DEVELOPMENT OF PEDAGOGICAL EXCELLENCE IN MASTER-DEGREE STUDENTS HAVING BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN DIFFERENT SPECIALTIES

The paper deals with the relevant issue of exploring the peculiarities of pedagogical excellence formation in Master-degree students having Bachelor's degree in different specialties. In order to examine the peculiarities of pedagogical excellence manifestation and its main indicators there were developed two author's techniques revealing and measuring twelve indicators of pedagogical excellence and three indicators of teacher's main skills. The experiment involved 104 Master-degree students majoring in Primary Education who had Bachelor's degree in different fields. The respondents were examined according to the developed techniques and methods. The initial assessment showed that the indicators of their pedagogical excellence were basically at low and average levels. Though the respondents having Bachelor's degree in pedagogical specialty had average and above average levels of pedagogical excellence indicators. In order to develop the students' pedagogical excellence there has been elaborated a unique workshop involving a set of trainings which was implemented into the educational process within a month in the afternoons. Besides, at the end of this course students were involved into teaching practice (internship). The respondents were divided into two groups: the students who had Bachelor's degree in a pedagogical specialty, and those ones majoring in another field. Each group was divided into experimental and control subgroups (four groups in general). The experimental group was taught according to the developed training, and the control one studied according to the traditional system. In a month after taking the course the students undertook internship program. After that everyone was reexamined according to the developed methods and techniques. The research results have shown that in general the indicators of pedagogical excellence in both groups of students have increased, but one can observe the most significant positive results in the experimental group, namely in the Master-degree students who had Bachelor's degree in pedagogical specialty. It means that the Master-degree students having Bachelor's degree in non-pedagogical specialty are not ready to Master pedagogical excellence programs within the determined period of time, so that it should be prolonged.