Directions and Strategic Guidelines for Continuous Professional Development of Scientific and Pedagogical Collaborators of Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy
Authors:   Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy. 23, Shevchenko St., Poltava 36011, Ukraine, Stepanchuk A. P. , Lisachenko O. D. , Yeroshenko G. A. 
Published: February 2021

Improving the quality of higher education requires constant professional development and growth of both young and more experienced university teachers. Undoubtedly, professional growth is necessary, first of all, for young teachers of higher educational institutions, because they have no experience of working with students and insufficient knowledge of the discipline they teach. The professional growth of a teacher, which takes place throughout his/her creative activity, is aimed at improving the previously acquired and acquiring new competencies within the framework of his/her professional activity. Scientific and pedagogical workers systematically update the acquired professional knowledge and skills, master modern educational technologies and develop their professional and personal qualities. The continuous professional development of healthcare professionals occupies a special place. The systematic process of training and improving professional competencies after specialists receive higher and postgraduate education in internship, gives them the opportunity to maintain and improve the standards of professional activity in accordance with the needs of healthcare. The provision of high-quality educational services in medical universities is carried out by highly professional teachers who constantly improve their knowledge, skills and abilities through continuous professional development. The administration of the Ukrainian Medical Dental Academy constantly and in every possible way contributes to the professional development of the teachers of its institution, creating the necessary conditions for this, and also helps in choosing forms of increasing and improving pedagogical skills. Based on the results of work over the past year, the staff of the academy took part especially actively in the work of international scientific and methodological conferences, international webinars, online seminars, distance courses, courses for improving pedagogical skills, and also have numerous publications of the scientific and methodological direction in publications included in Scopus database, Web of Science and materials of educational and methodological conferences. Research and teaching staff of the Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy created a personal educational portfolio based on the results of continuous improvement of pedagogical skills. Each type of work is evaluated by a certain number of credits, which makes it possible to summarize the results of continuous professional growth of scientific and pedagogical staff of the academy for each year of their work. In Ukraine, each university forms its own model of professional development of research and teaching staff, depending on the direction of training of specialists and the specifics of the educational process. Continuing professional development is an integral part of the activities of higher education institutions and contributes to the acquisition of new and improvement of acquired professional competencies by research and teaching staff within their professional activities, which corresponds to modern trends in the educational process