Quo Vadis? School Principals' Educational Leadership in the Technological Era of the 21st Century

This article focuses on a case study of primary schools in the northern peripheral region in Israel. Its aim is acquiring insights into the influence of principals as educational leaders of meaningful use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning. The data source in this study is qualitative based on personal interviews with 6 school principals and 9 teachers. The conclusion arising from these interviews was that school principals’ areas of responsibility are anchored in leading teaching, educational and learning processes, molding schools’ future image – vision and managing change, leading, and professionally developing staff, while concentrating on in individuals, managing links between schools and communities. School leaders do not need to be IT experts, but it is important they have the vision to adopt change reform in the technological era of the 21st century. Principals are role models for teachers when they provide them with support and training to encourage them to employ ICT in planning their lessons. which is likely to improve their teaching and students’ learning.

Attributes of social capital in the educational organisation

The article highlights according to the concept of social capital, the changes generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the educational system. This research identified the attributes of social capital at the level of the adults involved in the educational process (parents, students), the impact of the current period on them and the opinion of the respondents regarding the education reform. The conclusions of the study prove an activation of the intentions of involvement and participation in the management structures and in the educational projects at the level of the school organization, along with a low degree of confidence in the way the reform of the educational system is designed and implemented. Change management in recent years has highlighted the need for school involvement in the development of social capital and also the need to increase the role of social stakeholders in solving the challenges facing school organizations.

Adjusting 1st year students' teaching practice to the online environment

The current study aimed to collect relevant feedback on teaching practice effectiveness in relation to the tutors, students’ engagement in teaching practice, as well as self-reflection regarding necessary competences for a primary school teacher. Pedagogical activities within the teaching practice have considered: students’ online attendance to the classes held by the primary teacher, filling in an observation form regarding the lessons taught, mentorship session for analyzing the lessons along with the teachers, drafting a psycho-pedagogical record for a pupil, filling a form on reviewing the student’s performance and implication in the teaching practice. Having concluded the study’s results, we can now state that the teaching practice’s way of planning in the second school semester has proven efficient. The mentor-student / inter-student interaction has contributed to developing competences that a primary school teacher does require, through the feedback provided by the observation forms, as well as by involving students directly in the didactic activities, encouraging initiative and self-reflection. Objective analysis of results, suggestions, proposals, as well as difficulties encountered has made it possible to build a solid reference for future teaching practice – both online and in the classroom – and working towards improving it and all its partakers.

Synchronous and Asynchronous in Online Teaching and Learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Students' Perspectives

One of the main changes that occurred after the coronavirus outbreak and that represents one of the main measures taken in order to limit the virus spread refers to the conversion of the educational activities conducted conventionally into activities implemented by means of online platforms. The transition was sudden, unexpected and it still can be indefinitely prolonged. The main approaches encountered in the context of online education are asynchronous and synchronous ones. Our paper contains the results of an interpretive analysis of the opinions expressed by a group of 37 undergraduate students on asynchronous and synchronous online educational activities. We considered their opinions relevant due to the fact that since they started their studies at the university in October 2020, they conducted exclusively online activities. We explored students’ preferences and limitations of the both approaches, but also their wishes for the next period. Students expressed their interest in keeping online asynchronous and synchronous activities for the future academic years, at least for part of their subjects.

How teachers contribute to student success in completing study programs

The present study analyzes the contribution that teachers, as important pedagogical factors, have in achieving success in the academic learning of students. With age, there comes a greater autonomy of the educated, and during the university studies, a maximum of the students’ level of acquisitions is reached. Even if the most important factors in attending and completing studies are internal, and success is a relative, difficult situation to quantify, it is necessary to analyze it objectively, identifying the students' perceptions of the external support from the teachers. From an applicative point of view, our contribution consisted in verifying the extent to which the communication and didactic evaluation components are valued, by organizing focus groups, by applying appreciation scales to a sample of students preparing to become teachers, at the University of Craiova. The subjects responded to the request to perform reflective-appreciative exercises on themselves and on the activity of their teachers in the academic year 2020-2021. They indicated the degree of satisfaction they attribute to the way they were helped in: conducting didactic communication, experiencing the feeling of belonging to the university environment, applying a correct evaluation, heading towards academic success. The ways in which teachers contribute to the success of their students have proven their usefulness and can be transformed into directions of action. Teachers make it easier for young people or adults in the university environment to make the most of their potential, both through quality teaching and through encouraging evaluation.

The influence of a course in inclusive education on changing pre-service teachers’ readiness to work with students with SEN

Understanding teachers’ perspective towards inclusive education is seen as a decisive factor in making schools more inclusive. Given the increasing need to prepare pre-service teachers to face inclusion in the classroom as soon as they enter the teaching career, we consider appropriate to assess to which extend can a training course have an impact on the level of pre-service teachers to teach in inclusive classrooms. In this respect, final year students from Education Science degree that finalized a study course on the topic of inclusive education were invited to participate into this research by filling in a questionnaire based on the teacher efficacy for inclusive practices (TEIP) scale. Results show that even after taking a relatively short training course, it can bring about some statistically significant changes in pre-service teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and confidence level towards inclusion. Pre-service teachers that have participated to this study are generally in favor of going through training courses to acquire a special set of skills to thereby be able to work in an inclusive learning environment.

Strategies to Facilitate the Transition of Preschoolers from Kindergarten to School

The purpose of this study was to establish the main strategies that teachers could apply during preschool education in order to facilitate the transition from kindergarten to school. Data were collected using an online questionnaire designed by us. 238 preschool education teachers have filled in the questionnaire. The main strategies used in order to facilitate the preschoolers’ adaptation to the school demands are visits to other educational institutions from their hometown, organizing workshops, in collaboration with primary school teachers, organizing meetings with pupils and primary school teachers, organizing didactic activities or educational workshops for parents and preschoolers, as a context for parents to present various school experiences or reading stories about school and the pupils’ life. We have also discovered that in the opinion of most of the teachers, school adaption is an easy process for most preschoolers. For some of the preschoolers, this process could be difficult, and the actions of parents, teachers, and school counselors could be very helpful. The results of this study are useful for primary school teachers, teachers for preschool education, or researchers in the educational field interested in optimizing the transition of children from kindergarten to school.

Using students' reflection in the university educational process - a qualitative approach

The university learning process must be self-planned, self-directed, self-initiated, and frequently individually completed. To be able to achieve these goals, the students must have certain knowledge and skills. One of these is the reflective ability, developed through different modalities and using different tools. This article presents a qualitative interpretation of the students' responses written in a reflective journal, at the end of a semester, as a tool for self-assessment and self-reflection and feedback on the educational activities in which they were involved. We present, anonymously, the dominant answers for each item grouped in reflective dimensions about the teaching and learning process. Based on these responses, we tried to identify characteristics and/or difficulties in the teaching and learning process, not only to summarize and analyze but to value and/or optimize them in the future university educational process.

Adaptive coping strategies and mechanisms used by students to combat pandemic stress

The present study aims to investigate the adaptive coping strategies and mechanisms of students-future teachers in combating the stress caused by the pandemic. The subjects of the investigation were 58 master students, from the Faculty of Letters, University of Craiova, who are also studying to become teachers. The tool we used was an opinion questionnaire, through which we investigated the opinion of the subjects on the stated issue and we inventoried the ways they used to manage stress. We aimed to identify the most frequent emotional reactions of the students to the effects generated by the measures and restrictions imposed during the pandemic period, which the students critically analyzed, from the perspective of the caused shortcomings, but also the offered opportunities. We also investigated the students' opinion about the specifics of the teaching activity, carried out online, compared to the one face to face. The results obtained from the application of the instrument confirmed the research hypotheses.

The Teachers' Opinion about Online Learning Process for Children with Special Educational Needs

Communication in the online environment represents a real evolution for the whole society, hence for the educational system but because the whole change took place in a short span of time, the education has faced an unencountered challenge up to now. Component of the informational society, the educational dynamic and open system promotes nowadays ways of achieving the instructional educational process, offering to the teacher a multitude of organisational and functional variants. However, in the case of children with special educational needs, there are many barriers in the way of achieving their right to education in the virtual space. The present study consisted of achieving an inquiry-based questionnaire, applied to the teaching staff who works in inclusive education centres and to those who have students with different deficiencies and special educational needs in their class. The results of the study highlight both the difficulties and the opportunities of achieving a didactic activity in the online environment for students with special educational needs.