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| 1 | The paper presents the analytical review and gives classification parameters of the educational technology “Peer Coaching” (aims and goals, steps, forms of activity, etc.), it offers variants of its effective implementation in the work of high school teachers, shows some difficulties they might face while working with the technology and offers some practical guidelines of the most appropriate and efficient ways how to implement it in the teaching process of Russian Federation higher education. The study proves that “Peer Coaching” is one of the most successful technologies for the development of university teaching staff, that has the goal to advance the professionalism of teachers by training them to facilitate frequent, informal, helpful observations by one professional educator to another, to provide necessary rationale feedback and coach each other. The article shows that this is a simple, nonthreatening structure designed for peers to help each other to recognize their professional needs, improve instruction, learning situations or other teachers’ professional activity including even scientific research. “Peer Coaching” technology promotes not just the culture of collegiality among university teaching staff, it also offers many opportunities for their own professional development, which will do much to improve the quality of university education, restore friendly classroom environment and contribute to their own professional success. Keywords: educational technology, professional development, university teaching staff, Peer Coaching | 2062 | ||||
| 2 | Professional readiness, as an integral personality characteristic, significantly influences the effectiveness of a university graduate’s professional development in their chosen field, including foreign language teaching. In this article, the authors examine the problem of developing pre-service teachers’ professional readiness using the example of the foreign language teachers training at Novosibirsk State Technical University. The “Professional Portfolio” technology, implemented on NSTU’s DiSpace digital educational platform, was chosen as a means of developing professional readiness among final-year students studying the “Foreign Language Teachers’ Professional Development” course. The portfolio structure included three sections: reflective-diagnostic, work-based, and demonstration, which were completed by students throughout the course. The learning activities resulted in portfolios that were presented and discussed by all students upon completion of the course. Through student activity observation and content analysis it was discovered that reflective-diagnostic procedures enabled students to focus on goal-setting and detail the stages of goal achievement; the “working portfolio” facilitated the development of strategies for achieving professional development goals, taking into account existing limitations due to personal qualities and ways to overcome them; and the “demonstration portfolio” helped students to structure information about their achievements for potential employers. While working on the portfolios students developed an ideal model of the foreign language teacher, which can serve as a guide for professional development during the initial stage of professionalization after graduation. The results of the research proved an increase in professional motivation among students. According to the authors, the “Professional Portfolio” technology allows graduates to assess the level of their professional competencies based on existing reflective skills using the proposed set of diagnostics, it provides an opportunity to clearly present personal and professional achievements by the time of graduation, and also determine the vector of further professional development. Keywords: pre-service teachers’ professional readiness development, language teacher, vocationally-oriented technologies, professional portfolio | 72 | ||||