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THE PREPARATION OF A SPECIALIST IN NETWORKING CULTURAL-EDUCATIONAL SPACE OF UNIVERSITY
Dr. Zinaida Kekeeva (Kalmyk State University named after B. B.Gorodovikov, Elista, Russian Federation)
E-mail: [email protected] Dr. Zhannat Sardarova (Western-Kazakhstan State University named after M. Utemisov, Uralsk, Kazakhstan)
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Gulzhan Ergalieva (Western-Kazakhstan State University named after M. Utemisov, Uralsk, Kazakhstan)
E-mail: [email protected]
Received: October, 04.2015. Revised: November, 12.2015. Accepted: November, 17.2015.
Studies and articles UDK 378.6:004(574)
Abstract. The article deals with specialist preparation problems in networking cultural-educational space of the University. The authors consider the role of networking technologies in quality improvement of educational services in the conditions of the international cooperation. They also substantiate the process of entering the future experts in the working environment, the formation of their professional and personal competencies. The article reveals priority areas of training new generation specialists in the cultural and educational space of the university taking into account modern educational trends in the world.
Keywords: network, culture, space, education, innovation, specialist.
1. INTRODUCTION
The problem of development of educational processes which are based on the ideas of forming a new paradigm, humanization and democratization of education in an innovative society is of current interest. We consider science and education to be the main branches which ensure the economical growth during the period of transition of the regional economics to the innovative model of development.
The main competitive advantage of any region becomes a contribution of human development to the growth of social welfare. Specialist of the highest professional level provides the unity of science, culture and education, where the latter acts as the main resource for the development of life quality in the region. The lack of qualified, trained staff of different levels and profiles significantly slows down
Corresponding Author
Dr. Zinaida Kekeeva (Kalmyk State University named after B.B.Gorodovikov, Elista, Russian Federation) E-mail: [email protected]
innovation processes in the economy and in the social and cultural sphere.
This is particularly evident in the transition to competency model of education, designed to implement the activity approach in the target, in content and procedural characteristics of learning that can be difficult for the majority of professionals who have grown up in a knowledge-pattern educational activities. During the transition of a society to an innovative model economy, the role of science, education, and competence of these areas experts is growing. And it is quite obvious, because the inflow of such staff can be achieved only by creating a reliable system of training specialists - people who will provide support for the development of creative resources of the
nation at all levels of lifelong learning.
In the context of globalization and informatization of the modern world in the cultural and educational environment people begin to comprehend their lifestyle and activities in conditions of the further existence and development of mankind as a whole.
Today, for many regions of the world one of the most serious drawbacks in the formation of the world educational space as a regulated environment is a solution to the problem at the national level. Researchers V. I. Ginetsinskiy, Yu. S. Davydov, A. P. Liferov and others note that the integration of global education strategy should be based on the choice for each of the world's educational space by most of the currently available forms of participation, and on recognition of the need of split-level processes (Ginetsinskiy, 1997; Davydov, 2005; Liferov, 1997).
Modern education must be a fundamental and universal, continuous and humanistic, interactive and informative, all this will prepare a new class of experts, popular and com-
petitive in the labor market.
The study of pedagogical innovations, the exchange of information on educational achievements in education and excellence, comparison and synthesis of innovative processes, pedagogical phenomena, models of educational organization, and their adaptation is the basis for the integration and coordination of joint activities and development of the interests of each sovereign state. The aim and purpose of our study are to consider the issues of training specialists in the network of cultural and educational space in Kalmyk State University (the Russian Federation) and West Kazakhstan State University named after M. Utemisov (Kazakhstan). Mutual knowledge and experience in the use of innovative activity not only enrich teaching career, but also contribute to the development of an open system of specialist professional development in resolving similar situations in the educational network of cultural and educational space of the university.
It should be mentioned that the process of preparation of the expert in the network of cultural and educational space of the University is in giving the possibility of the participation in the origin of pedagogical action, pedagogical reality, which creates in the mind the multidimensional indicative basis for the solution to a wide range of pedagogical problems.
The future specialist has the opportunity to participate in the birth of educational reality, the logic of which is the awareness of the society of pedagogical problems and in the transformation of its educational purpose and further into the content and methods of education. Internal content of the process is the conversion of passive "representatives of environments" into active pedagogical subjects (individual and collective, institutional and self-formed (Ginetsinskiy, 1997; Davydov, 2005; Liferov, 1997).
2. METHODOLOGY
The methodology of writing of this paper was in studying the process of professional formation of the future specialist in the professional environment of the region, mastering the ethno-cultural traditions, lifestyle and mentality of their inhabitants - their future pupils and their parents in the network of cultural and educational space of the university.
It should be noted that the process of professional formation of the future expert in the network of cultural and educational space
of the university actively influences the ideas of scientific schools, experience and personal participation of leading scientists and teachers of the higher educational institution as a network of its own resources. In our view, to be a network node means to have their own author content to the solution of network problems and to have their own resources and infrastructure for the realization of its content.
Networking in the cultural and educational space of the university as a teacher professional development environment is a means of dialogue in the information network for experience exchange in training specialists in the sphere of education as carriers of innovative ideas and technology education. It can also help to improve the quality of educational services of the University in the region; development of resource management of innovative educational process in the municipality; and to monitor the effectiveness of the professional activity of teachers in the region.
Under the educational networking cultural and educational space of University, we understand the integrity of the subjects of education (including other subjects of the socio-cultural environment), carrying values and meanings of professional interaction, aimed at achieving significant social and educational outcomes in modern education (Kekeeva, 2012).
The purpose of modern education is the development of affordable capabilities of the individual which are needed for the individuals themselves and for the society. This development engages them in a socially valuable activity, to ensure effective self-education and self-expression. The development becomes the key word of the pedagogical process, the significantly deepest concept of modern education.
3. MAIN PART
The central processes at the new level in the XXI century higher education are communication technologies and intellectual property, strategic design and teamwork in the educational process of the university. The teacher acts as a teacher, manager, methodologist, designer (director) of the educational process, not only as the translator of educational information. In this system, the traditional role of a professor is changed; it complements the role of the organizer of communication, industry and technology expert, and the head of the project. It is these types of professionals who
are in demand in the global intellectual market.
The solution to these problems requires a change in approach not only to training specialists in higher educational institutions, but also to the use of new learning models. At the moment, the most popular approaches are those associated with the development of critical thinking and creative abilities of students. First of all, these settings must be realized through inclusion problematic situation, scientific research, and various forms of self-study in the educational activities. This strategy allows researchers to make the transition from the practice of reproducing to the practice of comprehension, critical thinking and creativity in the process of mastering the students for the future specialty (Ginetsinskiy, 1997; Lif-erov, 1997).
In the context of the diversity of models and forms of educational process organization, there is an actualization of the task of involving social institutions into participating in networking cultural and educational space of the university; it gives the educational process continuity, integrity, variability, and self-education.
In the cultural-educational space of the University there should be networking in the technology of the staff training. This is a dialogue which occurs in the information networking for the exchange of experience in the staff training system of higher education. These professionals are the carriers of innovative ideas and technology education in improving the quality of educational services of the University in the region. Thanks to this, there is the development of innovative educational resource management processes in the municipality. There is also strong necessity of monitoring the effectiveness of the professional activity of teachers.
Modern educational technologies in the educational process of higher education are reference points on the development of heuristics, exploratory capabilities. We refer to the fact that it is necessary not only to teach, that is to give knowledge, but also to teach to doubt, to show self-organization, to seek new information and innovative approaches to the basic sciences and theories.
Between 2012 and 2013, in Kalmyk State University the experimental research was carried out. It showed that there are several factors that reduce the readiness of the future experts to organize themselves in training and removal the barriers in the formation of professional and personal competencies.
They are:
• focus on the traditional model of professional training (72 %);
• low level of positive motivation to express self-identity (56%);
• difficulties in adaptation in higher educational institutions and students' unprepared-ness to higher education (55 %);
• lack of experience in showing initiative and creativity (27%);
• unformed professional and personal competence (68 %);
• the absence of interest among students for their future profession (14 %).
In our opinion, one of the personally oriented functions of professional education regionalization is shifting of a future specialist from being a passive recipient of information into the active subject of the educational process. An indication of the activity of the educational process subject is the formation of professional and personal competencies. For the formation of future specialists' professional and personal competencies it is necessary to create the right learning environment close to the working one. This involves conducting master-classes, open lectures by leading professors, teachers and practitioners in the university, meetings and discussions with graduates of the faculty, employers, training in other universities, in the workplace, and an active industrial practice. According to the researcher White, competence is "the effective interaction (of people) with the environment". He stated that there is "a competence motivation" in addition to competence as "the ability achieved" (Delamare, Winterton, 2005). From the point of view of German researchers Su-zanna Adam and Gunther Blumenshtein, competence is a concept encompassing the ability, willingness, knowledge, and behavior, necessary for a certain activity. This has contributed to the formation of professional and personal competencies and development of aspiration and interest for the common cultural identity. This helped students to realize their belonging to the future profession, assign its values, free choice and implement of lifestyle corresponding to universal, professional, national, regional, cultural and spiritual values under the conditions of activation of revival process of the ethnic groups cultural heritage in Russia, the reappraisal of values in the professional formation (Davydov, 2005; Glubokova, Kon-drakova, 2011).
In this regard, the development and translation of models and techniques of effective teaching activities of professors and
staff networking structure of cultural and educational space of the university provides a continuous process to improve the quality of school education, adaptation and professional socialization of young professionals, training of pedagogical, administrative, scientific and methodological research staff involved in continuous professional training of specialists in the regional institution.
In this situation, "lifelong learning" is getting topical. Businessmen, office workers, military men, pensioners and people of other occupations are becoming virtual students. It is professionally vital to involve a future specialist into an active professional activity, in which creative and professional development is stimulated and corrected, and willingness to self-education and self-organization is formed. The regionalization of professional education can effectively solve the problem of staff training in the networking structure of the cultural and educational space of the University being the product of a scientific, educational and technological expansion of the higher educational institution in social-economic, cultural, educational, and mental structure of the region.
Creation of supporting schools as resource centers in the network structure of cultural and educational space of the University as an example of the Kalmyk State University and West Kazakhstan State University named after M. Utemisov contributes to improvement of the training quality with the use of distant education technologies, tutor support, active participation of practitioners in scientific programs, pedagogical skills competitions, conferences, seminars, debates, meetings to exchange experiences.
The future specialist has an opportunity to take part in the birth of production reality, the logic of which is in the society's awareness of the problems of practice, transforming it into the goal and further on into the content and methods of vocational education. The inner content of the process is the conversion of passive "representatives of space" into active pedagogical subjects (individual and collective, institutional and self-educated (Ginetsin-skiy, 1997; Kekeeva, 2012; Glubokova, Kon-drakova, 2011).
It should be noted that the process of educational staff training in the network structure of the cultural and educational space of the university lies in creating the possibility of its participation in the reality production that creates in mind the multidimensional indicative basis of a wide range of professional tasks.
As an institution for pedagogical staff training, we are considering the field of innovative activity of production, based on the achievements of university science. In this case, this science relates to the results of fundamental scientific research, determining the educational content of subject areas, and, in fact, applied the psycho-pedagogical and scientific-methodological concept.
Future specialist is formed in the environment of the region, mastering the ethno-cultural traditions, lifestyle and mentality of their inhabitants - future students and their parents (Ginetsinskiy, 1997; Davydov, 2005; Liferov, 1997). In the network structure of the cultural and educational space of University, the ideas of scientific schools, experience and personal participation of leading scientists and university teachers are actively used. This network is open to new ideas, approaches and participants. In our view, to be a node on the network means to have one's own copyright content to the problems solution, to have resources and infrastructure for its content realization. However, it should be mentioned that the educational environment in the cultural and educational space of the university is subject to change in society, providing future professionals the freedom to choose the means and methods of meeting the professional, social and personal interests and needs.
As part of the practical training, students are testing (in whole or in fragments) prepared in learning research projects and submit reports on the work performed, describing and analyzing the results. According to the researcher F. Weinert, the competence execution of an action suggests a person's understanding what they are doing and why they are doing it. Simple skills obtained on the basis of the show and the following imitation; do not develop in the student their own willingness to deal with more complex problem situations (Straka, 2005).
Holding creative and scientific conferences, and seminars based on research centers of University allows to strengthen the motivation of professional activity and self-reflection of the person in training. Students' participation in the University research centers work contributes to the formation of their ability to integrate and use personal experience in professional training, as well as to self-organization of the sphere of activity. Innovative activity is the impulse for self-innovation of students in higher educational institutions and improves the quality of their professional training. American researcher McClelland pointed
out that competence is a behavioral characteristic, and it can be formed through the training and development (McCelland, 1973).
These forms of work also allow identifying priority areas of training in higher educational institutions in view of current educational trends in the world, to strengthen research and teaching cooperation of universities with employers, taking into account the international experience (Mukaeva, 2006). For example, Kalmyk State University and Western-Kazakhstan State University named after M. Utemisov hold master classes, leading professors' public lectures, meetings, discussions with the faculties' graduates, employers, training in other universities. The administrations of the universities do these things for the best possible entry of future specialists in the working environment, and the formation of their professional and personal competencies.
The quality of the training of the future specialist in a university research center helps to meet, on the one hand, the needs of the labor market for specialists with "leading" innovative mindset. On the other hand, the person needs to be competitive and in demand in the labor market.
We totally agree with E. N. Glubokaya and I. E. Kondrakova's opinions (Glubokova, Kondrakova, 2011) that in higher education under the network the interaction between members are mediated and its space is constantly widening. We share the view that due to the networking, each member has a unique opportunity to develop and improve their professional core competencies.
Meanwhile, we agree that the joint venture does not require from the participants simultaneous presence in the same place at the same time, as everyone has the opportunity to work with network resources in a convenient time (Delamare, Winterton, 2005). During networking, there is not only the spread of innovations, but also we can observe the dialogue between educational institutions and the reflection in each other's experience, mapping those processes taking place in the education system as a whole (Delamare, Winterton, 2005). Innovations in terms of the educational network become evolutionary in nature, due to the continuous exchange of information and experience.
The key features of networking are: space, allowing to describe the variety of horizontal and vertical interactions in the network; information that reflects the content of these interactions; time showing the logic of the development of networking; energy, represent-
ing a variety of ways and forms of life (Delamare, Winterton, 2005).
In our view, in the center of the model of networking there should be a single cultural and educational space of the university; and informative content for the professional formation of the expert is the task of each participant in the network. Respecting principle of openness, equality and mutual benefit, each institution provides certain resources, thereby enriching unified cultural and educational space of the university.
Consequently, networking is a communication system allowing to develop, test and offer the innovative professional educational community the content model of education, educational management, the development of society. This is a way of doing business for sharing resources. In networking, the main feature is the absence of "dead ends" in building up "network".
It should be noted that this enables consistently spread the powers, functions, responsibilities among all subjects of educational activities and participate in the training and retraining of specialists, including teachers.
The main principles of cooperation in the framework of networking structures are parity (interaction based on equality), priority (cooperation on priority areas), collegial-ity (cooperation on the basis of respect for the experience and opinions of each), planning (based on the interaction of project activity), scientific approach (through interaction relationship with science), the appropriateness (interaction in accordance with the objectives) (Delamare, Winterton, 2005).
Thus, in a variety of models and forms of organization of educational process scientists should actualize the problem of attracting educational institutions to participate in networking cultural and educational space of the university in all the subjects involved in the professional development of a specialist. This networking gives continuity and integrity to the educational process, helps to preserve the variability of forms of specialist's self-organization. The need to improve the quality of training and retraining of specialists, including teachers in the region is caused by the following objective factors: the variability of education; the variety of new types of professional institutions (vocational schools, grammar schools, colleges), giving an advanced level of education; the development of multi-level university education; creation of a professional teaching environment, appropriate to abilities, needs and capabilities of the individual;
distribution of functions between educational institutions, enterprises and organizations in the network of cultural and educational space of the university participating in the training and retraining of the new generation; creation of services supporting continuous professional teacher education (adaptation, diagnostic, didactic, psychological).
The effective functioning of the system of vocational training and retraining in a new generation of innovative activity of society is only possible as a consistent cooperation of its subjects, related to the implementation of the conditions and mechanisms of scientific, methodical, personnel, information, logistics, and meeting the needs of modern education (Straka, 2005). This is conditioned by the fact that the most important function of the personality-oriented education system is the development of aspirations and abilities of highly qualified specialists to the common cultural identity. It involves the awareness of their belonging to a certain culture, appropriation of its values, free choice and the implementation of lifestyle, corresponding to universal, national values in a revitalization process of the revival of historical and cultural heritage of ethnic groups, revaluation of values, and lack of spirituality (Straka, 2005).
4. CONCLUSION
Thus, the creation of a model of networking and coordination of activity of education in cultural and educational space of the university cannot be considered only as an innovative model of training and retraining of specialists. This is also the process of creating a system of supporting schools as resource centers in the network structure of the cultural and educational space of the university in the preparation of today's competitive specialists
In this regard, the development and translation of models and techniques of effective professional activity in the network structure of the cultural and educational space of the university ensure continuity of the process of improving the quality of education, adaptation and professional socialization of specialist training in teaching, management, research and research staff in the region. And it is quite different from the existing array of scientific knowledge on the issue.
It also in the most objective way actualizes the need for the study of international experience in the creation of a multi-level system of education (undergraduate, gradu-
ate) in a region in the context of the cultural-educational environment. We are deeply sure that the study of international experience in the field of education is one of the most effective ways and means of improving the quality of the content of general and vocational education. Integration of the national education system of any country as an equal partner in the world community, promotes the activity of education and mobility of industry in general.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article was prepared under the grant from the Russian Humanitarian Foundation, project number 14-16-08003 "Modeling the positive trends in the development of vocational and cultural competence in higher economic education". We are grateful to our colleagues who are not the authors, but with their assistance our research was conducted -Aksenova T. N., Boldyreva S. B, Budaeva D. A.
Conflict of interests
Authors declare no conflict of interests.
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