The experience in training and innovation of the Institute of Education Sciences allows us, at this time, to propose a training itinerary consisting of two programs: PAU and CAyD2The aim is to accompany, on the one hand, future professors who are developing their work mainly in research, such as research fellows (FPI and FPU), but who are also starting out in teaching, and, above all, to respond to article 78 of the LOSU, which establishes that universities will organize a mandatory initial teaching training course for doctoral assistant professors, whose characteristics will be established by the universities themselves, in agreement with their units responsible for teacher training and teaching innovation.
The itinerary is consistent with the objectives of the support plan for the professional development of UPV faculty, which proposes a Teaching Academic Development Framework (MDAD, REDU, 2018) with seven dimensions related to quality teaching, based on research, and with a conception of the teaching profession as a complex professional activity that requires systematic and long-haul training, with the necessary accompaniment and adjusted to each stage.
On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that in the same article 78 of the LOSU, it is stated that “after the first three years of the contract, the university will carry out an orientative evaluation of the performance of the Assistant Professors, which may be entrusted to the competent quality agencies. The purpose of this evaluation will be to assess the progress and quality of the teaching and research activity and, where appropriate, the transfer and exchange of knowledge of the teaching staff, which should lead them to achieve the merits required to obtain the necessary accreditation to apply for a permanent teaching position after the end of the contract”.
This new regulatory situation for teaching assistants, and the fact that it is important to align teacher training with teaching evaluation models (DOCENTIA) to support improvement processes, means that, although the new DOCENTIA UPV model has not yet come into force, although it is at a very advanced stage, the content and orientation of the itinerary has also been linked to the standards that will probably be used to evaluate the quality of teaching of UPV faculty.
Curricular architecture of the itinerary
From the methodological point of view, both the PAU and CAyD2 are designed from an academic conception of teaching (SoTL), i.e., helping teachers to be quality teachers implies doing so from the characteristics that define the teaching profession: a good professional needs to make his or her practice the subject matter of the teaching profession.
This reflection cannot be something that remains in the private world, but it is good to share it with other colleagues because it offers a tool for change and, finally, professionalism will also be observed in tangible products that give an account of the achievements to be subjected to the debate of the profession itself.
Thus, in both programs, the following are maintainedcommon training elements who want to develop these principles:
- Use of theportfolioas a guiding thread for training and personal reflection on teaching: this portfolio begins in the PAU and continues in the CAyD.2.
- Work in base groups orlearning communities The challenges they face are increasingly rigorous: from a small improvement in the teaching activity for which they are responsible to an incipient innovation in the case of doctoral assistants.
- Incorporation of one of the practices that have the greatest impact on teacher development such as thepeer reviewIn this case, too, the scope of collaborative work is to help and be helped by colleagues.
- Mentorslinked to the participants’ areas of knowledge, since in the initial stages of teaching development there are reference figures that serve to accompany teachers in two very important processes: socialization in the places where they carry out their work and the reference of how it is understood to be a teacher of a specific discipline.