Currently, psychological support for gifted primary school children requires specialists not only to have a high level of psychological and pedagogical, but also other professional competencies for the effective correction of negative experiences.
The purpose of the article is to develop methodological techniques and organization of professional activities of psychologists using modern technologies. The leading method for studying this problem is the modelling method, which allows us to consider this problem as a purposeful and organized process for improving professional and special competencies. The structure of the article includes the target, content, organizational procedural and effective components.
Optimization of the model of differentiated approach for overcoming negative experiences in gifted children of primary school age due to dis-synchrony using the method of interdisciplinary interaction, will not only overcome negative experiences, but also prevent possible negative emotions, as well as improving the professional skills of specialists working in this field.
Journal Articles
Improving Foreign Language teaching for International Students
The processes of internationalization and globalization are ubiquitous. The growing number of international students in universities prompts the necessity of research into the best ways of teaching and learning the language of a host country. Language is a connecting link of prime importance in building up an efficient and suitable educational environment for an international student in a foreign country. This qualitative study sought to identify the most effective practices of teaching the host language as second language in leading universities of two countries: Germany and Russia. We interviewed ten teachers in each university regarding the specifics of organizing courses to teach the host country language as a second language. Our analysis revealed the difficulties teachers usually face in their work with international students, as well as effective methods and models of teaching international students. We interpret these findings using a framework for English Medium Instruction proposed by Dafouz and Smit (2012).
How students perceive educational support through Facebook
Since the beginning of the 21stcentury social media has expanded world-wide in all aspects of human
lives. Mainly for the youth they have been a natural part of their “digital ecosystem”. As the results of the surveys of social media use by teens, carried by the Pew Research Centre, showed, in 2014 in the USA 71 % of teens reported being Facebook users and no other platform was used by a clear majority of the interviewed. In 2018, three further online platforms, other than Facebook, have been reported by the significant majority of the teens. These were YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. As to Facebook, “only” 51 % of the respondents stated to be Facebook users. Furthermore, smartphone ownership has become a ubiquitous element of teen life. Up to 95 % of teens have reported they have a smartphone or access to one, and 45 % of teens have proclaimed they are online on a near-constant basis. Even more important, they are becoming more and more used, in the time of the world-wide corona pandemic and the need for connection in social quarantine.
As for teachers and their opinions on social media, on the one hand they are aware of their usefulness as regards to sharing information or organizing school tasks. But on the other hand, they identify social media as a reason for the pupils and students` low attention during classes at school. But since the youth devote a lot of time to social media, there is no point of not using these means also in education, as shown by the current efforts to organize education processes during the corona pandemic.
At the Faculty of Education, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, we have been aware of the significance of the social media in relation to different aspects of education and pedagogical communication. That is why for several years, attention has been paid to this new education phenomenon. The paper presents the authors experiences with the use of Facebook as a mean of support for education while the main focus is given to the results of a questionnaire survey which examined students` opinions and attitudes towards Facebook (before the pandemic situation), in comparison with Moodle, as a new phenomenon in university education.
Digital technologies in teaching and learning foreign languages: pedagogical strategies and teachers’ professional competence
Research problem: Today’s education system must adapt to the digital revolution and use it to best advantage. One of the most critical paths to pursue is to develop digital skills among student teachers. Many Russian researchers have focused on practices of digital technology integration in foreign language teaching, but, few among them have formulated systematic teaching strategies. The aim of the study: To elaborate the pedagogical strategies for developing digital competence among students on the basis of the complex approach and scientific achievements in this field. Research methods: The research is based on the statistics obtained during an online survey among university and school teachers, students. While conducting the interviews additional information appeared and teachers’ opinions were specified. The participants included 100 university foreign language teachers as well as 120 students from Central Russia.
Results: The analysis revealed how the professors organized their digital learning spaces. Among others, the findings highlighted on which aspects they spent more Internet time, and the factors that limited digital use in class. The analysis of the students’ responses revealed some problems in using digital tools while learning a foreign language. The results can be used in developing students’ competences and in elaborating syllabus and teaching materials.
Conclusions and recommendations. On the basis of recent achievements and collected data, the complex of pedagogical strategies to form digital competence among students during the foreign language learning have been elaborated. With the appropriate pedagogical accompaniment, digital technologies allow the development of student teachers’ digital competence to meet the demands of the modern society. Thus, it can increase the efficiency of foreign language teaching and will contribute to students’ personal development.
A humanitarian approach to the digitization of education
Digitization is a global, all-encompassing process, affecting all spheres of human life and society. In this context education is not an exception, and the changes taking place in it are a natural result of the rapid development, wide dissemination and accessibility of information technology and networks. Understanding the methodological and philosophical foundations and principles of the process is a necessary phase of the transition to the digital education, the digital society and the digital economy. In the narrow sense digital education can be understood as a conversion of learning materials and the learning process itself from analog to digital format (i.e. electronic textbooks, electronic libraries, open online courses and webinars, video lectures, etc.), but this phenomenon can be considered in broader terms as the complex changes of infrastructural, managerial, behavioral, cultural nature. Recent events (quarantine almost all over the world because of the Covid-19 pandemic) have made it clear that the broad approach to digitization is necessary for the translation of all education systems across the world to an online format, since it refers not only to the form of presenting educational and control materials but first and foremost to the aspects of general behavior, psychological, cognitive and axiological issues. Studies have shown that in the process of transferring education from the classroom to a distance form, all participants of the educational process (students, teachers, education managers, parents) underwent a reassessment of views on education and its role in the life of a person and society. Furthermore, the contradictions, implicitly or weakly expressed prior to the forced and urgent transition to the distant form, were sharpened, and the problems related, for the most part, not to the technical aspects (although these problems also exist), but to the components of education such as communication, personal development, socialization and even physiology, became most urgent. All this requires more in-depth study, a comprehensive and systematic understanding of all the elements not only from the standpoint of functionality, but also axiological, epistemological, ontological and anthropological meanings.
It has become obvious that the focus should be placed not on the technical tools with which digital education is implemented, but on a humanitarian approach with its humanistic values, in the center of which is a person: teacher – pupil /student – director – parent. As participants of the educational process, they determine the goals, objectives and methods of activity, select the appropriate technical means and evaluate their training, educational and development potential; they are the centrum omnium that underlies education.
This article is devoted to the digital transformation of education in view of the humanitarian approach based on the study of culture, values and history of mankind as a whole and of the people in particular, supported by the pedagogical, psychological, sociological and communication theories that focus on the person, the individual.
A comparative and correlation analysis of experimental work for the development of organisational and managerial competences in university teachers
This article reports on the development of a framework for university teachers’ organizational and managerial competence. The work is based on the content analysis of scientific research in new generation educational program management, ways for expanding the functions of university teachers and transforming their activities with due regard to the modern reality of higher education institutions. This competence is an integrative teacher’s personality trait that reflects four structural components: value and motivation-based component, cognitive component, design- based component and knowledge-based component. Expert surveys were conducted in 2017- 2019 to provide empirical support for the structural components. The sample included over 280 respondents at Samara University. Means and methods for university teacher organizational and managerial competence formation were assessed within the scope of an advanced training program (ATP) named “Educational Program Management”, implemented by the Professional Competence Development Centre of Samara University. The content of the ATP’s sections was developed, and teaching methods contributing to the development of indicators of the relevant competence components were identified. Summative and formative assessments of the level of competence development used self-evaluation by a sample of 140 teachers, organizing the educational process at 35 departments of the University. A correlation analysis of summative and formative assessment data was carried out to establish ties between the components of organizational and managerial competence.
Learners’ success and self-esteem in foreign language reading comprehension
Demands for a high-level development of foreign language reading comprehension skills and competences are now escalating and processing of foreign language text information is a matter of course. Pupils and teachers are faced with the need to work with textual information in more complicated ways, in which self-esteem plays an important role. This paper analyses learners’ success of reading comprehension in foreign language and real self-esteem in acquiring those skills. Self-esteem helps to promote language self-confidence, the learner’s level of aspiration, and adjustment to perception of foreign language structure. As long as the learner does not really perceive themselves (real “self”), it is difficult to talk about understanding lexical meanings and their real perception of grammatical structures in the text. The research goal was to find differences in self-esteem and success in foreign language reading comprehension skills with respect to categories of comprehension (specifically: I always understand everything; I have a lot of problems with text understanding; specifically: I experience difficulties with understanding unknown words; problem with understanding long sentences; difficulty with understanding the unfamiliar topic of the text; pictures help me in understanding; guiding questions help me in understanding). The research question was whether the self-image of learners in relation to the skill of foreign language reading comprehension is realistic given their real success in this skill. The research was carried out in the Slovak Republic on a sample of 327 respondents and found differences in subjective perception of understanding and success in reading comprehension skills. The research showed a low real self- image of learners especially in categories of global character in respect to the average understanding of foreign language texts.
The place of research and creative skills in the training of future teachers
Among the priorities of the 21st-century education and school, and therefore, of teachers as well,
is developing students’ creative skills, teaching them to take advantage of diverse information and educational resources, to find quickly new and reliable information, which they need in order to manage their learning tasks and life problems. This “navigation” through information is one of the important research skills are needed by the young citizens of the technologized, dynamic world and must be purposefully formed and developed. This means that teachers themselves have to acquire and develop these skills, and the place where this should be accomplished is the university.
The aim of this article is to present the experience of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in developing students’ research skills through assignments for self- dependent work. The paper provides an analysis of the students’ opinions included in three studies: of the University Center for Quality Management, of a research team within an intra-university project, and a survey conducted by the author.
The conclusion is that, according to the students, basic university training is sufficient to develop their research and creative skills through various forms of individual and group work, in line with the skills necessary for 21st-century teachers.
Transformation of relationships between primary school stakeholders in the context of digitization
The need for research into the transformation of relationships between primary school stakeholders is caused by the acceleration of social and technological processes in which all agents are involved. Digital platforms functioning in unified information systems become cross-functional where they support managerial and pedagogical innovative solutions. The authors regard digitization as a new space for the poly-subjective relationships within information system development. In the transition to digitization it is important to examine the pedagogical aspects and assess the potential advantages but also consider risks. This study considers one of the significant manifestations of digitization as the transformation of the relationship between the teacher and the learner when the learning process is augmented by some active digital practices.
Empirical data was obtained during a large-scale pedagogical experiment within the framework of “Learn to Learn” project focused on primary school learners. The sample included over 2,500 students from 46 schools of different regions of Russia. The experiment started in 2018. The project was based on a digital platform which facilitates the diverse roles of different education process stakeholders. The platform records learners’ step by step actions for further examination. These ‘digital footprints’ are available to the adults – teachers and parents, who accompany the learning process.
The data is presented through the lens of the theory of liminality and Vygotsky’s concept of ‘zones of development’ and is accompanied by a comparison with contemporary international research in the field. The paper also considers the concepts of relationship transformation between the teacher and the learner while using digital technologies and analyses of the database. Drawing on the empirical data the research demonstrates the role of digital platforms to compensate for deficiencies in child’s skills and personal growth moving them into the ‘zone of proximal development’.
Post-Soviet Identity and Teacher Education: Past, Present, Future
Research into the historical background of ongoing global and national reforms is essential for the development of effective strategies, models and content of teacher education. Historical and anthropological research in education offers a good perspective on the matter as it draws from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural scientific approaches, thus helping to fully comprehend socio- cultural processes.
The article explores the development of teacher education in the Post-Soviet countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine) from its beginning in pre-revolutionary Russia up to the present day. The purpose of the research is to analyze the evolution of initial teacher education up to the end of the 20th century and its further transformation during the past thirty years. Until the early 1990s, the teacher education system represented a common education area that shared the same content and approaches to pedagogical education. After that, compromised by political factors, the system was transformed.
The juxtaposition of convergent trends and national features of teacher education systems in the Post-Soviet countries provides an opportunity to thoroughly assess current teacher education policies through the lens of pedagogical, geopolitical, economic and cultural partnership of the CIS countries.
Technology to strengthen students’ self-awareness of their personal qualities
There is a need to develop specific techniques to help individuals in self-actualization. The article suggests an instrument that has been tested over years and validated with over 800 people. The theoretical basis is the method of making inner knowledge explicit, using a construct called sub- personality. The technology suggested the individual follows four steps: (1) s/he analyzes his/her strengths and weaknesses, drawing them on a plane of four concentric circles on paper; (2) s/he draws the qualities – subpersonalities as ‘little houses’; (3) models his/her personality with the help of a modified technique “Work with creative garbage”; and (4) uses elements of psychodrama (role-divided psychotherapy). The paper presents a case study of one participant, so as to show the practical application of this technology, and to validate its effectiveness. In the concluding section, we demonstrate how this technology helps a person to interpret one of his/her personal qualities, and creates conditions for self-acceptance, integrity of self-image, and ways of self-actualization. We confirm that the technology described can help psychologists to assist their patients in self-cognition and in learning about their personal qualities. This can help psychology experts in various fields.
Developing individual educational paths for future teachers based on the requirements of the updated Federal State Education Standards of Higher Education (FSES of HE)
There is a need for individualization of professional education, which can ensure that the quality of training of graduates of pedagogical specialties meets the changing requirements of this activity. This requires the development of individual educational paths of future teachers, providing each student with his/her own ways to achieve common and individual educational goals, to develop those universal and professional competencies, demanded by modern society and the labor market. The research goal is to substantiate the concept and technology for developing individual educational paths of future teachers in higher education institutions based on the requirements of the updated Federal State Educational Standards. The study used pedagogical modelling, a study of regulatory legal acts in the field of education, benchmarking and expert methods.
This article substantiates the methodological foundations of the research, presenting competency- based and systemic approaches for the development of individual educational paths. It proposes a technology for developing these paths of future teachers based on the requirements of the updated Federal State Educational Standards. The content and design procedures are described, together with the criteria for the effectiveness of developing the paths based on the study of the best practices in those higher education institutions participating in the project of modernization of pedagogical education.
It provides recommendations for developing individual educational paths based on three aspects, substantial, activity and procedural. The recommendations will be useful for modernizing the content and procedures for the main professional educational programs of bachelor’s and master’s degrees, to ensure that these educational paths are correlated with the requirements of the regional labor market, and the updated Federal State Educational Standards in the training programs “Pedagogical Education”, as well as students’ individual needs and opportunities.
Conceptual approaches to the identification of teachers’ digital competence: cognitive modelling
The need for developing a teacher’s digital competency requires the creation of a fundamental scientific base for the process of training teachers and their professional development to enable them to work in the context of digitization of general education. In the Covid-19 pandemic, global transformations are taking place in the field of education. All regions of Russia have switched completely into remote mode. According to Interfax, based on the research of the Higher School of Economics NRU, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is the best in Russia in terms of technical equipment for teachers and schoolchildren today. This study covered 22,600 teachers in 73 regions of the country. In Yakutia 61% of teachers conduct online learning, while the average in Russia is 25%. However, the common problem across all regions is that teachers, schoolchildren and their parents lack psychological readiness for a complete transition to digital education. This explains the emerging situation of conflict, background stress, as well as frequent cases of imitative distance education and e-learning. In this regard, there is a need to discuss the problems facing education in the digitization process and the need to overcome them. This paper analyses the current situation in school education in the context of digitization and a universal transition to online learning. Graduate students of the NEFU Institute for Continuing Professional Education conducted a survey of teachers and school leaders. This was aimed at identifying attitudes towards the process of digitization of school education and ownership of ICT, and some digital competencies of teachers and educational leaders. The results confirmed the relevance of the research problem and revealed the most acute contradictions associated with the lack of digital competencies among teachers in Yakutia.
The study examined modern conceptual approaches to the digitization of education, the identification of digital competencies of teachers, and the development of objective measurement tools. A digital teacher competency map is being developed, with a toolkit that integrates key competencies of the digital economy and digital competencies, together with tester program (a digital simulator) to identify the formation of: (a) a set of the teacher’s core competencies in the digital economy and (b) a set of teachers’ digital competencies.
The following factors were taken into account in developing the tools: conceptual approaches in modern scientific and pedagogical research to identify, identify and assess the level of formation of digital competencies of a modern teacher; methodological substantiation of cognitive modeling of the competencies studied; assumptions of the most optimal combinations of key and digital competencies for teachers of different subject areas and levels of education; interconnection and interdependence of some professional deficits associated with a deficit of key and digital competencies.
Ongoing education of math teachers and PISA quality assessment: from professional competence to the mathematical literacy of schoolchildren
The quality of education is a key factor in the social development of the individual, society, and the state. This article is aimed at identifying the theoretical essence of the concept, the “quality of education” in the context of the international PISA comparative study and the ongoing education of math teachers as a factor in the development of students’ mathematical literacy. The diagnostics for interviewing and questioning teachers, students and parents revealed problems and difficulties in teaching and studying mathematics. A key tool was context analysis of the GGTU Center for teachers’ professional development activities. The Ongoing Education Program “Schoolchildren Practical Math Literacy Formation” presented in the article and the author’s teaching manual “Life as a Math Plot” reveal their practical focus on the development of math teachers’ professional subject competence, on schoolchildren’s math literacy development, and, as a result, a general improvement in the quality of education according to the PISA results.
E&SD 15(2) June 2020
This is the English language contents page for E&SD 15(2)
Dinara Bisimbaeva
Editorial. Writing a literature review: A simple task might be arduous? 6
Irina E. Abramova, Anastasia V. Ananyina, Olga M. Sherehova, Elena P. Shishmolina
Overcoming Barriers in Teaching EFL to Non-Linguistic Students 10
Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, Nguyen Hoang Doan Huy, Nguyen Thi Hang, Duong Thi Thuy Ha
Self-perception of teachers and managers of the impact of teachers’ professional development in Vietnam 21
Yuliia A. Sydorenko
Problem of perception of belles-lettres works with mythological structures by high school students 31
Marina E. Valullina, Alisa R. Khalfieva
Affective-cognitive Aspects Dynamics of a New Information Perception Experiencing on the Classes by High School Students and University Students 42
Renad I. Zhdanov, Roman V. Kupriyanov, Dzhamilia R. Nugmanova, Milyausha Ya. Ibragimova, Vladimir G. Dvoenosov
Interrelationship between anxiety and strategies of coping with exam stress: the role of gender, physiological indicators and sports 57
Yana B. Emelyanova
Overcoming difficulties in reading academic articles in a foreign language: designing and running a training workshop 74
Inna B. Avakyan
Self-development as a factor in the readiness of university teachers for innovation 88
Irina V. Arendachiuk
Subject and activity-related determinants of the student youth’s educational and developmental activity 103
Editorial. Writing a literature review: A simple task might be arduous?
What makes a scientific paper good? I believe everyone has an answer or at least an assumption. The variations in answers are contingent on firsthand experience. The feed- back that we receive from reviewers and editors when we submit our papers to journals may help informing our opinion. When specialists scrutinize our manuscripts or when we act as reviewers ourselves, what part of work is of great importance to us? We tend to pay a special attention to methodology, results and discussion sections. Therefore, au- thors endeavor to present rigorous methods, valid and reliable results, and strong discus- sion points. But what about the literature review? Are we sufficiently critical of it?
Overcoming Barriers in Teaching EFL to Non-Linguistic Students
The transition to the knowledge-based economy requires a new generation of professionals with a complex set of skills and competencies. These include English language skills, which will help them to merge into the international professional community. One dimension of this challenge is finding effective unconventional approaches to mass EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching for non- linguistic university students, to increase their motivation, interest in learning English, and their willingness to use this foreign language actively by lowering communication barriers.
In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of an experimental EFL teaching and learning framework, aimed at helping non-linguistic majors students to develop an English communication competence through an artificial bilingual environment. Statistical analysis and comparison of the results of the students’ surveys suggest that using more unconventional activities and a strong focus on students’ social interactions, interdisciplinary language activities and heterogeneity of study groups, builds students’ intrinsic motivation, removes communication barriers and increases the need to use English in real life.
Self-perception of teachers and managers of the impact of teachers’ professional development in Vietnam
The professional development of teacher is an indispensable requirement for a quality education system. This has been demonstrated not only by global innovative education but also by Vietnam’s educational development trends. This study was conducted among 293 teachers and managers at high schools in Vietnam. It aims to explore the formats that teachers used to improve their professional development, the frequency of using these formats and teachers’ self-assessments about their impact on professional developments. The findings revealed that high school teachers involved themselves in reading, and conducting or participating in research. Teachers expressed their view that professional development based on school’s characteristics or on creating a learning community within a school had the highest impact on professional development.
Problem of perception of belles-lettres works with mythological structures by high school students
This article examines the perception of belles-lettres works with explicit mythological structures in Ukrainian literature by senior secondary school students. The integral perception of a belles-lettres text depends on the students’ understanding of the author’s mythological figurative language. The aim of the research is to define the problems of children’s perception of mythological structures by classification into levels, and further to propose some ways for improving intelligibility of such texts. The experimental work involved analysis and synthesis, a study of curricula and belles-lettres, and diagnostic questioning. The research was carried out during the academic years 2017- 2018 with 208 pupils in three general education institutions. The analysis corroborates the working hypothesis about the complicated nature of knowledge about the specificity of world outlook within the frame of a certain mythological system.
The dynamics of affective-cognitive aspects of experiencing new information by high school and university students
There is a need to develop new psychological and pedagogical methods that improve the quality of learning new information, and take into account the individual personal characteristics of students. This article explores the changes in the structure of the relationships between cognitive states and emotional experiences during lessons where the new teaching material is perceived by the students as easy to understand and when the new information seems difficult. A survey was conducted with 60 high school students and 45 third-year students at KFU. The study showed the general psychological regularities of individual cognitive states and the emotional dynamic. It established a relationship between the time factor, the subjective evaluation of the quality of perception of new information and the general emotional well-being in high school students and students. The conclusions provide a basis for the new strategy for the provision of educational information.