Curriculum Variety’s As A Guarantee For A Well-Being Personal Development

Abstract

Currently, in many universities there is a problem of internal competition. We believe that the tension associated with this problem is partly due to a lack of understanding concerning the substantive character of certain educational areas, the administration's desire to receive immediate benefits without taking into account the strategic development of the faculty in general and, in part, fixation on a certain range of educational programs. From the outside it looks like constant reproaches in violation of borders, pulling students to similar specialties, opening duplicate directions of preparation, etc. The way out of this impasse can be the proposal of interdisciplinary and interfaculty forms of interaction in the design of educational programs at various levels. First, a constructive interaction with other faculties will help us understand our own possibilities, to take a fresh look at the policy of forming a pool of educational programs. Second, it will attract a wider range of specialists and create a truly unique product that has no analogues. Third, the inter-faculty form of educational products will reduce the degree of tension among faculties / departments, caused by intra-university competition, and create conditions for the development of a harmonious educational environment, the formation of a prosperous Russian mental personality.

Keywords: Internal competitioninterfaculty form of interactioninterdisciplinary educational programs

Introduction

Competition within the university is a widespread phenomenon and is not always positive one, as it can lead not to a healthy competitive environment, but to competition and personal gain, to the detriment of the common cause. It concerns both the rivalry among departments for budgetary places and undergraduate and graduate programs recruitment, as well as the rivalry among faculties that carry out meaningfully similar educational programs (Kiseleva et al., 2017). Each faculty probably has an area of training, which intersects with a similar direction of another faculty. And often faculty departments have frictions due to the distribution of budget places and the distribution of students among graduating departments. In such circumstances, it is difficult to build a development strategy, because there is no guarantee that another faculty will not take advantage of a successful experience or idea.

Problem Statement

The purpose of this study is to explore the possibilities for designing educational programs based on the principles and approaches of interdisciplinary interaction between faculties and their individual structural divisions (departments). This interaction will have a network character in the event that for the implementation of the educational program, third-party organizations will be involved in their material part or in terms of human resources.

Research Questions

The study of network form of interactionusually takes place on three vectors: 1) a description of the aspects of global network interaction between countries in the process of creating a single educational space, designed as a separate educational institution (for example, the University of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or the CIS Networking University, or the BRICS Network University). 2) network interaction of higher education institutions to create separate educational programs. 3) consideration of successful practices of network technologies for the performance of various indicators, such as an increase in the foreign contingent of students; Organization of the passage of production practices; Involvement of employers in the educational process; Development of distance learning technologies, etc.

As for the aspects of network form of interaction, this format in the scientific literature is mainly associated with resource centers, one of whose tasks is the organization of intra-network interaction of network units, for example, the Resource Center for Space Engineering, the Resource Center for Aviation Transport and Logistics, etc., But the nuance lies in the fact that all participants in the network form of interaction are external organizations in relation to the resource center, and we suggest creating network structures within one oh organization.

The foreign practice of creating joint educational programs is much richer in Russia, since one of the fundamental principles of the Bologna system is the promotion of the European philosophy of higher education, especially in the development of curricula, inter-institutional cooperation, mobility schemes and joint training programs, practical training and research.

Purpose of the Study

At the “Routes and strategies for the movement in the new model of education” seminar of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and the Skolkovo Business School on March 2, 2016, there was a presentation of global trends in the formation of a new way of education. One of these trends is “Digitization and penetration of ICT”, i.e. “protocols of network interaction and their distribution in business, education and public life”. In our opinion, that confirms the relevance of the idea of network interaction.

According to Sergey Filonovich, the main thing in a networked university is not its building, but people, who are storage and transmitters of knowledge (Konstantinov & Filonovich, 2007). There is no need to transfer knowledge that is already known – it is available via public sources. For that reason the role of a teacher changes. Now a teacher does not accumulate and transmit new information to a student, but sets tasks, so that a student can acquire new competencies and particularly develop skills of generating knowledge in the process of solving (Kalashnikova et al., 2016). Therefore, we consider the shift to the networked educational space very promising and demanded, as it provides an opportunity to gain access to a wider range of knowledge sources and options for combining these sources. As noted by the researchers Akulova and Kharitonov (2013), the network organization is aimed at overcoming the autonomy and closedness of all institutions, interaction on the principles of social partnership, building strong and effective vertical and horizontal links, not between institutional structures, but among professional teams working on the same problems.

Therefore, the network form of interaction has a number of competitive advantages, such as:

• Consolidation of the best educational resources, material and technical base, and human resources of departments/faculties for quality training;

• Growth of the number of students, including foreign students, by integrating efforts to promote and position the educational product;

• Approbation of inter-departmental and inter-faculty educational schemes with a possibility to build a flexible educational trajectory with a selection of the best pedagogical practices.

The curriculum is the heart of the modern university, especially the liberal arts part, which goes beyond the limits of professional qualifications, including qualifications for performing the work by an academic specialist (Sedlacek, 2013). Being the center of “education”, this syllabus has a very specific sense, as it completes the formation of a human personality, preparing it for “citizenship”, when a person identifies himself not only with a family or a city, but also with the whole nation, and which is generally formed in the interests of humanity (Fuller, 2005).

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of a good scheduled syllabus, especially when it comes to the internal climate of an organization and the constructive interaction of its particular parts.

Research Methods

In the course of carrying out pre-project research work, it is possible to use the method of comparative analysis of curricula to identify potential conflict zones, as well as methods of interviewing to determine the overall psychological background of identified bifurcation points. The next step will be the monitoring of faculty readiness for a networked form of interaction, including a survey of key faculty members; Construction of a grid of internal voltages and external calls; Assessment of educational resources (material and technical basis) of faculties. Next, the project part of the work begins, within the framework of which it is planned to work with potential stakeholders: at the first stages - the focus of the group, interview to identify a competent opinion on the content of the full course of study in the planned master's program and the key competencies of the future graduate; Questionnaires and point advisory work are planned for subsequent stages. It also assumes the use of analytical methods to compile the list of academic disciplines and curriculum and test materials at human resource capacity analysis.

Findings

The range of problems makes us believe that it is important to carry out exploratory research in order to form a good scheduled syllabus aimed at revealing characteristics of intra-university competition (Ivankina et al., 2017). This stage should include the following: 1) to monitor university educational milieu to identify problems; 2) to elaborate parameters to describe a competitive field and define check points; 3) to formulate a questionnaire, hold a poll, and question teachers to work out a psychological, social and professional picture of tension among faculties; 4) to identify the key idea of an interdisciplinary educational program at the intersection of different faculties interests. The second stage is the project management and it includes the following steps:

• To define key stakeholders. In this particular case the key stakeholders are faculties / universities which are interested in implementing new forms of educational process, as well as solving problems caused by internal competition; students acquiring a unique set of competences and getting adaptive educational milieu and experienced teachers; employers who get an opportunity to actively influence the educational process.

• To hold a poll of possible stakeholders (panel discussion, interview, questioning) to identify competences and work out a professional image of a given educational program graduate.

• To analyze and systematize Q-date, and form a matrix of competences according to federal educational standards.

• To question possible stakeholders whether the matrix meets their expectations and adjust the results of work on the matrix of competences to their expectations (formulating of a feedback form).

• To approve the matrix of competences and form a list of disciplines necessary for its realization. Having realized this task, we have an outcome product, i.e. the syllabus agreed upon by faculties / university – partners.

• To agree upon the syllabus with employers and close gaps. This stage can elicit competences which disciplines do not cover adequately, or vice versa, it can reveal disciplines which are not relevant to realize key competences.

• To analyze human resources relevant to the syllabus.

• To agree upon the allocation formula of finances among the network interaction members. To agree upon the financing pattern with Planning-and-Economic Department.

To identify possible risks and ways to eliminate them.

Conclusion

As a result, we believe that interdisciplinary interaction of faculties can allow us to decide the problem of activity organization in modular training. It makes it possible to realize a theoretical module partly in the intranet, which facilitates a more flexible educational process and provides with possible individual education, as well as increases self-directed learning of students.

Acknowledgments

This research is supported by Russian Science Foundation (RSF)16-18-02032.

References

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