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THE INNOVATIVE CULTURE OF A PEDAGOGUE IN THE CONTINUOUS VOCATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM
I. I. Tsyrkun
As we have demonstrated [1-3], the problem of defining the innovative status of a future pedagogue is among the least worked out. Traditionally, the core of continuous professional education is functioning pedagogical practice and a future teacher's ability to retransmit subject knowledge, skills and know-how, as well as competencies. Integrated innovative activities are reduced to their separate phases: study; practical implementation of achievements of pedagogical science; progressive pedagogical experience; and creative research of innovative teachers. Innovative educational practices are mostly studied during a teacher’s postgraduate training phase. The long term adaptation of a specialist to efficient activities brings about his or her competitiveness in the labor market.
We shall view the concept of "innovative pedagogical culture" as the genetic nucleus of future teachers’ special innovative training. The innovative culture of a pedagogue is a subsystem of that innovative culture when viewed in the context of education and upbringing. It is interconnected with other types of cultures, e.g. the gnostic and the projective one. However, unlike the gnostic culture, which is primarily focused on obtaining new knowledge of reality, innovative culture actualizes the practical application of scientific knowledge, including scientific knowledge and its goal of enhancing the efficiency of education. While innovative culture coincides with projective culture in many respects, it ensures the integration of all aspects of pedagogical activities and their enhancement as a result of innovative interaction. The innovative culture of a pedagogue is a derivative of his or her ideal innovative pedagogical activities and it expresses its quality. At the same time, it denotes traditions and creativity as well as the realization of a pedagogue's teleological aspirations and independent activities. Innovative culture also determines the professional pedagogical progress of a pedagogue.
If we proceed from the fact that culture is an aggregate method and product of human activities, innovative culture is an integrated method and product of a pedagogue's innovative pedagogical activities, i.e. the totality of what he or she creates and how he or she creates it and realizes it in his or her socially directed, permanent pedagogical activities. The theoretical value of this concept is to identify the integrative forces which encompass all aspects of pedagogical activities, integrate them and make innovative activities holistic. An excessive exaggeration of the significance of cognitive processes, scientific cognition or axiological consciousness, as well as an ignorance of them, render visions of pedagogical innovations lopsided and docked.
Such an understanding of innovative culture permits one to formulate a number of its specific functions: the rational and praxiological; the organizational and regularizing; the descriptive and explanatory; the forecasting and controlling; the euristical and cognitive; and the communicative and transferring. The rational and praxiological function of innovative culture resides in the fact that its content is filled with expedient and efficient means of education that have undergone comprehensive expert assessment in practice, by expert evaluation and
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pedagogical experiment. The methods and means of innovative practice are also presented here in concentrated form. A pedagogue is introduced to elicited and statutorily approved, stereotypical procedures of pedagogical activities due to the organizational and regularizing or didactic function. The descriptive and explanatory functions of innovative culture reside in the adequate expression of an innovative problem’s essence and the explanation of the transformations being carried out. This permits for the making of necessary and timely adjustments to the specific innovative processes. The forecasting and controlling function of innovative culture makes it possible for a pedagogue to foresee and predict possible progressive changes to the educational system and to control them, creating adequate conditions and evaluation criteria.
Not only does the availability of an aggregate of patterns and examples of innovative pedagogical activities in the arsenal of innovative culture permits a pedagogue to concentrate on something else apart from the actual problems of innovations but also to reflect upon and renew this fund. This is the role of the heuristic and cognitive function of innovative culture. Due to the communicative and transferring functions of innovative culture, the collective innovative reason of pedagogues is pooled on its basis while the permanent monitoring and exchange of innovative pedagogical activities’ products and procedures are organized.
The introduction of the "innovative culture" concept to pedagogics is essential and timely, it corresponds to the progressive tendencies in the development of education. The concept of the "innovative culture of a pedagogue" is the leading one in the space of such categories as pedagogical novelty, innovative process, innovative activities and efficient educational practice. The categories listed above form a cultural and praxiological model. They are the source of a new system of views concerning the special innovative training of students. It determines the didactic status of innovative culture as the morphogenetic basis for the development of a project course and the technology for the special innovative training of students.
Innovative pedagogical culture as a system comprises a pedagogue as a creator of innovative culture and the principal product of pedagogical activities created by it as well as pedagogical work and a system of means through which a pedagogue's activities are carried out. It should be noted that the means of activities is the elementary unit of culturological analysis at the level of cultural tradition. In this case, innovative activity acts as a class of innovative culture phenomena. A specific system of means as a form of reflection and information about the components of pedagogical activities can be elicited only by means of asking the following general questions: "What is necessary to carry out ideal innovative activities?" and "What is necessary to know about its components?" A system of means thus determined, invariant in respect to the isolated innovative processes, will become the reflection of pedagogical activities and create a class of phenomena belonging to the cultural tradition.
As a result of using the consolidation method, we can conclude that innovative culture as a system includes four subsystems: 1.) the basis of innovative culture; 2.) its nucleus; 3.) its consequence; and 4.) its attachments. The basis, nucleus and consequences contain the whole aggregate of the necessary means for both for carrying out innovative activities as a whole and the information supports of its principal spheres: pedagogical research, the creation of a pedagogical novelty, its
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realization and the reflexion of a pedagogical innovation. The subsystem of innovative culture phenomena is functional. It is oriented toward further refinement of previous cultural subsystems in the form of a basic innovative strategy. The subsystems of innovative culture are connected with the elements of innovative activities; they reflect the whole aggregate of its regulators. The following items are concentrated at the base of innovative culture: The thesaurus of innovative problematics; statutorily approved pedagogical instructions (SAPI); and innovation environment (IE); the object-and-subject bases of pedagogical activities and making up the initial pedagogical reality; empirical facts about pedagogical reality; and the aggregate of methods and techniques for ensuring the innovative activity of a pedagogue, including general scientific methods, pedagogic research methods, as well as complex and creative methods. The predominant function innovative culture’s of the basis of is to obtain prerequisite knowledge, to substantiate it and to formulate an innovative problem. Its auxiliary function is to provide all the subsequent spheres of pedagogical activities with the necessary tools.
The nucleus of innovative culture is mainly intended for carrying out activities in the sphere of creating pedagogical innovations. This is its main function. The nucleus of innovative culture in itself is an informational basis, the source of a scientific rationale and the description of a pedagogical novelty. These elements permit us to localize a purely transforming activity of a pedagogue. At the same time, the nucleus of innovative culture also performs the auxiliary functions of the ideological and programming support of all spheres of pedagogical activities, in particular, the sphere of pedagogic innovation reflection. It includes the consistent patterns of pedagogical activities; typical pedagogical problems of an innovative nature or innovative problems; specimens of a pedagogue's discussions and critical speculations; the values (goals) of pedagogical novelties; theoretical prerequisites (concepts) of pedagogical novelties; schools of pedagogical novelties; and implicit knowledge and borders of pedagogical novelties. The results of innovative culture contain the following elements: templates of innovative proposals, templates of innovative projects, templates of innovative programs and scenarios, templates of pedagogical novelties descriptions; and templates of pedagogical works, pedagogues' biographies and profiles. The dominant function of this culture subsystem is to create necessary prerequisites for the successful realization of pedagogical novelty and innovative action.
A basic innovative strategy is the dynamic component of innovative culture. It sets the heuristics and details for carrying out ideal innovative pedagogical activities, including the general rules of innovative practice; possible methods for their realization; and the most favorable factors for ensuring the efficiency of pedagogical activities.
References
1. Цыркун И. И. Система инновационной подготовки специалистов гуманитарной сферы. -Минск: Тэхналопя, 2000.
2. Цыркун И. И., Карпович Е. И. Инновационное образование педагога: на пути к профессиональному творчеству. - Минск: БГПУ, 2011.
3. Цыркун И. И. Пунчик В.Н. Педагогическая интеллектика: дидактический аспект:
монография. - Saarbrucken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG, 2011.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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