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ORGANIZATION OF PROJECT
ACTIVITY WITHIN CONTINUOUS
PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION
(FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF THE INSTITUTE
OF CONTINUOUS EDUCATION
OF THE BURYAT STATE UNIVERSITY)
M. G. Tsyrenova E. A. Khantueva
This article is devoted to the relevant forms of teachers' professional development within the frameworks of continuous education. A project activity in educational expeditions is considered as an area showing considerable promise of the regional continuous education system development, and the establishment of innovative educational environment for retraining professional development of teachers and principals. The article is based on the experience of the Institute of continuous education, Buryat State University.
Key words: project activity.
This article studies the contents and areas of interaction of classical university with general education schools in the development of regional systems of continuous education, and in the creation of the innovative educational environment for retraining, professional development of teachers and heads of schools. The Institute of Continuous Education (henceforth - Institute) created in 2009 is an institutional form of such interaction at the Buryat State University. Our experience shows that the Institute’s attractiveness to potential partners is ensured by its reliance on the results of the analysis of educational requirements of educational institutions, the analysis of the educational network and activity of the main competitors (partners). The institute is a structural division of the university that allows it to carry out educational and methodical, research and project activities to equip pedagogical and administrative staff of establishments of general, secondary, higher professional and additional education with advanced educational technologies. It promotes the creation of conditions for effective development and realization of innovative educational programs and structures according to the demand of the trainee and of the establishment that sent him to training.
Professional development turns into a continuous process, which is based on personal interest, controlled and carried out by the teacher in various options of formal, non-formal and informal education. A starting point of this process is the assessment and self-assessment by the subject of his contribution to the activity and to development of the educational institution. The content of training is defined by a system of professional knowledge, professional competence and personal qualities of the teacher demanded by a particular educational institution at a certain stage of its development. We determine this by the leading technology of professional development design and research activity of the student. The individual project of the trainee on development, introduction and distribution of an innovation providing improvement of quality of work of the educational organization becomes the result of professional development. The use of design technologies
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develops the trainee as a subject of innovative development of the educational organization, and provides the continuous, initiative and creative nature of professional development according to an individual educational trajectory.
Educational programs based on the project and research activity of a trainee are implemented through educational international expeditions. It is an invariant component where the new models of professional activity of the teacher for work in the conditions of new FSES (Federal State Educational Standard) are formed. The activity of Institute within the international educational expeditions is aimed at: (a) deepening of inter-academic and international cooperation in the preparation of highly qualified pedagogical personnel; (b) management of interregional and international educational projects; (c) ensuring the participation of educational branch specialists in the innovative processes, forming an educational situation in the regions of Russia and the international community; (d) coordination of activity in the republic, aimed at setting up a comprehensive system of professional development of specialists in the actual areas of modernization of education in integrated network educational spaces.
Efficiency of project activity was studied at the organization of educational expeditions to Ulan Bator (Mongolia). From 2008 to 2014, seven international educational expeditions were carried out (4 student expeditions and 3 teacher expeditions). The purpose of the first (October 2008) international educational project was a comparative analysis of the systems of general historical education in Russia and in Mongolia, which were formed in the 1990’s to the beginning of the 2000’s, under the influence of cardinal political, economic, cultural and geopolitical factors. It is no secret that at that time, the Soviet Union’s impact on all aspects of life in Mongolian society was essential, and the system of general historical education and practical training of teachers of history was in the orbit of its direct ideological influence and adoptions. After the collapse of the USSR, the Mongolian historians and teachers had to define a new value and target new priorities of the subject "History", revise the concepts of courses of the world and national history, update models of school textbooks, and change the contents and forms of training of teachers of humanities [3].
The international educational project, designed as a way to study systems of historical education in modern Russia and Mongolia, has surpassed its initially set goals, and expanded the boundaries of knowledge of a different historical and cultural environment and educational space. It has led to more essential results in the formation of experience in cross-cultural interactions, respect and interest for the adjacent countries and people, and in self-knowledge and self-realization of students in the course of professional and social, communicative practice. These effects, obvious to all participants in the project, allow us to relate it to innovative forms, not only in the vocational training of students of humanities, who effectively meet the challenges of the modern world, bring up to date a history role in formation of the personality also as a mean of communication in multicultural society; but also to the professional development of teachers of history, as long as they are adequate for the purposes of historical social science education at high school and for the requirements of teacher training.
Therefore, educational expeditions have become even more actively used in the system of professional development of teachers at our Institute, teaching
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trainers how to organize the project work of students. It has also become relevant because the new FSES is focused on the project and research activity of students. The program was given the collective name "Multicultural Education in the Modern World". Generally, these were educational expeditions to our neighboring country, Mongolia (Ulan Bator) on the following subjects: "lifestyle and mentality of the nomad" (2011 - 2013), and "religions in the changing world" (2014). For this period according to our program, more than 100 teachers of history, geography, literature and the fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics from different regions of the Russian Federation were trained. In the course of educational expeditions, the trainees, while visiting museums, taking part in excursions and meeting scientists and teachers of another country, accomplished various detailed projects, such as: the "Palace Museum of Bogdogegen VIIIth as a storage of memory and a historical source", "One day in Mongolia", as an intellectual puzzle-competition (according to a picture of B. Sharava), "The historical museum as a factor of identification and self-identification of Mongols", "A different country, a different university, a different school ...", "Space in nomadic culture", "An internal and external image of the nomad", "One day of the nomad", "Religion in nomadic society", "Ulan Bator: nomadic culture in city space", "Space and time in a mental map of the nomad", "I will take you to the museum ..." (individual visits of the museums of Ulan Bator, with the purpose of developing a set of informative tasks / work sheets for school students) [4; 5].
Students had the opportunity to study the way of life and mentality of the nomad, "traveling in a time machine" in the stylized Mongolian village of the XIIIth century (suburb Ulan Bator). To disclose the subject of the day "Nomadism in the modern historical science of Mongolia: a different country, a different history" the mini-lecture hall in the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia was organized. The results of the project activity were summed up at the annual all-Russian summer school of teachers of history and literature (village Tanghui, Kabansky area, Republic of Buryatia). The project assignments of trainees were focused on studying the historical and cultural space of the Mongolian capital and its suburbs; on the comparative analysis of historical monuments of Russia and Mongolia, and on understanding the history of the neighboring country through the museums, sculptural compositions, visit of schools and universities.
Our project is not the reconstruction of a particular historical event, but is more likely a purposeful complex of various research strategies, studying the content of the historical memory of some events in Russia and Mongolia, and also ways of managing this memory by means of various commemorative actions, factors of the formation of individual memory of the people, and the reasons for the disputability of many issues in modern historical science. Participation in project activity leads everyone who is in touch with history onto a path of formation of critical thinking, a multi perspective vision of the past and the present, the development of empathy, of tolerance, and of respect for the historical and cultural variety of the country and the world. Project assignments do not simply become more and more complicated from one object to another in the analysis of the ways of formation of "historical memory", but also consistently develop key problems of the general project: the coordinates and characteristics of "memory space", the kinds and types of sources, the principles of their selection for the particular
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"projects of memory", and multilevel analysis of sources, formation of mechanisms of "an image of the enemy". [3]. Working on the project subjects, the trainees studied the historical sources, conducted sociological research, probed into a problem, the essence of which enabled them to become proficient both in new historical knowledge and the ability to work in group, to master the professional competences, both as a teacher and a historian.
As a result of the fulfillment of project assignments, the students have formed the abilities to choose a problem and a subject of research, to compose the program and to select techniques of research, summing up the results of testing, and the analysis and interpretation of the received results. Formation of research competences of the students also took place in the preparation of the written report on the implementation of the project with the use of results of own micro research. The projects created by the teachers during the course of educational expeditions, and in the process of work on the courses and those presented at various levels of conferences, are ideas, approaches and techniques, and recommendations which can be widely used in the work of subject teachers. The experience of educational and methodical activity of teachers of general education schools and higher educational institutions was accumulated in the realization of the joint project development, and can be of interest to the educational organizations of both the scientific and practical plane.
We note that in the course of the development and implementation of the project, not only the positive potential of joint activity in the designated area was disclosed, but also the risks of such interaction, for example, the insufficient level of readiness of a teacher of the higher education institution to work under the conditions of the intensive development of innovative educational processes. Productivity of the approach in the organization of active project activity of students in the course of educational expeditions has been confirmed by the realization and systematization of one’s own pedagogical experience by teachers and heads of schools, and their readiness for innovative activity in the conditions of change of an educational paradigm - such as for innovative lifelong education.
Literature
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2. Глебова Г. Ф. Смоленский государственный университет в реализации международной образовательной программы ТЕМПУС IV // Известия Смоленского государственного университета. 2013. - № 3. - С. 494-502.
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4. Цыренова М.Г., Стрелова О.Ю., Аюшиева И.Г. Халхин-Гол: место памяти (по материалам международного образовательного проекта) - Улан-Удэ: изд-во Бурятского госуниверситета, 2012. - 92 с. (на русском и монгольском языках)
5. Цыренова М.Г., Аюшиева И.Г. Политические репрессии в России и Монголии: историческая память (по материалам III международного образовательного проекта). -Улан-Удэ: изд-во Бурятского госуниверситета, 2011. - 118 с.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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