Developing the Intellectual Competence of Prospective Preschool Teachers Through an Innovative Approach: A Technology for Retraining Courses

The rapid expansion of preschool provision in Uzbekistan has brought many graduates of other disciplines into the profession through retraining courses. These adults bring life and work experience, but preschool pedagogy is new to them, and they need to learn not only what to do with young children but how to think through unfamiliar situations on their own. This article describes a technology for developing the intellectual competence of prospective preschool teachers enrolled in retraining courses at a regional center of pedagogical skills. Intellectual competence is treated as an integrated professional quality with motivational-value, cognitive, operational and reflective-creative components. The technology consists of diagnostic, design, practical and evaluative-corrective stages and combines problem-based learning, case studies, design thinking and digital interactive tools, while drawing on adult learning principles. Trial implementation with course participants (experimental group n = 52; control group n = 50) showed that trainees taught with the technology made greater progress than those taught in the conventional format, particularly in the operational and reflective-creative components. Trainees began to propose and compare alternative solutions, to adapt session plans to children's responses and to analyse their own thinking more precisely. The technology requires no additional teaching hours and can be transferred to other retraining and in-service programmes.