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Высшее образование
УДК 378
СОВЕРШЕНСТВОВАНИЕ ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКОЙ ПРАКТИКИ
В ОБЛАСТИ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В РОССИИ И КИТАЕ
Е.Л. Гуселетова, С. Вишневска, Х. Куссе, Б.П. Гуселетов1
'Статья подготовлена в рамках реализации Проекта «Совершенствование практики преподавания в системе высшего образования в России и Китае» Программы «ЭРАЗМУС+»
Аннотация. В статье рассмотрен совместный проект Erasmus + «Повышение педагогической практики в области высшего образования в России и Китае», который начался в 2017. Проект вносит вклад в реформу высшего образования в России и Китае путем создания системы устойчивого профессионального развития высшего образования на основе лучших методов преподавания в ЕС и оснащен современной методологией, педагогическими подходами и новаторскими методами преподавания с акцентом на качество и регулирование. В этом контексте был сформирован консорциум европейских, российских и китайских высших учебных заведений. В рамках проекта будут организованы конференции, встречи и тренинги, будут созданы центры обучения и обучения в учреждениях-партнерах с обученным персоналом и методической поддержкой, а также будут подготовлены методические рекомендации и дидактическое обеспечение для практической педагогической деятельности.
Ключевые слова: педагогическая практика, высшее образование, Россия, Китай, Эразмус +.
ENHANCING TEACHING PRACTICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
IN RUSSIA AND CTINA ON THE BASIS OF EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE
E. Guseletova, S. Vyshnevska, H. Kusse, B. Guseletov1
'The article is written within the Capacity Building Project «Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education in RUSSIA and CHINA» (ENTEP). ERASMUS+ Programme
Abstract. The paper presents the Erasmus + joint project "Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education in Russia and China" (ENTEP) which started in 2017. The project contributes to the higher education reform in Russia and China through establishing a system of sustainable professional development in higher education on the basis of the best EU teaching practices and equipped with contemporary innovative teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches with the emphasis on quality and regulation. Therefore a consortium of EU, Russian and Chinese higher education institutions was build. During the project conferences, meetings and trainings will be provided, Centres for Teaching and Learning at partner country institutions with trained personnel and methodological support will be established, and manuals and didactical guides will be developed.
Keywords: Teaching Practice, Higher Education, Russia, China, European Union, Erasmus +.
In March 2018 at TU Dresden, Germany the kick-off-meeting of the Erasmus + joint project "Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education in Russia and China" (ENTEP) was hold. Erasmus + is a program financed by the European Union. Created in 1987 it supports the mobility and exchange of students, teachers and scientist as well as international research projects. Universities from Russia, China, England, Italy, Portugal and Germany participate in the ENTEP project. From the Russian side it is coordinated by the Ural State University of Economics in Yekaterinburg. TU Dresden is the European coordinator.
ENTEP has been initiated with the aim of improving the quality of education and teaching,
enhancing teaching practices and further developing educational science in Russia and China. Partners experienced in higher education teacher training formed a consortium in order to benefit from their different experiences, profiles and specific expertise and to produce relevant and high quality outcomes. The Project is focused on building cooperation and exchange of good teaching practices among European, Russian and Chinese universities, which should result in the modernization of partner country institutions.
The project wider objective is to contribute to the higher education reform in Russia and China through establishing a system of sustainable professional development in higher education on the
basis of the best EU teaching practices and equipped with contemporary innovative teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches with the emphasis on quality and regulation.
Effective teacher education is key to high education teachers' ability to face educational change and handle various socioeconomic conditions, however, more professional training is required throughout a teacher's career as different professional needs emerge and contextual circumstances shift.
Russian and Chinese educational authorities require that higher education teachers, who lack pedagogical education, must receive training through professional development in-service programs on theory and practice of teaching, including advanced teaching methods and pedagogy. Thus, the proposed establishment of Centres for Teaching and Learning at partner country institutions with trained personnel and methodological support will provide a model for such high quality training on a regular basis and engage educators with the most up-to-date technologies to support teaching design and delivery. In order to be able to fit the changing learning environment, University teachers will be informed of modern pedagogy, curricula and syllabi design, contemporary teaching methodologies and psychology in the classroom, thus, being able to teach graduates who will meet needs of the labour market. Consequently, continuous professional development of university teaching staff will be focused on shared international and national 'centres of excellence', best practices, advanced teaching methodology and educational psychology in convergence with EU initiatives.
A university-wide, cross-departmental network of Centres for Teaching and Learning will be established in Russian and Chinese partner country institutions and a comprehensive set of professional guidelines for teacher training providers and leaders will be developed. Learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches including learning outcomes and Information and Communication Technology practices (ICT practices) will be available for professional development of the partner country institutions' teaching staff. Training of trainers will be done through the training workshops at European institutions.
A modern, tailored, module-based curriculum for higher education teacher training based on contemporary education science and aimed at professional development of the academic staff will be developed and piloted at each partner country institution. A comprehensive set of professional
guidelines for teacher training providers and leaders will be developed, incorporating learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches including learning outcomes, ICT-based practices and blended courses and introduced at partner country institutions.
Specific project objectives are:
1. To identify weaknesses, needs and emerging issues in partner country institutions teaching practices and match them with the best EU practices.
2. To internationalize and harmonize teaching practices in EU, Russian and Chinese Universities through the series of workshops and seminars introducing major principles of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and to improve qualification of the partner country institutions teaching staff in pedagogy allowing educators to build on innovative strategies and up-dated contents.
3. To establish a network of Centres for Teaching and Learning in partner country institutions and to enable their staff to support each other and develop their own expertise.
4. To develop a set of professional guidelines for teacher training providers and to introduce learning and teaching tools, methodologies and pedagogical approaches.
5. To design and deliver modern, module-based curriculum for higher education teacher training.
6. To introduce modules on teaching methods, pedagogy and psychology in PhD and MA curricula.
7. To enhance quality, relevance and convergence with EU initiatives.
8. To introduce and disseminate project outcomes.
To meet the project objectives a differentiated working methodology is developed. It includes a sample of work packages among which the following five work packages are the main ones.
The first work package is aimed at the collection and analysis of the available information about the existing teaching practices in Russian and Chinese higher education institutions. All partner country institutions assist the Analytical Report Work Group collecting the necessary data within their institutions via interviews, questionnaires, and secondary data research. The in-depth analysis of the state of the art of the teaching practices in partner country institutions will help outline weaknesses, needs and emerging issues and match with the best EU teaching practices. The report will outline the missing skills and competences of the teachers and suggest training programmes based on training needs analysis and learning outcomes. It will be assessed by the Internal and External Quality Control Groups and feedback provided.
In the second work package partner country institutions academic staff is prepared for major project developments. 35 top managers (Rectors, Vice-rectors and Deans) and 35 teaching staff will be trained on tuning educational structures in EHEA and Bologna principles as well as innovative pedagogy, delivery methods, transparent assessment techniques, quality assurance procedures and student-centred education.
On this basis the third work package is aimed at establishing fully equipped Centres for Teaching and Learning at each partner country institution with the purpose of academic development, which will help create learning environments that enhance educational quality by offering teacher development programmes, which will systematically help teachers enhance their pedagogic abilities and promote the use of educational technologies. Regarding the role of Teaching and Learning Centres, the following points can be emphasized:
T&L Centres
- should be centrally located units, given their university-wide, cross-departmental role, and to enable their staff to support each other and develop their own expertise, scholarship and research as specialists in educational development;
- should have proper resourcing and strong backing from senior management and heads of academic and service departments;
- can collaborate with Quality Assurance units (e.g. on development of academic/pedagogical policies), but need to remain separate units in order to protect their work as "developers" - not "inspectors" - and so maintain lecturers' confidence in working with them.
Three functions, namely, improving teaching and learning methods across the institution, professional development of academic staff and encouraging innovation and change in teaching and learning are central to their role.
T&L Centres will have a significant direct responsibility in the initial professional development of staff, followed by professional development of staff in relation to learning and teaching. The most significant shared responsibilities are raising the overall quality of teaching and learning and driving forward the learning and teaching strategy.
The importance of professionalism in teaching in higher education is gaining acknowledgement internationally. For example, the European Science Foundation (2012) [3] sees it as central to the integration and regionalization of European higher education and to supporting student mobility within the Bolgna process. Higher education demands that student learning experiences are of equally high quality across Europe. The Bologna process, which
now recognizes the need for improved classroom teaching, aims to increase student mobility. Mobility will only bring:
- desired outcomes if students can expect attractive and competitive education at home and abroad. European efforts at quality assurance call for qualified and competent teaching staff so that the quality of education is enhanced and comparable across the region. To help all students to learn in and for this;
- changing environment, academics as university teachers need a better understanding of teaching and learning issues as well as to advance their pedagogic competences. Many current methods, such as widespread lecturing to students, relegate students to passivity, tend to focus narrowly on subject knowledge, and, thus, are inadequate. Instead, effective teaching needs to put student learning at the centre of the teaching process.
Centers are designed to provide professional recognition within higher education teaching and learning support through a comprehensive set of professional standards and guidelines for higher education providers and leaders.
The Centres will also provide training to postgraduates who have teaching duties and a shared strategic responsibility for implementation of the learning, teaching and assessment strategy, encouragement of innovation and enhancing teaching quality.
Thus the purpose of the Centres is to support colleagues involved in higher education teaching and support of learning to engage with current challenges, enhance their educational practice and scholarship and to reflect on their choice of identity as an educator - one that fits with their own professional values and articulation of their professional practice.
Implementation of the forth work package will help introduce advanced pedagogical approaches and innovative methodologies at the PCIs through the development of comprehensive set of professional guidelines and teaching tools for teacher training providers and leaders.
The same objective may be achieved in a variety of ways during the process of teaching-learning. We do not follow different paths out of some gratuitous need for variety, much rather we insist on a range of teaching-learning methods because of scientific exigency and expeditiousness. It has been proven from an epistemological and psychological perspective that the various learning strategies lead to different learning results, as it has also been demonstrated that the different learning contents can be processed through different learning paths and with varying efficiency. As long as the successful
achievement of educational objectives is at stake, disciplinary methodology and didactics cannot ignore which teaching-learning paths and methods lead to the predefined objectives. Despite still being in its infancy, teaching-learning strategy is one of the most fundamental methodological categories, which has been defined with the appearance of specializations in the field of didactics and the emergence of didactic and disciplinary research within the pedagogical scientific framework.
What do we mean by teaching-learning strategy? The optimal paths and methods are considered when exploring the question of strategies, which should help achieving the specific objectives: how knowledge can be obtained, how concepts can be shaped, how a knowledge system can be constructed, how the applicable knowledge can be accumulated, how skills, proficiencies and abilities can be developed.
The strategy is such a complex system of methods, tools, organizational styles and forms aimed at achieving goals which is based on a coherent theoretical basis and which has a particular syntax (the definition and given order of executable steps) and is implemented in a particular learning environment [2]. It is clear from the definition that while teaching content answers the questions "What shall we teach?", strategy reveals "How we should teach?", yet it is not to be confused with the concept of method. For strategy does not refer to the organization and realization of a short educational moment, rather it is a long-term paradigmatic direction. The paradigmatic nature means that strategies are always constructed according to the philosophical, logical or psychological theories of teaching and learning. A strategy is a long-term definition of a general direction that encompasses design, supervision, management as well as the system of the applied processes and their appropriate instructions. Therefore, we can state that strategy is a category in a general methodological sense. When examining the nature of the strategies in the teaching-learning, we have to uncover the effective ways and means of the functioning and operating of the educational process which lead to the successful realization of the didactic activity. We have to construct such teaching-learning models that are supported by well-defined learning theoretical paradigms and facilitate the processing of educational content in the interest of the predefined objectives. Thus, strategies are well-defined means of activity orientating the process of learning which, due to their internal logic, allow for the selection and construction of methods, tools, processes and organizational forms while represent a fundamental pedagogical approach.
Didactical Manual Development Work Group and Guide Development Work Group will be set up with the aim of developing such educational products as Didactical Manual and Practical Guide.
Didactical Manual will introduce the teaching staff to core systemic principles of the pedagogical framework and will give an overview of the most important types of didactic teaching strategies and their genesis as well as present possible subject-specific applications of these strategies. It will help teachers select from a range of contemporary teaching strategies in both online and face-to-face contexts, including empirical strategy, problemsolving strategy or modelling strategy, depending on the teaching objectives. The success of teaching-learning is defined by the mutual interaction of a number of factors, one of the most important being the didactic strategy employed by the teacher.
Another important educational product is a Guide, which will present a summary of developments in higher education curriculum design in recent decades and, drawing on recent practical experience, will suggest a user-friendly methodology for writing modules, courses and programmes in terms of learning outcomes. One of the key components of the higher education modernization within the EHEA is the restructuring of the description of degree programmes in terms of learning outcomes. International trends in education show a shift from the traditional "teachercentred" approach to a "student-centred" approach. This alternative model focuses on what the students are expected to be able to do at the end of the module or programme. Hence, this approach is commonly referred to as an outcome-based approach. Statements called intended learning outcomes, commonly shortened to learning outcomes, are used to express what it is expected that students should be able to do at the end of the learning period.
The task of writing learning outcomes has been made considerably easier for us due to the work of Benjamin Bloom, who carried out research in the development of classification of levels of thinking during the learning process. He believed that learning was a process and that our job as teachers was to design lessons and tasks to help students to meet the objectives that have been set. Bloom's most famous contribution to education was that he drew up levels of these thinking behaviours from the simple recall of facts at the lowest level up to the process of evaluation at the highest level. Bloom's taxonomy was not simply a classification scheme -it was an effort by him to arrange the various thinking processes in a hierarchy. In this hierarchy, each level depends on the student's ability to perform at the level or levels that are below it. When
talking about teaching, Bloom always advocated that when teaching and assessing students we should bear in mind that learning is a process and that the teacher should try to get the thought processes of the students to move up into the higher order stages of synthesis and evaluation. This "thinking" area is commonly called the cognitive ("knowing") domain since it involves thought.
This process has only recently begun in many countries within the EHEA and so it is important that clear guidance is given regarding this restructuring. The Guide will emphasize that in order to comply with the Bologna Process, Degree Programme Profiles must include both programme competences and programme learning outcomes and instruct teachers how to formulate degree programme profiles, suggesting also curricula and syllabi templates.
The challenge for teachers is to ensure that there is alignment between teaching methods, assessment techniques, assessment criteria and learning outcomes.
This connection between teaching, assessment and learning outcomes helps make the overall learning experience more transparent and meaningful for students.
Biggs (2003) [6] refers to this type of process as constructive alignment.
This means that the curriculum is designed so that the teaching activities, learning activities and assessment tasks are co-ordinated with the learning outcomes. (The constructive part refers to the type of learning and what the student does. The alignment part refers to what the teacher does). Biggs points out that in a good teaching system, the method of teaching, learning activities and method of assessment are all coordinated to support student learning.
When there is alignment between what we want, how we teach and how we assess, teaching is likely to be much more effective than when it is not (aligned)...
It is clear from the above, that there are three basic areas involved in the constructive alignment of any module:
1. Clearly defining the learning outcomes.
2. Selecting teaching and learning methods that are likely to ensure that the learning outcomes are achieved.
3. Assessing the student learning outcomes and checking to see how well they match with what was intended.
The concept of constructive alignment will be discussed in the Guide and exemplar material provided to assist HE teachers to implement constructive alignment in their programmes.
The fifth work package will at least align the educational theory with practice. Curricula and Module Development Teams, consisting of five teachers, will be formed at each partner country institution with the purpose of developing modern, tailored, professional development programme curricula and module syllabi for higher education teacher training at their respective institutions in accordance with the Didactical Manual theories and practical recommendations/templates suggested by the Guide.
The conference, entitled: "Exploring Cross-border Collaborations in Higher Education Institutions: Teaching and Learning", will be held on the 16th - 17th October 2018 at the Institute of Pedagogy, Psychology and Social Problems in Kazan. It is an important step towards the ENTEP projects goal and is essential for the exchange of knowledge, experience and research in higher education practice on which the project ENTEP is based.
Literature:
1. Carey S., Spelke E. (1994): Domain Specific Knowledge and Conceptual Change. Cambridge: CUP: http://www.j stor.org/pss/188065
2. Falus I. (ed.) (1998): Didaktika. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiado, Budapest Falus, Ivan. (ed.) 2003. Didaktika.
3. European Science Foundation (2012) 'The Professionalisation of Academics as Teachers in HE. Standing Committee for Social Sciences: Science Position Paper'. Strasbourg: France.
4. Gunn V., Fisk A. (2014) Considering
Teaching Excellence in Higher Education 2007-2013. York: Higher Education Academy. Available at https ://www.heacademy.ac .uk/resource/considering-teaching-excellence-highereducation-2007-2013
5. Kennedy D. Writing and Using Learning Outcomes. University College Cork, Quality Promotion Unit, UCC, 2007.
6. Biggs J. (2003b), Aligning teaching and assessing to course objectives. Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: New Trends and Innovations. University of Aveiro, 13 - 17 April 2003.
Сведения об авторах:
Гуселетова Елена Леонидовна (г. Екатеринбург, Россия), магистр госуправления, советник проректора по международной деятельности Уральского государственного экономического университета, e-mail: [email protected]
Вишневска Свтлана (г. Дрезден, Германия), научный сотрудник, аспирант, ТУ Дрезден, Институт Славистики, e-mail: [email protected]
Куссе Хольгер (г. Дрезден, Германия), профессор, профессор Славистики, ТУ Дрезден, Институт Славистики, e-mail: [email protected]
Гуселетов Борис Павлович (г. Екатеринбург, Россия), доктор политических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник института Европы РАН, советник проректора по международной деятельности Уральского государственного экономического университета, e-mail: [email protected]
Data about the authors:
E. Guseletova (Yekaterinburg, Russia), Master of Public Administration, Advisor to the Vice-Rector for International Affairs, the Urals State University of Economics, e-mail: [email protected]
S. Vyshnevska (Dresden, Germany), wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin, Doktorandin, TU Dresden, Institut for Slavonic Studies, e-mail: [email protected]
H. Kusse (Dresden, Germany), Professor, Professor für Slavistik, TU Dresden, Institut for Slavonic Studies, e-mail: [email protected]
B. Guseletov (Yekaterinburg, Russia), Doctor of Political Sciences, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Europe, Russia Academy of Science, Advisor to the Vice-Rector for International Affairs, the Urals State University of Economics, e-mail: [email protected]
