CC BY
4EXPERIENCE OF APPLICATION OF ACTIVE TEACHING METHODS IN A HIGHER MEDICAL SCHOOL
Abstract
The aim of the article has been to analyze active teaching methods used in the pedagogical practice of higher medical schools. The experience of application of the technology "The World Cafe" as one of efficient methods of interaction between the higher school teacher and students is reported in the article.
Keywords
active methods of teaching, innovation training, the technology "The World Cafe", activization of students' cognitive activities
AUTHOR
Natalya A. Kloktunova
Candidate of Sciences in Sociology, Head of Department of Pedagogy, Education Technologies and Professional Communication, Saratov State Medical University n.a. V.I. Razumovsky, Saratov 112, st. Big Cossack, Saratov, 410012, Russia E-mail: pedagog.sgmu@mail.ru
Irina V. Sheshneva
Candidate of Sciences in Pedagogy, Associate Professor of Department of Pedagogy, Education Technologies and Professional Communication, Saratov State Medical University n.a. V.I. Razumovsky, Saratov 112, st. Big Cossack, Saratov, 410012, Russia E-mail: irina0806@mail.ru
Tatyana V. Rodionova
Senior Teacher of Foreign Languages' Department, Saratov State Medical University n.a. V.I. Razumovsky, Saratov 112, st. Big Cossack, Saratov, 410012, Russia E-mail: rodionova.tvsar@yandex.ru
Anita Y. Ramazanova
Senior Teacher of Department of Pedagogy, Education Technologies and Professional Communication, Saratov State Medical University n.a. V.I. Razumovsky, Saratov 112, st. Big Cossack, Saratov, 410012, Russia E-mail: pedagog.sgmu@mail.ru
Marina Y. Mukhina
Senior Teacher of Foreign Languages' Department, Saratov State Medical University n.a. V.I. Razumovsky, Saratov 112, st. Big Cossack, Saratov, 410012, Russia E-mail: pedagog.sgmu@mail.ru
1. Introduction
At present, one of the most significant directions aimed to improve training of higher school students is installation of active methods of teaching into the educational process. The higher school teacher must not only have deep and wide-scale knowledge in the
discipline he teaches, but he must also fluently operate the entire complex of pedagogical technologies which contribute to optimization and substantial elevation of quality of the educational process (Kloktunova N.A., 2017). Application of active methods allows the teacher, who plays the role of the organizer of students' cognitive activ'ties, to create conditions for their better comprehension of educational materials (Opredelennova O.V., 2013; Rodionova T.V., 2013; Veretel'nikova Yu.Ya., 2016).
Active methods, undoubtedly, belong to pedagogical innovations carried out in the educational process of the higher school, and they differ from conventional methods of teaching in a number of specific features. According to the conventional approach, there prevails the authoritarian style of interactions between the teacher and the student, where the student is the object of the educational process. The student comprehends, remembers and reproduces the obtained information, not being actively involved in the educational process. The aims and tasks of a certain lesson are determined only by the teacher himself, and are not correlated with individual and personal capabilities, intentions and demands of the students (Bakaeva O.V., 2015). By applying conventional teaching methods the higher school teacher usually acts according to some pattern or certain model, and by doing so he transmits the ready-to-be-used experience and does not encourage manifestations of students' independent activities while solving academic tasks. In case of using such an approach students should be rather called "those to be trained" (Lemeshevsky A.V., 2011).
On the contrary, active (and interactive) methods imply qualitatively new interactions between the teacher and the student, in which the leading role is played by the teacher's creation of conditions for students' independent cognitive activities. These methods may be called "developing" or "activty-centered", since the students are actively involved into searching and investigative work; they - by themselves - gain, creatively process and practically apply the obtained knowledge, and they directly participate in setting the aims and tasks of education (Fedjukov S.V., 2018). Within the frames of realization of this approach, the student appears to be the subject of the pedagogical process. And in this case the students may be called "those who study", or "those who train". The advantage of active methods as compared to passive ones is as follows: they allow students to gain deep, fundamental knowledge, and develop skills necessary in both practical and intellectual activ'ties of all specialists (Yavorskaja S.D., 2016).
It is active education that, being a dialogue by its nature, develops in students the ability to quickly take decisions, act in non-standard situations, and foresee possible variants of occurrence of events.
Thus, application of active methods which imply various modes of cooperative work with students regarding their individual peculiarities seems to be more productive. Installation of active methods into the educational process of the higher school contributes to creation of comfortable conditions for teaching students, and develops in them positive representation of their own capabilities (Vinogradova E.N., 2014).
Currently, active methods of teaching are widely used in higher medical and pharmaceutical schools. It should be emphasized that introduction of active and interactive forms of cooperation between the teacher and the student into daily practice of higher schools is one of the main conditions for realization of basic educational programs of training specialists on the basis of the federal standards applied for higher professional education in Russia.
Methods of active teaching are used by higher medical school teachers at various stages of the educational process. For instance, at the first stage - that of initial perception of knowledge - the pedagogues deliver problematic lectures, organize heuristic talks, conduct training discussions, etc. At the second stage - that of knowledge control and academic material consolidation - there are applied such methods as "collective
thinking activity", testing, solving situational tasks and cases, etc. The third stage is most important since it implies direct formation of professional skills and abilities based on the obtained knowledge, and development of creative capacities of students. At this stage there are used various types of modelled teaching, methods of playing games (business games, playing roles, etc.), methods of problematic and creative teaching (preparation of multimedia presentations on a certain theme, individual projecting of situations and tasks, analysis of certain situations, discussion of correctness of medical workers' actions on the basis of information obtained after watching educational and feature videofilms) (Artjukhina A.I., 2011).
Active teaching methods applied in medical education allow the students not only to gain necessary knowledge and skills, to master the complex of various competences but also to enlarge their professional range of interests, and they also stimulate students to self-education and self-development (Barsukova M.I., 2018; Kloktunova N.A., 2018; Stupina S.B., 2010).
2. Materials and Methods
The department of pedagogy, educational technologies and professional communication of the Institute of supplementary professional training of Saratov State Medical University named after V. I. Razumovsky has gained a considerable experience of application of innovation teaching methods. Teachers of the department design problematic lectures ("Different approaches to setting tasks and content of education", "The role of family up-bringing in formation of personality", etc.); conduct problematic seminars ("Individualization of students' independent educational activities", "Opportunities of the differential approach to the process of education") and thematic discussions ("Effective methods of activization of students' cognitive activities", "The role of conventional and innovation teaching methods in formation of professional competences of a future physician", "Pedagogical competence of a future physician"); apply various pedagogical game-playing exercises (composition of glossaries, crosswords on certain themes) for educational material consolidation at practical classes.
An efficient form of organization of class work with students of different faculties within the discipline "Pedagogy" appears to be conduction the lesson with the use of the technology "The World Cafe" (it is the technology of organizing a discussion in small groups of students, the art of conducting a conversation in the natural, open and relaxed situation - in a comfortable atmosphere of an usual cafe). This technology requires minimal preparations (setting of the theme and range of problems to be discussed) but it gives noticeable results and makes it possible for students to comprehend a large information volume.
There was conducted a practical lesson on the theme "Modern aspects of education and development of higher medical students" in the form of "The World Cafe" with the second-year students of the medical faculty. At the stage of preparation for the lesson, the students were acquainted with this technology with the help of presentation, explanation of the aim, principles of work, rules and duties of participants. The students were preliminarily provided with a list of questions for independent study. Each table was supplied with moderators responsible for observation over the work development and for referring students from one table to another after their fulfillment of the tasks.
At this stage the place for the practical lesson conduction was also prepared: tables were comfortably arranged and covered with paper cloths in the study-room, colored markers were placed on the tables for the students to fix their answers and emphasize the key moments. To create a more natural and favorable atmosphere tea utensils and articles were placed on each table.
The main stage of the lesson began with greeting the students and their distribution into three groups according to the number of the tables/questions. The following questions were chosen for discussion:
Table 1. The theme: Up-bringing as a constituent of the integrated pedagogical process.
1) What is the essence of the up-bringing process? What are its aims and tasks?
2) What are the principles of up-bringing (from the viewpoint of V.A. Karakovsky, I.P. Podlasyy, N.E. Tschurkova, V.A. Slastenin and others)? How are these principles applied in the work of a physician?
3) What is the relevance of the ideas of K.D. Ushinsky, N.I. Pirogov, V.A. Sukhomlinsky, A.S. Makarenko in conditions of contemporary education and up-bringing?
Table 2. The theme: The problem of classification of the methods of up-bringing.
1) What methods of up-bringing do you know?
2) Why is there no unified classification of the methods of up-bringing?
What author's classification is, by your opinion, most complete and interesting (that of Yu.K. Babansky, I.G. Tschukina, M.I. Rozhkova, L.V. Bajborodova, S.A. Smirnov, I.B. Kotova, T.B. Babaeva)?
Table 3. The theme: Problems of moral and deontological education of higher medical students.
1) What are the aims, tasks and content of deontological education as a form of moral development of medical students?
2) What is the role of the spiritual-moral constituent in professional activities of a physician?
3) What are the causes of "dehumanization" and "deethization" of medical activities?
3. Results
The students distributed into three groups, each consisting of 7-8 persons took their places at the tsbles and received their tasks from the mediators. In the process of discussing the offered questions the students advanced their own ideas and viewpoints, and put down their answers on the paper cloths. The students had to change the tables with the interval of 20 minutes; the moderator stayed in his place and informed new participants about the matter of discussion: he reported the basic ideas and viewpoints of previous participants. So, the work of each table went on with regard to all ideas and viewpoints suggested by other students, and all participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with ideas and viewpoints of each other. Each student had the opportunity to state his opinion and (which is even more important) to listen to his group-mates. After several rounds the students returned to their tables to start the general discussion on the theme.
"The World Cafe" was finished with presentations prepared at each table. The moderators informed the rest participants about the conclusions made in the result of joint work on the theme of each table. After that the results of the entire work were analyzed in detail, and the perspectives of further work were scheduled.
According to the final students' testing of the learned material, the technology "The World Cafe", which was used at the conducted practical lesson, made it possible to achieve high results. The students fluently oriented themselves in a rather complex material, demonstrated their skills in comparative-contrastive analysis, and their understanding of the most significant aspects of the problem under investigation.
Thus, the efficiency of active teaching methods in the higher school educational process is indisputable. Active methods of teaching make it possible for students to solve complex problems; develop the skills of individual and collective work, of searching
necessary information; discover their own cognitive and creative potentials; raise their professional and cultural level (Sheshneva I.V., 2003).
REFERENCES
Artjukhina A.I. & Chumakov V.I. (2011) Interactive teaching methods in medical school: Textbook. Volgograd: VolgGMU.
Bakaeva O.V., Skrynnik A.P. & Turchin G.D. (2015) Specifics of the organization of communication in the field of innovative educational institutions. Pedagogic potential of innovative educational environment: collection of scientific papers of the eleventh international virtual scientific-methodological conference (pp. 16-17). Saratov: Saratov regional public organization "center" Education".
Barsukova M.I., Kloktunova N.A. & Sheshneva V.I. (2018) About the motivational component of the educational process in medical school. For quality education: Materials of the 3 All-Russian Forum (with international participation) (pp. 46-49).Saratov: Saratov State Medical University.
Fedjukov S.V., Sheshneva I.V. & Rodionova T.V. (2018) Peculiarities of formation, accumulation and development of human resources in contemporary economic conditions. Modern European Researches, 4, 58-62.
Kloktunova N.A., Barsukova M.I., Rempel E.A., Sheshneva I.V. & Ramazanova A.Ya. (2018) Formation of communicative skills of a doctor in the process of teaching in a Medical university. Humanities and education, 3(9), 50-56.
Kloktunova N.A., Solovyova V.A. (2017) Multitasking and polyconceptualization of the notion "Quality of education". The Higher Education Today, 11, 12-15. DOI: 10.25586/RNU.HET.17.11.P.12
Lemeshevsky A.V. (2011) Active teaching methods in medical education. Minsk: Info-MED.
Opredelennova O.V., Rodionova T.V. & Vinogradova E.N. (2013) Problems of increasing the effectiveness of vocational-oriented learning. Linguistic and socio-cultural aspects of teaching foreign languages. (pp. 64-69). Saratov.
Rodionova T.V., Yurova I.Yu. & Mukhina M.Yu. (2013) The problem of improving the quality of education in Russian universities. Education in the modern world: Collection of scientific states (pp. 72-75). Saratov.
Sheshneva I.V. (2003) Speech Culture Development System for Medical University Students (PhD Thesis). Available from Elibrary (ID: 16020294).
Stupina S.B. (2009) Technologies of interactive education in higher education. Teaching manual. Saratov: Publishing House "Science".
Veretel'nikova Yu.Ya., Rodionova T.V., Chernyshkova E.V. & Mukhina M.Yu. (2016) The main functions and trends of the modern development stage of education in Russia. Modern development trends of the science and technology. 10-12, 22-25.
Vinogradova E.N., Rodionova T.V. & Opredelennova O.V. (2014) The methodology of cooperative learning as a pedagogical device that contributes to a more effective socialization of the student. Science and education: problems and prospects: Collection of scientific states of the International scientific-practical conference (pp. 36-39). Saratov.
Yavorskaja S.D., Nikolaeva M.G., Bolgova T.A. & Gorbacheva T.I. (2016) Innovative methods of teaching medical high school students. Modern problems of science and education, 4, 64-71.
