Competences

Teacher education is treated very differently in countries throughout Europe. However, it appears that in each country the competences that are expected of teachers are more or less similar. In JoMiTE we have described these comptences. At the end of your JoMiTE program you should be able to master (at a basic level, we do not expect you to be an experienced teacher after one year) the following competences:

Interpersonal competence deals with the ability to communicate, perform, and interact in teacher’s work. With interpersonal competence the teacher understands the means of educational communication at school and in the classroom, and is willing and able to communicate clearly, making skilful use of a variety of media, and interact productively with pupils, individually and collectively.

Pedagogical and psychological competence is the core of general education. The teacher provides psychologically oriented support for learners’ development. With pedagogical and psychological competence the teacher understands the processes and conditions of education at both a theoretical and a practical level, has knowledge of psychological, social and multicultural aspects of education and is willing and able to motivate students to engage in learning and working tasks, challenge them to do their best and help them accomplish their tasks successfully.

On a secondary education level, the teacher must also be an expert in his/her field. Subject content and methodological competence consist of knowledge of a subject [1] as well as evidence based knowledge how it is taught. With subject content and methodological competence the teacher masters the contents of his/her discipline, is able to establish learning objectives emerging from them and is willing and able to plan, conduct and evaluate teaching and studying through the teacher’s pedagogical thinking. With this competence the teacher is able to introduce the scientific way of thinking in the subject field.

Organizational competence is naturally connected to organize the teacher’s work. The teacher is aware of the classroom environment and its mechanisms  and is willing and able to engage students and parents and to cooperate with colleagues in planning studies by adjusting plans and activities according to the changes in learning environment.

The JoMiTE initiative promotes understanding of cultures within Europe. The teacher has knowledge about different cultures and educational systems and is able to adept his teaching to other cultural contexts. Accordingly, with intercultural competence the teacher is aware of the global context of education and is willing and able to help pupils acquire democratic social values, distinctive national traditions, European cultural values and global human values. The teacher is able to reckon with peculiarity of multicultural learning environment and anticipate different situations.