Common trends of global education: educational methods in USA and Russia

General description of US education system

More and more people speak in favor of government’s call for lifelong learning rather than learning for life.

In recent years, the amount of theoretical and applied research on issues related to the formation of cognitive capacities has significantly increased. As the research authors take the fact that traditional teaching does not provide students with opportunity for mental activity as a premise, particular attention is drawn to the works focused on teachers and useful tips on how to teach students of all ages to think (Lefrancois, 1999). So, one of the learning models of mental actions was developed by K. Chusk, another model is devoted to metacognition (in Russia, it is used as problem-based education). Unfortunately, adults - teachers and parents - often do not encourage curiosity, the desire to understand the essence of the world, which is the basis of metacognition and a prerequisite for the development of mental abilities. In such manner, the possibility of personal mindset formation is eliminated.

Traditional programs do not teach children philosophy or philosophical terms. Usually they consist of short stories, after reading and discussion of which children learn how to find the connection between cause and effect, to evaluate alternative ways of studying the subject, and to use different methods of reasoning in search of answers to questions which are interesting for them.

With the personalization of education, American teachers develop a personalized form of independent work according to training abilities of students and education purposes, including, the use of personal computers. They create a personalized program with an option of forms and methods of education and, especially, of the tempo option of the course. The ideas and initiatives of students are strongly supported. On the basis of a systematic analysis presented in the study of A. Zakharova, it can be stated that one of the popular principles of individualization in pedagogics of US is the principle of enrichment (the replenishment of universal program), involving 2 types: horizontal (knowledge expanding) and vertical (knowledge deepening). So students can work on the program, appropriate to their individual interests and professional intentions (Zakharova, 1995).

Alternatively to most Russian universities, where a curriculum is strictly defined for all students of a special profession, American universities do not follow a single obligatory training program.

Defining the basic requirements for a bachelor's degree, a university offers students an option of a large number of elective courses from different areas of expertise, including a course on constitutional state, international standards of human rights, etc., which contributes to comprehensive development of student’s personality.

Consideration of the basic conceptual ideas of individualization of higher education can be attributed to the development of US in three leading directions.

• Behaviorist orientation by B. Skinner (Skinner, 1978; Toktarova & Mamatov, 2015).

The subject of the study is the external expression of human behavior. In this system, the same course material is taught in a different way, and its study is organized taking into account the individual characteristics of students.

• Humanistic Orientation by A. Maslow , (Maslow, 1998; Voronin, 2014), C. Rogers (Rogers, 1961; Mikhalkin, 2015).

Personality is considered as an integral expression of creative self-realization, characterized by the freedom of self-expression, creativity and aspiration to the personal growth. Under the influence of the ideas of humanistic psychology, the groups of "open learning" appeared in the system of education US universities. In such groups, students are free to define their research interests and to express different points of view in a dialogue with the teachers as well as to critically analyze scientific positions.

• Cognitive direction (school of J. Piaget, ideas of K Lewin, Gestalt psychology).

This direction is connected with the development of cybernetic direction in learning theory and cognitive theory of sociology and psychology of management, such as the theory of social justice of H. Tejfel.

In such a manner, having considered the main direction of education individualization in the United States of America, it becomes possible to note focused orientation of the entire higher education system on student’s individuality, the variety of forms, the means and methods of individualization of education.

The current trend of individualization of education points to humanization of education, and leads to refashioning of higher education system and to the development of the following basic principles aimed at creating conditions for the development of student’s individuality as a competent expert and independent citizen of a democratic society:

• The principle of deliberate perspective ("do yourself"), according to which every person has the opportunity to actively participate in his or her own education. Knowledge will automatically become high-demand rather than imposed by the rigid framework of the curriculum, the motivation of education and the effectiveness of acquisition of knowledge will increase;

• The principle of flexibility of higher education, according to which the content of teaching and the ways of knowledge and professional skills acquisition meet the needs or the level of individual ambitions. In this case, the system of multi-level higher education is justified by means of the possibility of specialization change or learning several trades during education at the university;

• The principle of responsiveness of the higher education system, connected with the ability to respond quickly to changes in the economy, information systems, etc.;

• The principle of individual education, the realization of which results in co-creation between a teacher and a student, contributes to quality improvement of information perception and the development of professional skills.

In recent times, the "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving" (TIPS) was actively used. This technology is recognized by many companies in the USA as the most effective one. There is a significant experience of application of TIPS gained by many companies (P & G, Ford, Motorola, and others.). The application of TIPS is effective if the process of problems solution is maximally connected with the organization of work of each employee, team or department. The method of organization of team work - the organizational engineering, better coordinates the application of TIPS with an overall strategy of innovation in the company (Altshuller, 1999).

General description of Russian education system

In Russia, the traditional system of education was used until recently. The purpose of this system was the formation of an all-round person, unity of education, politeness and general erudition.

The traditional system of education has its advantages: it is time-proved, it is used by many countries, it gives specific and accurate knowledge in a particular area, and it develops discipline, exactingness and responsibility. This system has existed for many decades and quite good experts were prepared with the help of it (Brylina, et al., 2016).

But at the same time, despite being one of the most globally common, it has a number of significant disadvantages: it was ideology-driven, separated from the entire strata of Russian and global culture. For decades, it had been focusing on the upbringing of a standard person. It imposed the standard stereotypes of thinking; it did not contribute to the development of imagination. The graduates of this education system were entirely dependent on society and the knowledge that they possessed, they were unable to think independently, to reflect and to imagine.

The traditional system imposed the sum of knowledge and skills, regardless of whether they were needed or not. There was no motivation in teaching, and learning model was presented by the subject - object relations, where the role of a subject was played by a teacher and a pupil served as an object. This type of relationship is based on the transfer and replication of past experience, not actualized in accordance with student’s personality and social development.

The main aim of developing in Russia in the XXI century education is to prepare students for independent acquisition of knowledge, search for truth, as well as independence in everyday life. The basis of such education is productive activity of students. Here, a teacher plays the role of a facilitator of the search process, not just a "transmitter", the translator of knowledge and truth. He organizes the process which activates memory, imagination, developing different forms of thinking (formal logic, dialectical, clip thinking) (Moiseenko et al., 2016).

The idea of distinguished Russian psychologist S.L. Rubinstein about the process of development of human consciousness through the resolution of cognitive problems is the core of problem-based education. Therefore, problem-based education is revealed through the formulation and resolution of problematic issues, challenges and situations. It:

• stimulates the expression of activity, initiative, independence and creativity of students;

• develops intuition and thinking;

• teaches how to solve various scientific and practical problems, share the experience of creative solution of theoretical and practical problems.

The difficulty in organization of problem-based education is associated with long preparation time, the possibility of its independent solution by any student, the lack of a stable result in problems solution (Makhmutov, 1975).

Also the technique of advanced education is used, where competence is formed by means of social education, consulting and psycho-social support in the process of carrier orientation, training and retraining, and also on the basis of state support of innovative educational technologies, educational projects and structures. New approaches to the processes of adaptive potential formation of young people are evidenced in advanced education.

The most important aspect of such type of education consists in discovering and developing of natural human potential to the advanced basic state of formation and oneself as a person, and the environment of one’s life.