Teachers contest: an inside look

Abstract. Based on the experience of participating in teachers contests: “PROFI” of Perm High school of Economics and “Keepers of the Russian Language” of the Academy of the Ministry of Education of Russia, the author of the article reflects on the problem of insufficiently active participation of the Kaliningrad Region teachers’ community in this kind of professional competitions, which are a new form of advanced training. Comparing the organization of two contests, the author draws attention to the strengths and weaknesses of these professional competitions in the organization of participants preparation for the contest at its various stages, the choice and determination of the level of difficulty of the tasks, compliance with the academic honesty at the stages of the contest, the analysis of the tasks and answers after each stage, the analysis of the mistakes made while performing the tasks, the possibility to maintain contact with the contest organizers during its conduct, and the appeal procedure after finishing it. The author is convinced that the participation in professional contests is beneficial for the participants by giving teachers the opportunity to compare their level of capacity in the subject teaching and methodology with their colleagues experience, by improving their qualifications and obtaining an incentive for further professional development. Furthermore, the article firstly concerning the school teachers, invokes the idea that it is worth of experiencing during the teachers intellectual contests the emotions similar to those felt by their pupils in the subject contests of various levels and of learning how to deal with such emotions.

Keywords: teachers contest, intellectual professional competition, advanced training, academic honesty, experience.