Psychological and pedagogical practices of professional image improvement of teachers in conditions of additional professional education

The research problem and the rationale for its relevance. The image is one of the means to improve the level of professionalism of a teacher. Regulatory documents provide general information about the image of a teacher and requirements for his/her behavior in the professional environment. There is a need to concretize the information about the professional image of teachers. The image of a teacher was mainly considered by the scientists-researchers in the aspect of highlighting the necessary professional and personal characteristics, various classifications. Image formation consists in artificial construction of new external stimuli so that the person (or an organization, a product) would make a certain impression on the audience and seem more confident, premium, innovative. Therefore, image-making mainly uses tools such as PR, PR digital strategies. These image technologies are aimed at having a positive impact on the audience, to understand how and what is possible to influence it to achieve their own goals. Image technologies are more focused on working with the external attributes of communication, with those that will affect the strategies of interaction, make them more manipulative, and therefore more effective. The internal component in the construction of the personal image is forced to adjust to the necessary requirements, is artificially trained. Under the influence of the external there is a transformation of the internal. The teacher's image matters: parents and schoolchildren have certain expectations, perceptions and needs. In the scientific literature there are enough developments about the image of a teacher, its components, and possible effective images. But it is quite difficult for teachers to use the advice themselves or there may be a distrustful attitude towards the new concept and it is not considered appropriate to apply it to themselves and their professional activities. Therefore, we propose to develop psychological and pedagogical practices to improve the professional image of teachers in conditions of additional professional education. There is also a need for diagnostic tools in the research of teachers' own image. The goal of the research is to present psychological and pedagogical practices of improving and evaluating the professional image of teachers in the conditions of additional professional education. Methodology (materials and methods). The method of theoretical analysis, generalization and synthesis of psychological and pedagogical literature, theoretical method of modeling, empirical method of primary mathematical processing, the ascertaining and forming experiments. Research results. A comprehensive approach to improving the professional image of teachers in conditions of additional professional education is proposed. The technologies of image practices and tools for assessing teachers' professional image are presented. Theoretical significance is the generalization of psychological and pedagogical literature on the problem of improving the professional image of teachers in conditions of additional professional education. The practical significance consists in the development and testing of the technology of image practices, tools to assess the professional image of teachers “Self-assessment of competencies for creating a successful image (image) of a teacher”.