Improving the initial training of new teachers

From the European Convergence, a change in the conceptualization of the University Model. This innovation affects the teaching style of university teaching staff, which must adapt to new demands. Various institutional reports have highlighted the scant attention paid to the training of university teachers, being confirmed with the European Convergence in a problem Social. We must give teachers the necessary prominence for the required innovation in university teaching strategies. After an analysis of the reality and an initial assessment of needs, we propose the planning and implementation specific actions for teacher training, with special emphasis on the group of teachers novices.

For this reason, PsicologíaOnline has developed this article on Improving the initial training of new teachers.

Mentoring as a didactic strategy advocates the relocation of expert teachers to mentor teachers that guide the new group in the triple aspect of university training: teaching, research and management. This methodology of formative innovation favors the creation of interuniversity teaching networks and the performance of diverse disciplines that interact multidisciplinary as a source of educational change academic. With mentoring we intend to innovate with this strategy in different subjects and achieve a higher quality in teaching and research in Universities. Teaching assistants, fellows and graduate students would be mentored by expert teachers in their personal training process. teacher and researcher that would revert to a higher quality of teaching and research in any area of ​​knowledge of our Universities

The educational reforms at the University affect all the members that make up the university network, but in a more significant way, the university faculty. The purpose of the project is to achieve positive results in the Training of New Teachers, through the methodological strategy of mentoring, reflecting this in the quality of Teaching and Research in the College. The antecedents of this project come from a triple aspect: educational changes or reforms, teacher training and mentoring.

In the last thirty years the number of teachers has increased in a spectacular way and it seems that the constant tends to continue growing in the coming years, thus creating a relevant need for the training of trainers. In the Academic Year of 1971-72 there were 25,344 professors hired in Spanish Universities and in the Academic Year of 2000-2001 there were 104,076 professors. Historically, these educational changes have meant an update, revision and reunification of the guidelines that were used throughout the Curricular Design of the training process.

Public institutions have addressed the needs that teachers were pointing out throughout the teaching-learning processes. From initial and ongoing training, educational innovation programs addressed to teachers. The first critical analysis on the subject was carried out by Ríos (1887), questioning the use by professors of pedagogical strategies and correlated this lack of interest in pedagogy with the rise in the hierarchical ladder university. Traditionally, Teacher Training has been understood as a particular issue for teachers. Even so, there are reports in which teachers show concern for their own training Pedagogical and they need processes of reflection and educational innovation to be carried out to participate in they. There is also an evident lack of Training Programs that attend New Teachers due perhaps to that the Departments do not have funding to carry out these innovation initiatives pedagogical. European Quality Reports from Universities (Dearing, Attali, Bricall ...) coincide in providing the Training of the Teachers of the importance and consideration for the achievement of an educational quality inherent to the process of teaching-learning.

We define teacher training as the preparation to develop a critical, reflective, and effective teaching style that promotes learning significant in students while achieving innovative thinking-action, working as a team to develop a common Educational Project (Medina, 1989). Within the University System, Teacher Training is the most important nucleus of intervention and transformation of this university system undoubtedly implies the vision, interpretation, training and commitment to innovation of the teachers. Teacher Training is a primary concern in the launching of the European Convergence, and this can be understood as a social problem.

Researchers from the Social Sciences have approached the study of Teacher Training and its components. Marcelo (1994) has demonstrated in numerous investigations the existing separation between research and teaching. Benedito, Ferrer and Ferreres (1995) warned in other investigations that the preparation to carry out these functions is not acquired through a systematic process but rather routinely, self-taught and voluntary.

Within the group of university teachers we focus on the figure of the beginner or novice teacher. According to Huberman (1990) the teacher undergoes a process of initiation and validation that lasts until professional stabilization; at this stage the teacher faces the differences between ideals and reality. This period is lived with uncertainty, indecision and a feeling of incapacity in the face of the new tasks and demands that the profession imposes (Veeman, 1984).

Grijalbo and Marrero (2004) talk about the problems that new teachers may encounter within the university with difficulties in tackling new challenges and solving those difficulties posed by homework teacher. Mayor (2000) also frames his research on this topic, conducting research where the teaching staff beginner showed his difficulties at the beginning of Teaching and Research, when they are assigned to the Departments.

International precursors to the study of this problem are Vonk and Reynolds, who were already researching and carrying out pilot experiences on how to help and tutor new teachers to create skills and adapt their teaching work to quality required.

In the field of Permanent Training of University Teachers, the attention to the New Teacher is becoming more and more important. In the Spanish University and, in general, in European systems, the organization of the teaching staff is structured in three stages these correspond to the successive stages of its formation (Guitian, 1994):

• Initiation to research.
• Deepening stage.
• Maturity stage.

These stages in the Training of New Teachers mark us a difficult situation of setting in very rigid institutional frameworks, where new teachers must experience, as stated by Imbernon (1994), the transition from a "subject in training" to a "professional self-directed ”. The proposal is analyzed by Bolivar (1999) according to the level of teaching experience in years:

• Phase 1. Exploration.
• Phase 2. Discovery.
• Phase 3. Stabilization.

For a correct implantation and development of the teaching staff, there are essential conditions that will ensure the success of these actions. These premises are:

• Enough time for training. Formation process sustained over time (Escudero, 1999).
• Establishment of Teaching Networks between the faculties. Like the ICE (Alicante) experience.
• Development of leadership committed to teaching.
• Create and provide a wide variety of offerings based on the felt and changing needs and interests of the majority of teachers.

Zabalza (2002) exposes the problems faced by university faculty, responding to basic and common questions for which it has to be formed, such as aspects related to the motivation of the students or the mastery of resources for the curricular development of the subjects.

Another fundamental circumstance would refer to the II University Quality Plan (R.D. 408/2001 of 20 de April) from R.D. 1947/1995 of December 1, which established the National Plan for the Quality of the Universities As stated in the Royal Decree “our university system joins the initiative of the European Union, through the participation in the ‘European Network for Quality Assurance’ and of the objectives of the Bologna Declaration that in its fifth point proclaims the promotion of European cooperation in order to define comparable criteria and methodology, to guarantee the quality of teaching higher.

The project ‘Tuning Educational Structures in Europe’ of the Universities of Deusto and Groningen, is the best example of preparation for the European Convergence of Education Superior where a methodology is proposed that guarantees the quality of teaching and the student's learning process. In short, as Benedito (2000) points out, the new teaching is highly complex and to develop it requires changes from the institutional and personal perspective. Structured innovation as a series of more or less deliberate and systematic mechanisms and processes through which attempts are made to introduce and promote certain changes in current educational practices (González and Escudero, 1987).

Studies on the problem of professional socialization of beginning teachers are in an incipient stage, although This field of research has experienced a strong boost in the last 30 years in the United States, Canada and the countries of the Union. European. Knowledge of the insertion process of new teachers must be considered as an object of research and reflection around which to articulate new policies of permanent training of the faculty.

This stage or moment of transition experienced by new teachers at the beginning of their career has been extensively studied, and there is an extensive specialized literature on the subject. In all cases there are agreements on the necessary plasticity and flexibility of the performance of the young teachers in multiple stages, sub-stages or phases with concerns or characteristics different.

For example, one of the precursors was Vera (1988), who clearly defines this issue: «It seems logical to think that this transition period opens when, for the first time, professional responsibility is accessed in a teaching center, affecting the personality of the newcomer. The beginning teacher is a person, generally young, who is in a moment of transition between knowledge, skills, skills and attitudes learned over three years of theoretical studies and putting what has been learned into action in the real framework of the intervention pedagogical»(1988, p. 44).

American Universities were pioneers in the creation of the New Teacher Training, have launched a one-year training action that consists of serving Beginning Teachers. Most relevant was the support and advice of other fellow veterans as tutors and mentors.

These mentoring programs aim to introduce them to what it means to learn and under what conditions it is learned working together with a Mentor, training them to collaborate in some teaching activities: participation in seminars, practical classes, collaboration in the evaluation of works, as well as knowing the different resources offered by the university for learning and teaching (libraries, resource centers, computer rooms, etc.), as well as introducing them in the organization chart of functions of the various centers and Departments of the institution.

In this training it is essential the tutoring of a Mentor (experienced teacher from the novice teacher's own department). This training must be linked to the institutionalized processes of accreditation and room for teachers or those others that may be proposed in the future.

Tutoring or mentoring is defined by the Anglicism "mentoring". Numerous national and international groups have initiated research in theoretical reviews as well as in case studies and field investigations. Mentoring, in addition to being a catalyst for the continuous learning process at the University, shortens the curve of teacher learning that is professionally integrated and is useful to structure the training that takes place in the position of job.

Mentoring is understood as a resource for change and improvement. Experiences carried out in other countries pose difficulties in the teaching process. From the Institution we must create an initiation program for beginning teachers, mentor and train in the needs that they express themselves. The Professor Mentor as a figure is essential in this teaching-learning process, he is an expert with more professional skills acquired after years of experience.

The main objective of the Mentor is integration of the members of the organization in all aspects, especially, in the performance of Teaching. The Mentor must transmit the culture of the organization to which he belongs; it has to be a guide for those who do not have those experiences. All these capacities must be transmitted through the personal contact of the expert with his mentee.

Mentoring would be included within the set of actions to be developed from the university organization.

International theoretical reviews of the mentoring technique come from authors such as: (Arends and Rigazio-Digilio, 2000; Holloway, 2001; Feiman-Nemser et al., 1999; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Ganser, 2002; Hegsted, 1999; Fideler and Haselkorn, 1999; Scherer, 1999; Serpell and Bozeman, 1999; Gold, 1999; Wang and Odell, 2002).

Of the many Universities that have a Mentoring Program, we are going to list the American Universities that have More than ten years of experience spreading positive results of the effectiveness of Mentoring in the Initial Training of the new Teacher.

The universities are:

• California Mentor Teacher Induction Project (MTIP).
• New York City Retired-Teachers-as-Mentors Program.
• Toronto Teacher Peer Support Program.
• Mentoring Program in an unspecified District.
• Montana Beginning Teacher Support Program.
• Texas Study of New Teacher Retention.
• Texas Beginning Educator Support System.

1. Starting hypothesis.

As we have seen in the Introduction the need for initial and ongoing training for new teachers it is entirely in line with the European Convergence in Higher Education that in the coming years will change our Universities. The main objective is the creation of teaching networks between the different faculties to create initial and permanent training for new university teachers through the pedagogical innovation of mentoring. After a detection of the needs of new teachers in different faculties, we will go on to establish the mentoring period for a expert teacher of the new teacher, attending and adapting this process to the specific context of the area of ​​knowledge in which the teacher is novel. With this initial training of new teachers, a institutionalization of this process as well as an improvement in the quality of university education and a better adaptation to the future European Convergence in Higher Education.

2. Background and previous results.

There are few results with this methodology that support the starting hypothesis. This educational innovation strategy has been carried out above all among students in different universities Spanish, as for new teachers, it has been carried out mainly in the USA, Canada and some countries Europeans.

At the University of Seville it is carried out the Simus mentoring project among students with good results based on the extensive studies of Carlos Marcelo's research group. Parallel to this also at the University of Castellón (Jaime I), and at the Madrid School of Technical Engineering, mentoring programs among students are implemented. At the University of Oviedo, the Mentor Project as a distance education system as well as, this The same project is being carried out promoted by the Minister of Education of the government Extremadura.

Other studies transmit results about the adaptation of mentoring programs to the initial training of new teachers for the European Convergence in Higher Education. Thus, works such as the Evaluation of the training of new teachers at the University of Barcelona, ​​the training program of the Institute of Health "Carlos III" of Barcelona, the methodology training program in health sciences of the Canarian government include mentoring as an educational innovation in their teaching-learning processes.

Reports have been made from public institutions that also include mentoring processes as a great strategy in the training of new teachers:

• Study and Analysis Program of the General Directorate of Universities, as an action aimed at improving the quality of Higher Education and Activities of University teaching staff. (Project EA 2003-0040).
• University teacher training project of the Unit for the quality of Andalusian Universities (UCUA).

In general, most of the Spanish university institutions have their training program of the teachers, hence this educational innovation methodology can be included in all universities Spanish.

Our research group has found in various studies the importance of initial and ongoing training for new teachers.

3. Specific objectives.

• Elaboration of the material evaluative ad hoc.
• Identification of needs and problems of a group of new teachers in different areas of knowledge, delimiting common weaknesses and differentiating between specialties.
• Establishment of general linesUseful training s for your professional improvement.
• Creation of a group of mentor teachers specialists from various faculties and prepare them for the assumption of the mentoring task to attention to the specific educational needs of new teachers and their training in values.
• Interaction analysis and conversations between the mentor and the novice teacher as a framework for longitudinal research results.
• Train the group of mentor teachers for the European Convergence of Higher Education for its subsequent transmission to the group of novice teachers, focusing on promoting Quality.
• Training evaluation acquired by new teachers, by mentors, as well as the consequences derived from it in the teaching and research carried out.

4. Methodology and work plan.

The problem of the initial training of university teachers makes us direct the methodology towards a qualitative as well as a quantitative cut. Initially, a model interview of a semi-structured type will be elaborated to obtain the information relevant to the problem of new teachers as well as the current situation of teachers experts.

It is our intention know the professional conditions from a diagnostic perspective. We will classify the participants according to the time they have been linked to the University and by their area of ​​knowledge. Transcription and analysis by coding the interviews (Miles and Huberman, 1994) carried out by two researchers through chained codings and with discussion about them, contrasting the internal reliability between the researchers; essential condition for the credibility of the results. This will be supported by the computerized program for qualitative data analysis Atlas / ti, version 4.2 for Windows. In this first phase of preparing the interview, we will establish a pilot test with a small number of participants who belong to the categories of beginner or expert teacher.

Later, we will collect information through direct observation and through the evaluations of each faculty about all the mediational variables that may influence the subsequent implementation of the Mentoring Program and for the correct creation of the initial Training Plan that will be developed to apply it to both mentors and teachers novices.