacher qualities: Comply with regulations and practice teacher ethics; share experiences, support colleagues in practicing ethics and creating a teacher style.

- Professional development: Mastering expertise and mastering profession; regularly updating and improving professional capacity and skills to meet the requirements of educational innovation.

- Building an educational environment: Building a safe, healthy, democratic educational environment, preventing and combating school violence.

- Developing relationships between school, family and society: Participate in organizing and implementing activities to develop relationships between school, family and society in teaching, moral education and lifestyle for students.

- Using foreign languages ​​or ethnic languages, applying information technology, exploiting and using technological equipment in teaching and education: Using foreign languages ​​or ethnic languages, applying information technology, exploiting and using technological equipment in teaching and education.

1.2.3.3. Competency of specialized high school teachers according to professional standards for teachers of general education institutions

With the mission of being a specialized high school, a place to discover, train and nurture talents. Therefore, it is essential to have a qualified and competent teaching staff. In addition to the basic requirements of professional standards for a high school teacher, a specialized high school teacher must be a person with the ability to teach specialized subjects, must have in-depth knowledge, experience in studying and teaching specialized subjects, have the consciousness to self-study, self-study, and have the will to progress. Analyze the curriculum and learning materials, build specialized teaching plans and teaching methods, skillfully use modern teaching aids, especially know how to exploit the advances of information technology and communication in organizing teaching activities, organizing learning and self-cultivation activities of students, organize and manage classes well, coordinate with parents and other educational forces inside and outside the school, organize and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and learning of teachers and students.

After studying the competency models or competency frameworks of published works, the author would like to propose the following criteria in the competency framework for specialized high school teachers:

Pedagogical competence

Competency of high school teachers

specialized

Professional competence

Scientific and technological research capacity

Career development capacity

Social performance

Diagram 1.1. Basic competencies of teachers at specialized high schools

- Pedagogical capacity : Developing teaching plans, objectives and materials; Organizing the teaching process; Managing the teaching environment; Testing and evaluating students' learning outcomes; Planning teaching and fostering gifted students; Guiding students in studying lessons.

- Professional competence: In-depth knowledge; In-depth teaching capacity; Collaboration in in-depth teaching; Creativity in teaching; Updating basic and in-depth knowledge.

- Scientific and technological research capacity: Identifying research problems; Developing research plans; Organizing and cooperating in research; Evaluating research results; Transferring and guiding scientific research students; Applying technology to research and teaching; Using foreign languages ​​in research and teaching.

- Career development capacity: Political qualities, teacher ethics; Goal orientation and career development planning; Self-study capacity; Consulting and knowledge support for students; Ability to cooperate in teamwork;

- Social activity capacity: Participation in political and social activities; Management and coordination with students' families; Responsibility in the community; Social activities for students;

Regarding the competency criteria in the competency framework above, the competencies that specialized high school teachers must achieve include:

a. Pedagogical capacity of teachers in specialized high schools

A teacher's teaching plan is very important. It evaluates a teacher's pedagogical ability through the teacher's lesson preparation. In the teacher's teaching plan, it ensures that the work is carried out on time.

The quantity of the lesson, the progress of the program, in the teacher's teaching plan must ensure the following criteria:

- Closely follow educational goals, especially high-quality education goals. This requires teachers to regularly update their knowledge as well as changes in educational policies to match the goals of testing and evaluating teaching goals.

- The teaching plan must be consistent with the specific teaching content, not rambling, or have topics that are not consistent with the lesson content.

- Lesson plans must be suitable for the characteristics and level of students, especially for gifted students. This requires teachers to prepare teaching plans carefully and thoroughly to avoid errors as much as possible.

- Teachers who plan lessons need to learn about the school's facilities. For lessons that require equipment or other material support, they must have a presentation plan that is appropriate to the lesson's activities as well as the lesson's objectives.

- Combining the selective and effective acquisition and use of advanced and modern teaching methods with the exploitation of positive elements of traditional teaching methods. Increasing the use of teaching aids and paying special attention to the applications of information technology.

- Prepare teaching plans for the school year and each semester to specify the educational program at each level according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training in accordance with the characteristics of the school and the assigned class. Know how to prepare innovative lesson plans, demonstrating active teaching and learning activities of teachers and students.

- Be proactive, flexible, creative and cultivate in-depth knowledge to meet the amount of knowledge that needs to be imparted to students, and at the same time be able to bring students good and new lessons to create a learning spirit for students.

- Regularly update and supplement knowledge through documents, books, topics, teaching topics, referencing the internet, and self-studying with colleagues to improve teaching work.

- Teachers must be open-minded and perfectionist. After each lesson, they need to check and evaluate the lesson to see if there are any weak points or shortcomings, and then learn from them for the next lessons.

- Organize students to approach new knowledge naturally, without imposing passive knowledge, helping students in the process of studying lessons and mastering situations where students have to debate during the learning process.

- Organize and guide students to self-study, self-read documents, and self-study lessons. Teachers select and introduce reference documents and some reputable internet websites so that students can discuss expertise in groups or participate in learning on forums.

- Test and evaluate students during the teaching process, thereby making appropriate adjustments to teaching methods to achieve high results.

- Apply many new methods in different assessment tests and must be done regularly to create new learning methods for students.

- Building positive attitudes in students' learning through self-control and self-presentation of lessons.

- Apply innovative methods in learning about the subject you are teaching, from there organize teaching, create tests, and evaluate to ensure quality according to the objectives and requirements of the subject as well as the students.

b. Professional competence of teachers at specialized high schools

In addition to playing the role of a high school teacher according to secondary school teacher standards, a specialized high school teacher must have the ability to teach specialized subjects and nurture gifted students in the right field of study, specifically:

- Teachers must have specialized knowledge and expertise in the subject they teach in order to meet the depth of specialized teaching knowledge.

- Teachers must have complementary knowledge in their subject to improve teaching effectiveness for each lesson.

Integrated teaching is also a teaching process, but it is a teaching process that focuses on helping students develop the ability to mobilize and synthesize knowledge and skills from many different fields to effectively solve problems in study as well as in life. To achieve the above goal, teachers need to:

- Improve knowledge according to teaching expertise.

- Teachers have interdisciplinary knowledge to apply knowledge subjects in interdisciplinary subjects to support in-depth teaching.

- Know how to apply the intersection between subjects to solve integrated problem situations to meet lesson objectives.

- Know how to integrate life skills and practical situations to relate knowledge to lectures.

- Teachers must know how to stimulate students' learning motivation through lectures and guide learning using new methods based on the lesson's objectives.

- Evaluate the level of achievement after each lesson based on the assessment test according to the levels of recognition, understanding, low application, high application and subject thinking that students need to achieve.

- There are many different types of exercises based on each student's ability to assign exercises that are appropriate to the student's ability.

- There are knowledge objectives for self-study students such as students making their own study plans, listening to lectures, taking notes, self-studying, group studying, reading books, researching and solving problems in exercises.

c. Scientific and technological research capacity of teachers at specialized high schools

Scientific and technological research for specialized high school teachers is a mandatory requirement throughout the teaching process. In order to effectively apply and convey lesson content, especially specialized lessons, specialized high school teachers need to perform the following tasks:

- Identify research problems: be able to detect problems that need to be researched from practical needs, form ideas for researching the problem and determine the methods, processes and technologies needed to carry out research on the problem.

- Develop a research plan: it is necessary to outline the research object, develop tasks, purposes, content and research needs, and a plan for individual and collective coordination to implement the research.

- Organizing and cooperating in research: coordinating individuals and groups to carry out research work, synthesize, analyze, process research results, organize testing and experiment with research results.

- Evaluate research results: evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of research work and research results to make appropriate adjustments.

- Transfer and guide students in scientific research: propose to transfer research results to students to serve as research materials. Help students in scientific research through goals that need to be solved in practice.

- Have foreign language and computer skills to improve knowledge through foreign language documents as well as search for information on the internet.

d. Professional development capacity of teachers in specialized high schools

Personal career development is considered one of the trends of the times.

Therefore, to improve their professional qualifications, teachers need to:

- Develop a plan to improve your own knowledge based on the weak criteria in the competency framework of specialized high school teachers.

- Self-study and self-improvement on the spot by learning from the experiences of teachers with a lot of teaching experience, especially those with achievements in in-depth teaching and fostering gifted students at school through class observation, teaching assistantship, professional group meetings, etc.

- Read and research documents in books, on the internet, or refer to lectures from colleagues to gain knowledge for yourself.

- Regularly participate in professional seminars organized by the school or inter-school, participate in scientific research to develop technical and foreign language skills.

e. Ability to understand subjects, social activities, and orient development for students of specialized high school teachers

- Understanding the educational object requires teachers to have methods to regularly collect and process information about the needs and characteristics of students, use the information obtained in teaching, education as well as helping students in different situations.

- To understand the educational environment, teachers need to have methods to collect and process information about educational conditions in schools and the political, economic, cultural and social situation of the locality, using the information collected in teaching to help students apply the knowledge they have learned to solve practical situations.

- Development orientation for students, for students of specialized high schools, each individual is a special factor, with their own potential levels and abilities, therefore requiring teachers to grasp each individual's characteristics and abilities, thereby being able to orient students to develop their own strengths according to the conditions, circumstances of their family, themselves and the current and future development of society.

- Build a friendly, cooperative learning environment, select and combine teaching methods well, carry out teaching activities in class, promote students' creativity and proactive learning.

- Able to coordinate with families and local organizations to monitor and educate students.