We strive to draw our students into the learning process and make it exceptionally joyful for them. With this approach, each student gains the self-confidence that is necessary for spiritual growth and development. Gordon Dryden and Janette Vos in their world best seller “Revolution in Learning” emphasize: “…building a learner’s self-confidence is more important than the content of the courses taught”.
As you know, knowledge quickly becomes obsolete, and therefore meta-disciplinary technologies designed to cultivate another type of consciousness of the student, which is not “stuck” in the information restrictions of one educational subject have acquired particular relevance. This is due to the fact that the child immediately develops the content of the subject area and new activities. The meta subjects offer new opportunities to work with children’s worldview, their self-determination and the meaning of life.
The implementation of innovative technologies and methods, the correct use of modern learning tools is possible with a high level of proficiency of the team of teachers. In order to achieve this goal, careful efforts are being made to select and upgrade staff in all areas of teaching.
Currently there are 75 teaching staff at the Lyceum “Turan” School. Among them, 54 subject teachers, 4 teachers-psychologists, 10 educators, 6 teachers of additional education. 97.3 per cent of teachers have higher professional education, 2.7 per cent have secondary professional education. 79.6 per cent of teachers have the highest and the first categories.
Two doctors (pediatrician and neurologist) and speech therapists play an important role in supporting the educational process.
Two staff members have academic degrees: Islamgulova S.K., doctor of pedagogical sciences, school director, and Kairbekova R.R., candidate of historical sciences, history teacher.
The work of 17 teachers is marked by departmental awards and titles such as “Excellent Educator of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, “Honorary Educator of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, the badge “Y. Altynsarin”, “For merits in development of science of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, the medal “Teacher-mentor”, Master of Sports.
A fast-changing world requires constant updating of the content of education and of the means, methods and technologies by which it is organised. Consequently, the training and professional development of teaching staff is given increased attention. Over the past three years, every teacher has undergone professional development courses, e.g. in:
— problems of updating the content of secondary education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (BJSC NCPD «Orleu» IPDPW of Almaty).
— planning and achieving meta-subject educational results by means of educational subjects (Institute of Human Education, t. Moscow);
— study of new approaches to teaching in the context of updating the content of education (the Tabys Methodological and Training Centre);
— development and implementation of a meta-disciplinary lesson (Eidos Centre for Distance Education, Moscow);
— innovations in teachers’ activity in the conditions of modernization of education (Training and methodological centre “Tabys”)
— development of capacities, talents and leadership skills (Institute for the Family of Kazakhstan and Central Asia), etc.
The school staff improve their professional skills by participating in various workshops, seminars, webinars and conferences. For example, during 2019 our school psychologists O.V. Ivanova and M.H. Ruzieva attended a system of modules of a large training programme on social inclusion by Keith Loring, a British therapist and founder of the international non-profit organisation Ragamuffin International Project (UK – Cambodia).
The staff of the psycho-medical-pedagogical service work systematically to develop the soft skills of teachers and educators of the school. For this purpose, they use various organisational forms, means and methods. In the current academic year, training seminars have been held on the problems of developing students’ attention. Teachers have mastered a number of techniques for managing students’ attention, taking into account their age and other psycho-physiological characteristics.
An important competitive advantage of our school is its affiliation to Turan University, which allows us to actively use its scientific and pedagogical potential both for conducting classes for students and for the professional development of teachers. For example, Dana Ferber, Galina Sarinova (doctoral students in the Psychology Department) and Popov Vyacheslav (teacher in the Psychology Department), who are HR experts and business coaches, regularly conduct personal growth trainings on constructive conflict resolution, building effective communications, developing emotional intelligence, etc., as well as strategic facilitation sessions on designing educational systems with given properties. They are assisted by school psychologists in these activities.
Other university lecturers are also involved in staff training, sharing their experiences in organising the learning process on the basis of information and the latest educational technologies.
An important aspect of a child’s education is the development of vital competences, skills such as working with information, problem solving, communication and teamwork, etc. Fostering an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire for improvement are the most urgent tasks of our school. This is where A.S. Beresneva, senior teacher, head of the Enactus Turan team and curator of the Turan University business incubator, comes to our aid, not only conducting training sessions with students and teachers – leaders of students’ research projects, but also providing consultative support for this area.
Such cooperation with the university expands the range of opportunities, but does not prevent the implementation of the innovative potential of the school itself.
The teaching staff actively and consciously study best teaching practices, including international ones. For two years Lyceum “Turan” cooperated with the Scientific School of A.V. Khutorsky and became a certified partner of the Institute of Human Education (Moscow, Russia), implementing the project “Metasubject approach in education” and the programme “Heuristic classroom”. This allowed the teachers to use the author’s technologies of meta-disciplinary and heuristic teaching, forms and methods of conducting heuristic lessons, ways of composing and using heuristic tasks in their work. The following teachers were active participants: N.M. Subbotina (mathematics teacher), A.Zh. Jeniskyzy (history teacher), O.Yu. Akisheva (biology teacher), S.M. Klikich (geography teacher), L.N. Urazova (physical education teacher), O.V. Gadayeva (primary school teacher), A.S. Altynbekova (teacher of Kazakh language and literature) and others.
We continue to work on mastering and implementing meta-disciplinary technologies: open lessons and scientific-methodical seminars are held. In order to develop professional competence of teachers in the conditions of introduction of new educational standards the following scientific-methodical seminars were held in the last academic year: “Metacompetent approach to the structure of the lesson in the conditions of the updated educational content” and “Implementation of the metacompetent approach to the structure of the lesson in the conditions of the updated educational content”.
The experience of the school “Lyceum “Turan” on this issue is unique for Kazakhstan, and hence the achievements of our teachers are in demand not only in their own teaching staff, but also at the city level. For example, last academic year the city scientific and methodological seminar for teachers of the Kazakh language “Qazak tili men edebieti sabagynda “Rukhani zhangyru” kundylyktaryn metapandіk okytu arkyly zhuzege asyru” was held on the proposal of the City Scientific and Methodological Centre of New Technologies in Education of the Almaty Department of Education.
The experience of the highly professional team of our school is in demand not only in the field of practice of applying the meta-disciplinary approach to learning, but also in other aspects of educational activity. For example, in 2019 the workshop Modern Leader: Components of Success was held for school principals in Almaty. The seminar was organised and conducted by S.K. Islamgulova (school director, doctor of pedagogical sciences) and R. Sain (doctoral student of the Psychology Department of Turan University, founder of EdEx company, founder of BEST centre, business trainer, graduate of Turan Lyceum school.
Svetlana Islamgulova’s experience in managing educational systems is in demand not only in the city, but also at national and international levels. Svetlana Konstantinovna is an annual keynote speaker at various conferences and seminars.
Scientific, methodological and research work of teachers is not limited to the issues of organizing the educational process based on the meta-disciplinary approach. In order to continuously improve the quality of educational activities, in 2019 the teaching staff has been involved in the project “Designing Educational Systems with Given Properties”. At the scientific and methodological seminar “Competencies in Education. Designing Competences” the teachers discussed the problems and prospects of implementation of the competence approach in education, recalled the classification of key competences, identified further actions in the work of methodological departments on detailing key competences both by subjects and educational areas, and by age levels of education.
At the next scientific-methodological seminar ‘Designing learning outcomes for students in the form of subject and key competences: problems and prospects’, teachers presented summary tables «Results of Teaching by Subject in the Division of Classes» and «The Tree of Competences by Subjects and Classes», which in the future will help every teacher to develop competence-oriented tasks and select forms of lesson organisation and teaching methods.
The school’s teachers annually take part in professional competitions at various levels. For example, last year, four teachers became winners and three were awarded prizes in the Pedagogical Skills Competition as part of an international online teacher forum ‘Innovative Ways to Develop Modern Education’, held by the Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Education at Volgograd State University.
In the current academic year Kovalenko R.Sh. won the I International scientific conference “Kazakhstan in the International Educational Space: Problems, Trends and Prospects of Development” and took the 1st place in the Internet competition “Creativity of a Teacher”. Parfenova E.V. won the 1st place in the All-Russian Olympiad “Relay of Knowledge”. Omarova L.S. and Savankina L.V. were awarded diplomas of city, republican and international competitions for preparation of winners and prize-winners of these competitions.
