Special education teachers can also be employed in the developmental departments in kindergartens, where their work with children with special needs is founded on teamwork approaches. For the optimal promotion and development of children’s functioning, a professional team is needed in developmental kindergartens in which specialist and rehabilitation teachers, speech therapists, psychologists, counsellors and the leaders of the educational institution are included. In practice, teamwork is required from all professional staff in developmental kindergartens on a daily basis. For effective and successful teamwork, it is necessary to set clear and attainable common goals, which are aimed at empowering the child and his advancement in all areas of development. In order to facilitate the achievement of the set team goals, it is important for one to be aware of the variety of dynamics, processes, and phenomena in the team, for example, motivation, positive interdependence, work satisfaction, team effectiveness, etc. The more the individual is satisfied in his workplace, the greater motivation he will have for teamwork, communication will be a great motivation for all team members and as a result, the team will work more effectively. Nonetheless, members of the team also face obstacles, problems and conflicts that can be solved using constructive strategies for facing and solving problems. Successfully resolved conflicts in the team encourage change and lead to new insights, aide in coming to more relevant decisions, build up interpersonal relationships, improve communication in the team and the participation of all the team members. The main aim of this master’s thesis was to determine which obstacles, problems and conflicts Special education teachers most often encounter while working in the developmental department in kindergartens, which strategies they use to solve problems and conflicts, and how the frequency of recognizing obstacles, problems and conflicts relate with work satisfaction of Special education teachers. The data were collected using a questionnaire then statistically processed and presented in a tabular and graphical manner. 102 Special education teachers participated in the research. With this research, we found out that Special education teachers are most often faced with a lack of time to plan teamwork as well as spatial issues. Moderately frequent responders also mentioned the problem of the dominance of one team member in the implementation of teamwork as well as the problem with organising time to discuss the content and course of the teamwork. We found that there are statistically significant differences in the estimates of the frequency of obstacles and problems in the implementation of teamwork in the developmental departments of kindergartens in relation to the work of Special education teachers. After all, educators in the developmental departments in kindergartens acknowledge obstacles and problems more often than their assistants. Through this research, we found out that the responding special education teachers most often use more suitable strategies to deal with obstacles, problems and conflicts than the respondents who are employed in their workplace as teacher's assistants. The respondents also said that the most common cause of conflict in their teamwork is the deliberate destruction of rules, disregard of rules and discrepancies in methods and forms of work with children with special needs.
|
