Navigating Leadership in Virtual Education: Challenges and Opportunities for University Educators’ Self-Realization in Online Teaching

Thanks to the activities of higher education teachers, the state policy of accumulating future specialists’ intellectual, creative and spiritual potential, as well as the development of modern science, engineering, and technology, is being implemented. In this light, the problem of professional self-realisation of future higher education teachers is of particular importance as one of the most important conditions for their personal and professional development. This article aims to study the ways of self-realisation and self-changing of a higher education teacher in the context of distance learning. The study is based on the empirical experience of teaching in higher education, as well as the theoretical analysis of the role of the teacher in the organisation and implementation of distance learning in higher education institutions of Ukraine. The study was conducted based on empirical experience of teaching in higher education, analysis of educational programmes of higher education institutions in Ukraine and a survey of medical teachers. It has been determined that distance learning, by its very nature, can help the teacher’s self-realisation due to certain features of this educational process, which should be analysed through the prism of the main aspects of self-realisation: autonomy, self-reflection, transgression and creative activity. Using a survey of higher education teachers based on E. Shostrom’s personality self-actualisation test, it was found that the age of the teacher, their teaching experience and professional experience are of fundamental importance and quite specific significance for assessing the possibilities of self-development in distance learning. The ranking of qualities that ensure a high level of self-realisation of teachers in professional activities showed the highest indicators of competence in time and quality of self-respect, creativity, understanding of human nature and cognitive needs.