Development of project culture of pedagogical and managerial employees - participants of professional mastery contests

The research problem and the rationale for its relevance. Theoretical analysis of modern scientific publications, federal and regional normative legal documents, as well as empirical analysis of managerial and pedagogical practices of participants in professional mastery contests, carried out by the authors of the article, allowed us to identify the research problem. The identified problem is the insufficient formation of project culture of managers and teachers, participants of various professional mastery contests. However, the requirements of professional standards for professional competence include a wide range of project competencies that both managers and teachers of educational organizations should possess. This contradiction indicates the relevance of the proposed publication and is the basis for the research. The goal of the research is to confirm the assumption put forward by the authors that by participating in professional mastery competitions, teachers and heads of educational organizations, develop a project culture that ensures the promotion of their effective practices. The methodological basis of the research was the andragogical and competence-based approaches, as well as the principles of project management. The results of the theoretical research allowed us to determine the following: by participating in professional competitions, managers and teachers carry out informal advanced training in terms of improving not only individual project competences, but also the project culture, in general. The authors of the article consider participation in competitions as an intangible project in the form of an individual route, the design and implementation of which provides the development of project culture and includes three stages: preparation for the competition, direct participation in the competition, post-competition movement. The design and implementation of the individual route is carried out by the project team. Theoretical significance and novelty of the research lies in the fact that the conducted scientific systematization and generalization of normative requirements of the regional level to the structure and content of professional skill competitions (list of competitive tasks, evaluation criteria) allowed to identify the enlarged groups of design competences which are developed in the process of preparation for the competition, direct participation in it, as well as in the post-competition movement. During the implementation of the competitor's individual route the formation of project culture values as well as the development of personal competences (soft- and self-competences) are carried out. The authors put forward the thesis that the level of formation of project culture allows effective promotion of pedagogical and management practices in the professional community, contributing to the formation of positive image of both the competitor and the educational organization he/she represents. The practical significance lies in the fact that the authors of the article propose to use the criterial apparatus of assessment of competitive tasks as an additional tool in conducting non-personalized and / or personified research to identify professional difficulties of teachers and heads of educational organizations, which will contribute to identifying opportunities to eliminate them in the system of additional professional education through both formal and non-formal advanced training.