Preparing Future Teachers for the Digitalization of Preschool Education

The purpose of the study is to describe the development and testing of a structural and functional model of preparing future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education, its theoretical justification, as well as to determine the organizational and pedagogical conditions supporting this model. The relevance of the research at the socio-pedagogical level is related to the need of the state and society in preparing future teachers for professional activity in the context of digitalization of preschool education. At the scientific and theoretical level, the relevance of the study is due to the need to analyze the main approaches in the field of preparing future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education, and clarifying the key-concepts of “digitalization of preschool education” and “preparingfuture teachers for the digitalization of preschool education”. At the scientific and methodological level, the relevance of the study is due to the need to develop a structural and functional model of preparing future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education. Results . To achieve this goal, the following methodological approaches were used: a professional-activity approach to the training of future teachers, a competence-based approach in the field of designing educational outcomes, a personal approach, theories, concepts and views of researchers on the problem of using-digital technologies in working with preschool children. To solve the tasks, a set of complementary research methods was used: theoretical (analysis of sources on the research topic; specification of data; generalization of psychological and pedagogical literature; comparison of data on this issue; deduction; meaningful interpretation and analysis of results) and empirical (conducting ascertaining, formative and control experiments; questionnaires; testing; analysis of products of activity (performing practical tasks, essays); qualitative, quantitative and statistical methods of processing the obtained results based on a comparative analysis of the Mann-Whitney U test, Student’s t-test). Results. We have identified organizational and pedagogical conditions that provide support in the implementation of a structural and functional model of training future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education. 120 students of various forms of education took part in the pilot search work: full-time, part-time, studying in the field of “Preschool Education” at the bases of Shadrinsk State Pedagogical University, Shadrinsk (60 people) and Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University, Alma-Ata (60 people). The result of the pilot search work showed a significant improvement in the preparation of future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education, which indicates the success of the proposed structural and functional model. Most of the students in the experimental groups showed positive dynamics: in the Experimental Group 1, the progressive level increased from 20% (6 students) to 40% (12 students), in the Experimental Group 2, the progressive level also increased from 23% (7 students) to 40% (12 students). At the same time, the most significant results for all four components of the readiness of future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education were revealed in the Experimental Group 3, where two pedagogical conditions were implemented: the initial level decreased from 13% (4 students) to 0% (0 students), the functional level decreased from 60% (18 students) to 47% (14 students) and the progressive level increased from 27% (8 students) to 53% (16 students). Conclusion . We can be conclude that the preparation of future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education is an urgent task of modern education, the solution of which is tied to the scientific justification and identification of a set of necessary competencies that a modern specialist should possess. In the course of our work, we found that the preparation of future teachers for digital education of preschoolers would be more effective in developing and testing a structural and functional model and supporting its organizational and pedagogical conditions. Within the framework of the conducted research, a structural and functional model of preparing future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education was developed and theoretically substantiated. The structural components of the readiness of future teachers for the digitalization of preschool education are determined: general, pedagogical, subject-pedagogical, value-motivational, criteria for its formation and indexes of each criterion are developed.