Научная статья на тему 'Methods and techniques of a student interactive didactic support: the possibilities for establishing a culture-specific education path'

Methods and techniques of a student interactive didactic support: the possibilities for establishing a culture-specific education path Текст научной статьи по специальности «Науки об образовании»

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Ключевые слова
CROSS-CULTURAL MULTIMEDIA DIDACTICS / EDUCATION FRAMES / CULTURE SPECIFIC TEACHING METHODS / MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY

Аннотация научной статьи по наукам об образовании, автор научной работы — Taratukhina Yulia

This paper describes the prerequisites for developing cross-cultural multimedia didactics. This approach is based on research studies of differences between mentalities, ways of working with educational information, culturally-specific teaching methods and teaching techniques that determine differentiated approaches to the choice of multimedia technologies in the education system. Currently, a significant part of the educational process has been transformedinto an online format. Modern learning processeshave become autodidactic in many ways. The purpose of modern education is to create conditions in which educational path can be formed and adjusted with the help of trainee. It seems to us appropriate to establish the criteria for determining the cultural-cognitive profile of a person, in order to make possible further technical and methodical adaptations of educational content and interface. Control of knowledge and a qualification boundary will be achieved by a “competence-based profile of students.” It is also possible to create an advisory service facilitating the “buildup” of professional competence according to the cultural-cognitive profile of each individual. To improve the "cultural intelligence" of tutors we suggest using an online cultural assimilator.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Methods and techniques of a student interactive didactic support: the possibilities for establishing a culture-specific education path»

UDC 378.147:82 Yulia Taratukhina,

National Research University Higher School of Economics

МЕТОДЫ И ИНСТРУМЕНТЫ ИНТЕРАКТИВНОЙ ДИДАКТИЧЕСКОЙ ПОДДЕРЖКИ СТУДЕНТОВ: ВОЗМОЖНОСТЬ ВЫСТРАИВАНИЯ КУЛЬТУРНО-СПЕЦИФИЧНОЙ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЙ ТРАЕКТОРИИ

METHODS AND TECHNIQUES OF A STUDENT INTERACTIVE DIDACTIC SUPPORT: THE POSSIBILITIES FOR ESTABLISHING A CULTURE-SPECIFIC

EDUCATION PATH

Abstract

This paper describes the prerequisites for developing cross-cultural multimedia didactics. This approach is based on research studies of differences between mentalities, ways of working with educational information, culturally-specific teaching methods and teaching techniques that determine differentiated approaches to the choice of multimedia technologies in the education system. Currently, a significant part of the educational process has been transformedinto an online format. Modern learning processeshave become autodidactic in many ways. The purpose of modern education is to create conditions in which educational path can be formed and adjusted with the help of trainee. It seems to us appropriate to establish the criteria for determining the cultural-cognitive profile of a person, in order to make possible further technical and methodical adaptations of educational content and interface. Control of knowledge and a qualification boundary will be achieved by a "competence-based profile of students." It is also possible to create an advisory service facilitating the "buildup" of professional competence according to the cultural-cognitive profile of each individual. To improve the "cultural intelligence" of tutors we suggest using an online cultural assimilator.

Keywords: Cross-cultural Multimedia Didactics, Education Frames, Culture Specific Teaching Methods, Multimedia Technology.

1.Introduction

The paper dwells on the theoretical grounds for mapping an individual pathway of study in a virtual educational environment. An individual pathway of study is viewed as a purposeful plan in a person's competence profile. The article points out parameters for designing a model of such a pathway of study. Currently, one major objective of the modern education is to prepare the student for living in the rapidly changing world within its global-oriented, multi-cultural environment. In its essence, global education unites various educational systems and models, based on divergent cultural, religious, philosophical outlooks. Assembling a unified educational environment is one of the top priorities for the immediate future. However, this is not an easy task, requiring the preservation national identity on the one hand, and involvementof cultural and educational

integration on the other. Today's concept of education means lifelong learning. These processes are causing the knowledge-based approach in education to be gradually replaced by competence-based one. Nowadays we can witness a number of educational processes migrating onto the Internet and, consequently, their becoming more transparent and more or less multi-cultural. It is obvious that with the application of an electronic educational environment (EEE) the didactic functions of the instructor will be changed, and the whole educational process will become autodidactic. Before mapping an individual study pathway, one must decide how this individualistic approach will be applied in EEE where there is no immediate communication between students and instructors. When studying via the information technologies, a student is supposed to develop individual learning skills and to become acquainted with the up-to-date on-line education technologies, meaning that the student's self motivation becomes a more important factor.

2. Principles of Personal Cultural-Cognitive Profile Design

In our opinion educational activities consist of operational and cognitive components. We can define a number of the following parameters, underlying analysis of the culture-related aspects of behavior, mentality, activity, and determining the specificity of cultural-cognitive personality profile.

1. Specific nature of activity.

2. Specificity of information representation.

3. Specificity of mentality and attention.

4. Specificity of social communications.

5. Dominant values

In order to describe cross-cultural differences we have considered the cultural models by G. Hofstede, R. Nisbett, E. Hall, M. Kholodnaya etc.

Table 1. Basic parameters of cultural-cognitive personality profile design

Cultural Model Parameters "Progressive Society" "Traditional Society"

Specific nature of activity Monoactive Poliactive, reactive

Specificity of information representation "Lowcontext" culture "Highcontext" culture

Time perception Monochronic time (E. Hall); Polychronic time (E. Hall);

Specificity of mentality and attention Analytic thinking style mentality, attention to the objects (R. Nisbett) Holistic thinking style, attention to the field (R. Nisbett)

Cognitive style Cognitive style - impulsive (M. Kholodnaya) Cognitive style - reflective (M. Kholodnaya)

Specificity of Social Communications Low level of power distance, individualism (G. Hofstede) High level of power distance, collectivism (G. Hofstede)

Uncertainty avoidance Weak avoidance (G. Hofstede) Strong avoidance (G. Hofstede)

Individual status in society Professional competence and achievements are important Origin and relations are important

Attitude to wards the environment Environment is a mean of needs satisfaction Aspiration to live in harmony with the environment

Dominant values "Dignity culture" The main trend - unique personality. "Utility culture" The main trend is to be a part of society.

In fact, advanced "cultural intelligence" is an important component of adaptive educational process. An instructor with mature "cultural intelligence" will be able to identify cultural-cognitive profile of the student and find an appropriate communication strategy, and in the case of strategic planning - an individual approach to education with suitable methods and training materials. Since we consider mainly the educational processes of e-learning environment, we are also interested in particular in those possessing "cultural intelligence." In our opinion, an e-learning environment with "cultural intelligence" will enable the adaptation of an interface and educational content to the cultural-cognitive profile of the individual.

3. Methods and Techniques of a Student's Interactive Didactic Support in an On-Line Education Process. Possibilities for Establishing a Culture-Specific Education Path

We find it of great interest to consider the existing methods of adapting educational content and interface to the personal and cultural traits of a student by means of semantic technologies. There are a number of researches into this sphere (Gon?alves, V [20]). Among the results of these studies, we can point out a culture-identifying system (CAWAS), which allows adapting multimedia online education content to a student's culture through intellectual agents [3]. This system is supposed to possess "cultural intellect," i.e. be capable of providing various interfaces and methods of representing the educational materials depending on the cultural specifics of a student. The system is supposed to interpret a student's behavior and, after identifying their culture group, to "suggest" to them a suitable educational program and interface. This is the task of an agent responsible for interpretationthat receives information from the database on the types of thinking processes and activities of different cultures. Therefore, the culture database contains two types of information: static cultural data and dynamic cultural data. Then the information is passed to the agent responsible for selecting an education program. Also, the interpretation agent acquires from the culture selecting agent a student's culture type and then passes this information to the agent modeling the culture type. The latter agent generates new culture clusters that are stored in the

"dynamic culture" module. Next, the educational program selecting agent sends the data (emotive and motivational parameters with relation to cultural identity) to agents responsible for culture modeling and culture adaptation for planning the educational path, selecting the educational content, schedule, methods etc. The adaptation agent makes the final decision on supporting or rejecting this course. The agent constantly updates its database allowing better adaptation to students' culture types. The agent creates a student's "cultural profile," regularly updating it, and thus enhancing the general database. This whole process allows adapting multimedia content to the culture specifics of a certain student. Thus, the cultural and cognitive personal traits, identified when a student enters the program, will determine the specifics of educational activities, information processing, as well as methodology, feedback and assignments. We believe that many problems arising in distance education can be overcome by employing cross-cultural awareness of the participants of the educational process and, consequently, by synchronizing their activities. In fact, taking into account student's cultural and cognitive traits and the nature of their educational activities will allow meeting a student's expectations and will contribute significantly to the efficiency of the educational process.

3.1. Features of Framing Information in Different Cultures, Teaching Methods and Teaching Techniques

As information processing occurs, students form their own semiotic frames. Moreover, we can assume that in one or more cultures, frames may be different. In didactics "frame" is defined as a recurrent way of educational material organization (frame as a concept) and teaching time (frame as a scenario) when dealing with educational information. In this connection, the frame-based approach reflects the national features of the approach to the study, the organization of knowledge and the problem solving methods. In various cultures this approach is not unified, same applies to virtual education domain.

In her research, B.L. Leaver [6] described some aspects of the relationship between the cultural environment, didactic and cognitive features. The author differentiated a Western approach from a non-Western approach to study. The Western approach is characterized by such features as the dominant verbal auditory and visual style, deductive, analytical way of thinking, impetuosity (information processing is fast paced and is often accompanied by frequent change of activity and team work); assessment is conducted in the form of tests, there is a focus on differences, on contrast and individualized approach. On the other hand, the Eastern approach is characterized by dominance in auditory and kinesthetic styles, dependence on the context, tendency for searching similar features, for viewing a situation as a whole and using intuitive perception. Figurative and narrative ways of expressing thoughts, as well as continuous focus on a single thought, are typical for the Eastern approach.

Knowledge of culture specific features will undoubtedly help improve the educational process. However, it is necessary to mention the scale of growth of the integration processes that one way or another will be shown as a part of transformation of cognitive features, i.e. in a poly-cultural educational tradition learning frames will develop and acquire new semantic overtones.

The choice of effective teaching methods will be determined by culture specific cognitive and educational activity. When dealing with a poly-cultural audience the following aspects are worth considering: content selection (culture codes, semiotic context); culture specific way or structuring learning activities (models acceptable in a culture); system of assessment (providing incentives for an individual as well as for a group).

Receptive and reproductive teaching methods based on a paternalistic view of the world will dominate in collectivist cultures, whereas individualistic cultures predominantly use heuristic and problem-solving methods.

Thus, the practice of linear and non-linear education methods presents particular interest. The linear methods are predominantly used in Eastern cultures, and nonlinear methods are typical for Western cultures. It should be noted that in the e-learning educational environment these features remain. In our opinion, dominant culture frames determine the choice of methods. Speaking of the linear method, it is necessary to admit that it is a linear sequenced data of presentation and a strong hierarchy. But the nonlinear approach is often unpredictable with hypermedia and interactive presentation of content. As mentioned above, the different educational cultures are dominated by different paradigms of information processing. For example, Western cultures have extensively been using interactive education that has helped increase cognitive flexibility. In most Eastern cultures educational methods are aimed at revisiting the existing context. Thus, we can see that Eastern cultures predominantly use structured or formal learning, whereas Western cultures prefer flexible, adaptive ways of working with educational information. It is also necessary to take into account both the specifics of the information processing and technological aspect of education process (attitude towards innovative educational methods in a given culture).

4. Cross-cultural Multimedia Didactics is a New Direction of Online Pedagogy

Educational process set within multicultural e-learning environment, methods and forms of its organization will be the subject of cross-cultural multimedia didactics. An ethno-metric approach by G. Hofstede has been applied to the description of subject at hand. In this context the following important parameters have been selected:

A. Consideration of psychological and pedagogical features of the educational process in a cross-cultural context.

This section deals with a variety of problems that stem from objectives and values of national educational systems, educational paradigms, national specific forms of educational communication, types of educational discourses, etc.

For example, if a student belongs to a culture with a lower power distance rating than that of a teacher, he would expect from a teacher a more informal way of communication involving an exchange of opinions, discussion of mistakes made that may appear somewhat alien to the teacher. Consequently, the exchange of the relevant information and instructions between a teacher and a student would not take place, that actually will have a negative affect on the future process of study. Representatives of the cultures with a high level of uncertainty avoidance

frequently try to avoid ambiguous situations. Ambiguity and change are frowned upon. Structured and routine, even a bureaucratic approach to problem solving is preferred. Interactive education in cultures with a high power distance rating requires monitoring of the learning process. On the contrary, in cultures with a low power distance rating interactive education often thrives. Indeed, members of the team from a culture with high index of individualism are inspired by competition, the ability to express one's own opinions and make decisions. On the contrary, members of collectivist cultures require a quiet environment and quality hardware for group interaction. Experiments conducted revealed that in Western cultures it is acceptable to discuss mistakes in order to avoid them in future and learn from them, ask questions, argue the points of view, etc. On the contrary, in Eastern cultures the ability to discuss mistakes is limited due to high importance of maintaining harmonious relationships within the group and fear of failure.

B. Culturally conditioned features of ergonomic design of electronic manuals and media; National features of educational content organization.

Cleary, in this context, the importance of psychological and didactic basis for the organization of cognitive activity in a multicultural learning environment cannot be underestimated, neither can be academic support. Thus, cognitive and contextual components may really influence the specific forms and genres of electronic books (i.e. different visual perception of the function keys, difference in ways information is sorted, in presentation of data formats and iconic characters), as well as their structure, content and interface. Electronic learning systems featuring interactive learning, variety, creativity (training scenarios, training simulation environment, integrated learning environments) may successfully be used in Western cultures, and, more likely, with less enthusiasm in the East.

In order to create an effective educational resource aimed at multicultural audiences, it is necessary to consider such components as: a navigation system, cultural competence, easy access to logically presented information, appropriate design, the degree of user involvement, the use (specifics) of various multimedia materials, strategies of educational process, user and motivational support. 'Cultural marker' is a design feature that belongs to a particular culture, i.e. color, national symbol, space layout etc. Members of different cultures pay attention to different things. For example, for cultures with a high power distance such parameters as index resource structure, hierarchy, information security, the official nature in e-learning environment are of high importance. It has been noted that users from different cultural backgrounds behave differently when using educational resources organized by the method of open content: members of cultures with a high index of individualism prefer unique content, and they are more active in using the resources of this kind, they often supplement the existing content or change it. Per contra, the representatives of cultures with a high index of collectivism often relay existing content rather than create a new one.

Thus, we observe influence of national educational paradigm on structure of intellect and specific preferences in processing of educational material. Once these factors are taken into consideration, the choice of effective methods of learning within multicultural educational

environment is a simple task indeed.

C. Interconnection of cognitive characteristics, choice of optimal teaching methods and the preferable types of multimedia technology.

Additionally, one of the primary issues in cross-cultural educational environment is the problem of quality and appropriateness of the feedback (timely responses, degree of clarity of the goals and objectives set by tutors) that for the most part depends on the cultural context.

For the most rapid adaptation of instructors it would be appropriate to develop a cultural assimilator, aimed at adapting to the multicultural education in a virtual environment. This assimilator should be developed in the following segments:

1. Situations aimed at forming psycho-pedagogical and didactic competence in cross-cultural context;

2. Expertise in culture specific ergonomic design of electronic textbooks and media;

3. Thorough knowledge of culture specific educational content and types of pedagogical discourse.

In our opinion, there is a certain pattern of interconnection between the type of culture, educational objectives of a culture, specific techniques and teaching methods, motivational and pragmatic characteristics and preferable type of multimedia technologies for the members of this cultural group and, finally, effective ergonomic parameters. We will compare countries belonging to different cultural groups. The design of on-line resources certainly embodies the national culture of its creators. User web interface must meet the cultural and pragmatic expectations of the user (especially in navigation, graphics and content) for maximum efficiency of presenting information. For example, it is possible to observe that the design of European sites is characterized by ease of navigation, logic and predictability, dosage of information and no hidden content.

Table.2: Interconnection between cognitive characteristics, choice of optimal teaching methods and preferable types of multimedia technology.

The U.S. Mono active type of culture, dominance of individualism, low power distance rating, low uncertainty avoidance, low context culture Educational paradigm: Variation, a focus on personal development, innovation and creativity. The aims of education: building a complete picture of the world, providing solutions to problems in wide array of uncertain situations, personal development. The use of problem-solving methods. Creative problem solving, tendency to set super-objectives objectives, innovation.

Preferred multimedia technology: symbolic objects, graphic objects, video objects (animation, dynamic models of phenomena and processes, videos); "virtual reality" environment (simulators, designers, trainers, interactive models, virtual laboratories, electronic engineers, electronic educational games).

Ergonomic features of educational materials: small blocks of information, comfortable navigation, option of online interaction with the tutor and ability to edit content at own discretion; availability of numerous different educational applications, links to groups in social networks and a large amount of video content, along with content in text format.

CHINA Culture with a high index of collectivism, high power distance rating, high reactive culture of power and high degree of uncertainty avoidance, high context culture. Educational paradigm - maximum conformity to rules and norms (Confucian education model). The aims of education: safety, conformity, adaptation to typical situations, the world as a set of patterns. Linear methods, reproductive, strict adherence to the instructions and training guidelines.

Preferred type of media technology: shaped objects, video objects (animation, dynamic models of phenomena), "virtual reality" environment, electronic expert coaching systems, electronic educational games, electronic books, electronic lectures, electronic collections.

Ergonomic features of educational materials: vertical and horizontal menu, very bright colors, overload from links and information blocks. The interface is designed in such a way that access to information is often very difficult; one may notice high level hierarchy in the way information is organized and presence of special social roles to control access to it. Lots of slide shows and hieroglyphics.

GERMANY Mono active type of culture, rational way of thinking, average index of individualism, high uncertainty avoidance and high power distance, low-context culture. Educational paradigm - in the middle between unitary and variable paradigms. The aims of education: - balance between conformity and formation of a system view of the world that is able to provide solutions to problems in a wide range of uncertain situations, personal self-development.

Preferred type of media technology: symbolic objects (signs, symbols, text, graphics, charts, tables, formulas etc), graphic objects (photos, drawings, paintings), electronic expert systems, electronic study books, electronic books.

Ergonomic features of educational materials: horizontal menu consisting of information blocks, rather succinct, easy navigation, logical order and predictability, controlled information, absence of hidden content.

5. Usage of cultural assimilator for instructor "cultural intelligence" improvement

Cultural assimilator for tutors represents situation modeling, in which interaction of two individuals with different cultural backgrounds is attended by four behavioral interpretations. The description of situations aims to identify the differences between cultures, in our case, educational cultures. During the situation selection special aspects of student and tutor behavior, known in cross-cultural multimedia didactics, will be considered.

We propose the following structure of an assimilator:

1. Ergonomic part. The creation of effective educational resource, focused on multicultural audience, involves such components as: the resource navigation, the accessibility of information and its structure, appropriate ergonomic design, the degree of user involvement, the use (specificity) of various multimedia materials, user and motivational support.

2. Content specification unit. Representatives of different cultural groups have different content preferences in structure and quality. For example, representatives of cultures with a high index of individualism prefer unique content, so they often add new information and edit the content. Representatives of cultures with a high index of collectivism will rather relay the existing content instead of creating a new one.

3. Discursive part. It is important to know the main national discursive models; communication failures could be caused by various discursive strategies of a culture, discrepancy between practical purposes of the author and information recipient, the difference in the volume and substance of their lexicon, mismatch of conceptual elements in the linguistic picture of the world.

4. Methodical unit. According to cultural-cognitive specificity educational information is often presented ambiguously - for example, there are linear and nonlinear learning methods, heuristic and reproductive forms, based on cultural and cognitive specifics.

5. Communicative unit. G. Hofstede'scategories have great impact on communication. For example, if a student is a representative of culture with a lower value of power distance index than the instructor, he or she would expect from the instructoran informal relationship, including an exchange of views and mistakes discussion, for which the instructormay not be prepared. Inhabitants of the countries with a high index of uncertainty avoidance do not accept ambiguous situations and tend to avoid them if it's possible. Ambiguity and inconstancy are treated as undesirable phenomena. Representatives of these cultures tend to give preference to a structured, routine and even bureaucratic way of task performance. In using interactive educational forms in cultures with high power distance the processshould be controlled.On the contrary, cultures with low power distance succeed in such a learning format practice. In the course of teamwork and joint cases solution representatives of cultures with a high index of individualism need competition spirit, an ability to express their opinions and an opportunity to make independent decisions. By contrast representatives of collectivist cultures require a quiet atmosphere and qualitative technical means for group interaction.

This makes it quite difficult to develop an effective cultural assimilator. We will describe the basic steps required to develop cultural assimilator.

5.1. The Selection of the Situations

It is desirable to select materials in such a way that the most significant and peculiar divisions between instructors and students as representatives of different cultures will be described in the culture assimilator. In the selection of situations the following characteristics should be considered: stereotypes of both cultures, cognitive features, discursive features, specific of work with information, special aspects of communication with the tutor and with each other, etc. It is important to organize the process so that the situations will be supplemented not only by the experts and tutors, but learners.

5.2. The Creation of the Incidents

Incidents are constructed as follows: when the necessary information has been taken from selected conflict situations, it is examined and adjusted by a number of experts and then specific incidents being formulated.

5.3. The Determination of Attributions

The determination of attributions represents a collection of questions about a person's behavior in particular situations, emotional and cognitive reactions, etc.

5.4. The Selection of Attributions

At this stage it is necessary to determine a few alternative explanations - attributions. Interpretation of human behavior proceeds as follows: experts suggest three possible responses, that, although believable to culture outsider, do not adequately explain the incident. There is also one response with a culturally accurate explanation for the incident.

5.5. Complete Set of "Cultural Assimilator"

Each situation is usually described on several pages. There is one page for description and one for the question with four answer choices. We decided to use a Wiki Platform for placement of developed cultural assimilator.

6. Design of the Web Service

In our opinion, the main design criterion for the web service is that it must be in line with the aim of acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills and competencies for future employment [21].

The service is supposed to focus on a sphere in the labor market or on a concrete profession within this sphere. Communication with the user is carried out as follows:

In the initial stage the service offers the user the most relevant professional areas and professions depending on the education program.

Afterwards comesthe search of the most relevant education courses from available elective courses.It is important to note that, once decided upon, the choice of the user remains for the entire period of training and can be changed only in the next academic year and only if choosing a new IUP. In this process it is necessary to solve the following problems:

-to define the match between the education program and professional sphere (profession);

-to define the match between education courses and professional sphere (professions) chosenby the user.

Based on this information, it will be easy to define the "match " between two objects, thereby defining and allocating the most relevant matches. In other words, between each registered professional sphere and each of the education courses there must be established in a certain relation of relevance R (p, c), where p is the name of professional sphere, c is the name of a course, a R is the relation that is an ascribed positive number. The latter indicates the degree of complementarity of a course for concrete professional sphere. Courses with the highest indicators are offered to students in order to create the most effective PSP. To prevent redundant education courses, their names are taken from a set of Uc_j, where c_j is the name of a education course which holds the relation R(p_i, c_j), at the fixed p_i, has one of the greatest admissible values (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Definition of most relevant courses for many professional areas.

We offer two methods for the solution of the above tasks.

3.1 First method

The following principle is the cornerstone of the first method: for each professional sphere and profession to define and allocate the list of the necessary competences. Competencies can be defined as basic qualities of people that determine the behavior or the way of thinking in various situations lasting a considerable period of time.

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Naturally, if the profession is included in a professional sphere, the required competencies for the profession can be derived from the professional sphere. Additionally, the professional spheredefines competencies for a given profession and distinguishes between other professions from different spheres. Following the same logic, one can define and match competencies for all considered education courses. Based on the identified competencies one can present all education courses available in the form of a semantic network. The semantic network is a network graphic for orientation. The knots of thenetwork graphic show the concepts and objects, the connecting lines correspond to the "matching" and the relations between the objects.

Once defined, such semantic networks and competencies for each profession will make it easy to program a service for finding relevant objects (the higher the match of competences, the higher the relevance (see Fig. 2)).Additionally, the service will store information about competencies that the student acquired during his or her educational path.

Fig. 2. Definition of relevance between courses and specialties, 1st method

The advantage of this method is that it is easier to carry out than the first method, since there is no need to define the required knowledge and skills for each profession. However, the second method excludes the possibility of obtaining additional information at the end of one's education about the student's acquired competencies. In the case of a large number of courses, this method will be slower in defining relevant courses than the first method.Both methods are supposed to create a recommended service that will serve as a

navigator for designing the PSP and modeling an actual competence-based profile for a student. The described web service will help to solve the problem of designing an individual PSP for each student of a higher educational institution. This will help create effective PSPs in the electronic educational environment, taking into account the «designing» of a student's competence profile. Certainly, this service will not solve all problems thatwe face in the educational process. However, the proposed web service will definitely promote a more conscious approach to education on behalf of the students, modeling the student's future and the strategy for the student's future life in the context of continuous education (lifelong learning).Undoubtedly, the problem of mapping students' individual pathway of study is currently one of the pressing issues in modern education, and, in order to choose the most effective models of designing ISP, thorough research into the global experience in this sphere is essential.

7.Conclusion

This paper formulates the major principles of constructive learning in an educational environment that contains 3 levels:

• human-to-human level

• human-to-EEE level

• adaptive educational content level

Designing a smart environment is, first of all, based on adapting and filtering the educational environment to fit a student's cultural-cognitive and competence profile. On the 1st level it is essential to develop cultural intellect of the participants of educational communication. The 2nd level involves designing the EEE, with its own cultural intellect and capable of presenting knowledge according to a competence profile. The 3rd level means composing an adaptive — insome cases invariable — educational content (courses' semantic maps, minimal thesauri for disciplines).

We assume that with this approach a student will mostly use those information handling techniques best fitted for his/her own style in the learning process. It is worth noting that both internal (from own faculty or university) and external courses could be graded and presented to a student this way, with system providing student with recommendation on his/her competence profile improvement using allrelevant and available sources. In the end, the completion of such personal education course would create a certain competence profile of a specialist. Undoubtedly, the problem of mapping students' individual study pathways is currently a major issue in modern education, and, in order to choose the most effective models of designing ISP, more thorough research into the global experience in this sphere is essential.

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Information about the autor

Yulia Taratukhina, Associate Professor Department of Innovation and Business in IT, Faculty of Business and Management, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, e-mail:[email protected]

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