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NETWORK PROJECTS AS AN INNOVATIVE FORM OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
A. P. Sukhodimtseva
The present stage of development of the system of lifelong education is determined by the dynamic development of society, the need for professional mobility, and the concept of “education throughout life” formulated by UNESCO as an alternative to the concept of “education for all life” [5, с. 118]. The main implication of lifelong education is the ongoing creative renewal and improvement of every person throughout his or her life [2]. Effective implementation of this idea depends, on the one hand, on how much the person understands the strategic guidelines of his education, and assimilates the means and methods of his selfeducation and the skill of learning. On the other hand, it depends on how much the system of lifelong education is ready to support and go along with the person in his desire to improve. Practice shows that the existing system of education is still oriented towards the educational process, with the traditional transfer of “ready knowledge” with overloaded information material which often has little to do with the learners’ needs.
The frames of lifelong education demand the development of forwardlooking educational processes, i.e. the “future-oriented” education. It involves the development and application of effective methods and technologies of lifelong education [2]. These requirements of the integral organization of lifelong education allow taking the design-technological approach into account [1]. In practice, this approach was implemented by us in development and implementation of the Virtual Workshop network project [3], oriented towards the follow-up of teachers’ professional development and support of their design activities within the frameworks of self-education, course-based and inter-course training. The need to create conditions for teachers to learn design is related to its strategic potential in the organization of the activities of the teacher himself and the learners, in the development of the methods of competent key decision-making, and proactive activities. The Virtual Workshop project became a unique means of fulfilling the tasks of the system of lifelong education and maintaining the integrity of the mutually related processes for three objects [2]: personality, educational processes, and organizational structure of education.
Regarding the teacher’s personality, the project provides for the opportunity of ongoing studies without relatively long breaks within the frames of the course and inter-course training, or of being involved in self-education, including the development of design competence, which allows the manifestation of own initiatives, personal ideas, and building of forward-looking education due to the design content of the activities [6]. With regard to the educational process, the continuity is ensured by the teacher’s involvement in the educational process, and consistency of the educational activities in transition from one kind of activity to another.
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With regard to the organizational structure of education, there is
communication in the network of educational and scientific organizations, which account for the consistency of educational programs. The idea of organization of a network in the project is based on the idea of A.M. Tsyrulnikov, that the network organization of education is the optimal one for implementation of “the
contemporary pedagogical paradigm and form of organization and self-
organization of education”. Besides this, the strategy of the network organization of education at the state level is considered as the mechanism of translation of the experience of the best teachers, and must be spread in the system of training and retraining of the teaching staff (“Our New School” National Educational Initiative). Network interaction allows satisfaction of the diverse educational needs of
teachers.
The frameworks of the “Virtual Workshop” project involve deep integration of all educational subsystems and processes inside the network between the National UNESCO/UNEVOC Center in the Russian Federation, the Institute of Theory, and the History of Pedagogics Federal State Scientific Institution of the RAS. The issue-related field uniting the content of their activities within the frameworks of lifelong education is the problem of the development of children’s giftedness. The problem of giftedness is known to be in the process of active formation in present-day Russia. The significance of this issue is emphasized in a number of government documents. One of the problems is the insufficient preparedness of educational organizations and teachers to work in this field. For example, practice shows that teachers of general education organizations have difficulties in organizing the educational process for gifted children. Thus, there is a need for teachers to master pedagogical designing. The Virtual Workshop project has created the relevant conditions for teachers: the possibility of advanced training courses for teachers.
Upon completion of advanced training courses, teachers can continue the development of their professional competence. For example, they can acquire the necessary skills of application of design, communicative, computer technologies or development of their own teaching system that will make them competitive on the market of educational services. For such communication, the employees of the laboratory of the theory of lifelong education of the THP RAS Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogics, jointly with other educational institutions, have created a specialized communicative-educational environment - the “Gifted Teacher to Gifted Child” International Festival. Its frameworks provide webinars, Skype-consultations, work in virtual cabinets, face-to-face conferences with presentation of the teachers’ experience of the development of children’s giftedness, and meetings with prominent people of science and education. Use is made of the vmdar.ru website (MOODLE shell), and the webinar.ru+COMDI web-service. The Career Guidance computer complex of psychological follow-ups of career guidance work (www.careerguidance.ru), the Creativity computer complex of psychological express-diagnostics of creative potential (www.crtest.ru), as well as the website of the festival (http://odarfest.wix.com/pedagog), have been developed. The Festival is held under the auspices of the Moscow Regional Organization of the Union of Writers of Russia, the Center for Creative Teaching in Sofia (Bulgaria), and other organizations [7].
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Thus, the framework of the Virtual Workshop network project provides conditions for lifelong forward-looking education and systemic translation of fundamental pedagogical and psychological knowledge, meeting the vital requests of practical teachers, as well as the development and implementation of teachers’ author’s projects, the development of their design competence, which enables them to adapt easily to the changing conditions of educational practice, and to be competitive on the educational market.
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Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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