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REFLEXIVE,
CONCEPTUAL AND VALUE COMPONENTS OF LIFELONG EDUCATION OF A TEACHER
A.V. Korzhuev,
O.V. Babir
This report covers the issues of reflexive techniques of teacher selfeducation, including an analysis of the personified history of science, a search for the background foundations of pedagogical knowledge, the informed choice by the teacher of content of the self-education segment, and paths of its implementation.
Both formal (official educational structures - universities and centers for upgrading qualifications, retraining courses, etc.), and informal (self-education and self-development) lifelong education of a modern teacher implies that, unlike students of higher educational institutions, teachers must systematically exist in the multidimensional field of comprehension of different sense-bearing structures that are projected on both the content of education and on different forms of organization (or self-organization) of a person’s activity. Making this point more specific, first of all, we should mention that the background analysis focused on a search of the fundamental principles of pedagogical knowledge demanded in the educational process, on argumentative grounding of principles and methodologies used in practical education, is one of the forms of such comprehension (reflection). This analysis may include, for example, detailing and comprehension of the hierarchy of pedagogical knowledge, or any fragment of it, the structure and character of connections between its objects and phenomena, as well as categorical determination of the method of pedagogical research, and determination of the research techniques and procedures that logically flow from this method. In this context, retrospective reflection shall be specifically mentioned, which is focused on the history of pedagogy and on a search of pedagogical ideas of the past that make a significant impact upon the present-day pedagogical theory and practice.
The latter, in our opinion, may be closely connected with the idea of reference of the educational environment proposed and described in detail in the works of A.S. Zapesotsky, which suggests expansion of the traditional problematic field of classical history of pedagogy “for students” by means of inclusion into the studied phenomena of the pedagogical ideas, opinions and views of famous scientists involved into non-pedagogy fields of scientific activities. It means that teacher who is studying or self-learning must “dive into” the deep-water basics of the ideology and the world outlook of scientists whose area of research was similar to the activity profile of a specific teacher of a higher institution or a school teacher, and who were actively involved in pedagogical activities at universities, grammar schools and other educational establishments, and who promulgated their own pedagogical ideas at both a conceptual and methodological level. We can mention such famous representatives of mathematical and natural sciences that expanded the problematic of the history of pedagogy as E.H. Lents (physics), D.I. Mendeleev (chemistry), N.I. Lobachevsky (mathematics), V.I. Vernadsky (biology, natural
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science), S.P. Kapitsa (physics), P.S. Alexandrov (mathematics), A.Y. Khinchin (mathematics), etc., who made serious pedagogical research works, studying which a modern teacher can “highlight” the roots of pedagogical paradigms, concepts, theories, approaches and methodologies that the teacher uses one way or another, and develop his or her own understanding, which will give him or her the possibility not only to reproduce, but also transform the available knowledge to meet the needs of the modern educational process.
Talking about in-depth reflection in the context of lifelong education of a teacher, we should mention the importance of implementation of such a strategy as a search for new things in the generally accepted truth, which means that a selflearning person shall investigate whether there is any spare capacity in a particular historical method, paradigm, or approach of pedagogy in the sense of development of socially and personally important qualities and strategies of a student’s activity; and whether the particular generally recognized practices lack self-sufficiency and logical completeness, whether there are alternative ways to reconstruct the content of a particular scientific field, for example, pedagogy. The last aspect is covered in the book of A.M. Novikov “The Foundation of Pedagogy” published in 2009, where he makes a serious attempt to reconsider the conceptual basics of pedagogical science, its structure, basic notions, and logical connections between its different elements. In our opinion, this book is a good example of reflection by the author, who created a product intended for reflection of readers prone to deep comprehension of knowledge in the humanities.
The concept search field that we propose teachers “dive into” if they are looking for a particular self-learning path is of course not limited to interpedagogical and metascientific reflection. We should specifically mention the reflection of the possible (prospective) and the passed (retrospective) self-learning route. On a first approximation, this aspect of the problem is positioned in the situation whereby the teacher faces a contradiction between his or her personal professional (or sometimes even life) experience and the results of its use in a specific segment of pedagogical activities. In such a case it is necessary to adjust this experience, and sometimes even reconsider the stereotypes, professional preferences and values, which can be done as a sequence of several “steps”: (1) actualization of meaning, highlighting the essence and argument representation of the problems and conflicts of the issue; (2) mental approbation of stereotypes of available professional experience and “behavior”, detection of the level of exhaustiveness of their opportunities; (3) their discrediting (full or partial) in the context of detection of contradictions; (4) constructing new priorities and meanings, and the attempt to implement them. On first approximation, such steps are generalized stages of the self-learning path of a teacher, who at a certain point finds out that his or her knowledge and skills are insufficient for solving the existing problems, and who wishes to overcome this problem by means of making formal actions with regard to upgrading his or her qualification, or actions of individual self-learning.
Higher order reflection means that a teacher is trying to determine what specific values he or she has acquired as a result of self-learning actions, how successful the attempt to solve or minimize the contradictions mentioned above was, and what else must be done in order to solve them in the sense of self-
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education. Higher order reflection means that a teacher shall step by step develop the ability to choose the content segment of the self-education activities out of the variety of knowledge and scientific and practical fields offered by the society. Such a segment may, for example, include the components of a scientific discipline taught by a certain teacher combined in different ways; theories and methodologies of teaching at a higher school or in the system of general secondary, elementary or vocational training; general pedagogy, psychology of a person, and of course, several others. Higher order reflection gives the recipient the opportunity to advance self-education, where a teacher is able to understand lack of knowledge in order to meet a certain existing professional standard, and to foresee the modifications in the educational system of tomorrow, and to understand which preventive self-educational actions shall be taken already today. Finally, higher order reflection gives a self-educating teacher an opportunity to develop full-fledged understanding that the half-life of competences of a graduate of a teacher’s training university, who does not participate in the lifelong educational process, decreases considerably nowadays, and that is why the latter is not a painful necessity that must be dealt with from time to time, but rather an imminent strategy of a teacher, and an absolutely natural way of his or her existence - both in his or her own profession, and in the informational environment of modern society.
References
1. Запесоцкий А. С. Методологические и технологические основы проектирования гуманитарного образования / А. С. Запесоцкий. - СПб.: Изд-во СПУП, 2000.
2. Новиков А. М. Основания педагогики. / А. М. Новиков. - М.: Аспект-пресс, 2009.
3. Коржуев А. В. Рефлексия и критическое мышление в контексте задач высшего образования / А. В. Коржуев, В. А. Попков, Е. А. Рязанова / Педагогика. - 2002. - № 1.
4. Морозова О. П. Актуализация ценностно-смысловых аспектов деятельности педагога / О. П. Морозова // Педагогика. - 2001. - № 1.
5. Вульфов Б. З., Харькин В. Н. Педагогика рефлексии. - М.: Аспект-пресс, 1998.
6. Коржуев А. В. Рефлексивно-эвристический компонент непрерывного педагогического образования преподавателей современной высшей школы / А.В. Коржуев, Н.Н. Антонова. VI Международные научные чтения, посвященные памяти академика РАО С.Я. Батышева «Модернизация профессионального образования: теория, опыт, проблемы» Коллективная монография. - М.: Изд-во ИТИП РАО, 2012.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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