Training Teachers Of The Future In A High-Technology Infomation-Oriented Society

Abstract

The article describes the challenges facing pre-service teachers’ training system in a high-technology information-oriented society. Nowadays, training teachers of the future is stipulated by knowledge redundancy, dynamic technological processes and uncertainty. The demand for elaboration of a flexible training model has redirected the teachers’ training system to solution of real-life practice-based problems. The authors present a conceptual framework for student’s learning activities; it was elaborated and implemented in the School of Education at Far Eastern Federal University. The article discusses the students’ key positions in the process of organizing learning activities: professional development through self-realization, the fundamentals of system thinking through situational awareness and understanding of reality through reflection on professional performance. The key pedagogical conditions for the management of students’ activity were experienced and identified in the FabLab. In the context of teachers’ training system, using augmented reality technology, virtual reality technologies, educational robotics technologies, 3D modeling and prototyping technologies are regarded as upcoming spheres for educational system design and educational artifacts. The article embraces the first set of educational outcomes.

Keywords: Active learning environmentBachelor of EducationFabLabhigh technology information-oriented societynew technologyteachers’ training system

Introduction

The impact of technological progress on the development of information-oriented society has substantially increased. Technologies penetrate into all spheres of our society in terms of computerizing and simplifying information processing and storage, enhancing the quality of information recording and accelerating its transfer (Aladyshkin, Kulik, Michurin, & Anosova, 2017; Gashkova, Berezovskaya, & Shipunova, 2017). Technology has become "the main tool" of a contemporary person in different fields: finance, health care, administration, management, engineering, communication, energy, etc. (Bylieva, Lobatyuk, & Rubtsova, 2018).

Technologies serve the basis for the new knowledge production. IT society leads to reimagining "knowledge" and "cognition" as concepts. Interpreted as "ability to act", scientific knowledge settles in the sphere of technology use and application. This "ability to act" understood as the form of objective knowledge allows creating new opportunities for human activities. Reality cognition is aimed at understanding and mastering these modes of activities (Kastels, 2000; Shtern, 2002).

Technology provokes emerging of a new branch of science – technoscience. Focused on the interests of a person, technoscience transforms the human being and the world around (Yudin, 2010). Scientific knowledge becomes vulnerable, rapidly loses its practical significance, entails unforeseen risks and becomes a source of uncertainty. Considered to be a subject of labor, knowledge results in social system changes as a whole (Bell, 2004).

Knowledge and technology become the basis for economic change (Moiseyev & Bakanova, 2017). Technologies change the activity of a contemporary person in the professional sphere; technologies become the basis for the new knowledge emergence in the professional environment. The key characteristics of the professional sphere of a contemporary person are:

• Redundancy of professional information.

• Dynamism and technological adaptability of processes in the professional field.

• Uncertainty in professional situations.

In the society of the future, there is a demand for a skilled practitioner ready to use his/her potential in solving problems which have never been described in his/her professional field before. This society requires a professional, able to create conditions for the emerging knowledge with its further understanding. Professional activity fixes on how to apply the technology to the creation of a completely new product prototype and completely new knowledge production in the field of its applicability and use. For example, the application of modern technologies to the creation of neural prostheses has been leading to the emergence of a new scientific direction in the field of their development and application – neuroprosthetics.

As a result, the system of higher professional education forms a model of specialists’ training, which is characterized by the following features: learning process which provides a background for student's new subjective experience, professional development through understanding the problems and starting up projects to solve them, shaping student’s motivation, creating opportunities for the real projects implementation in response to building student’s individual learning trajectory, the deployment of the educational process within the logic of professional activity.

The existing system of professional preparation for teaching in a high-tech environment has to be focused on important components and characteristics of the society of the future. At the present stage, more acute than ever, there is a need to find models focused on training teachers who will perform under the conditions of advanced development and the implementation of scenario approaches into learning (Makarova & Drobotenko, 2014).

Problem Statement

The penetration of technologies into the sphere of education leads to the emergence of a variety of forms and methods of training (mobile learning, adaptive learning, personalized learning, foresight learning, etc.), change of learning models delivery (network learning, corporate learning, blended learning) and improvement of technical support while learning (online distance learning, offline, MOOCs). Rapid development of visualization technologies, remote access and collective interaction contributes to sustainable changes in the educational system (Tennyson & Sisk, 2011; Revilla, Penalba, Sánchez, & Santos, 2017; Monitoring the effectiveness of the school. What has changed in the work of teachers in recent years (2014-2017) , 2018 ).

The demands of the modern society are focused on preparing teachers, who will be ready to implement activities in the face of redundancy of the educational environment, agility and adaptability of learning management as well as uncertainty of the educational situations they encounter. In our modern society, there appeared a demand for a proactive and self-directed teacher, able to determine and implement goals that go beyond the standard requirements. The ability to understand global processes in terms of public policy strategy, readiness to manage systems and processes in the educational ecosystem are defined as the key professional competences of teachers in the nearest future (Montiel-Overall, 2012; Headden, 2014; Luksha, Kubista, Laszlo, & Popovich, 2018, Frumin, Dobryakova, & Barannikov, 2018). Training teachers of the future, ready to perform in a high-technology information-oriented society, is understood as a key task at the present stage.

Nowadays, the process of teacher’s training provokes a lot of criticism from the part of the scientific community and society as a whole. The researchers (Yakovlev & Krasilov, 2016; Pinskaya, Ponomareva, & Kosaretsky, 2016) note the insufficient level of professional training, which is the cause of the main problems faced by young teachers in real practice. The obtained education does not allow teaching in accordance with modern requirements, solving practical pedagogical problems and applying modern pedagogical technologies. The issue is solved through the inclusion in the plan of the system of practices and internships that allow a student of a pedagogical University or a young teacher to work independently, to form his / her own pedagogical style. It is necessary to allocate priority directions of work with students of pedagogical HEIs: the organization of the address preparation of the student focused on educational institution in which it is necessary to work with the novice teacher; formation and creation of measures for "soft" immersion of the graduate into profession; providing the background for professional and career growth; "soft" return to profession (Kasprzak, 2013). The gap between theory and practice, between the University and the school in which the teacher will work, is considered to be the main reason preventing a young teacher from shaping his/her professional experience, sufficient to work in a modern school.

However, it should be noted that a real school, at the moment, cannot be considered as a platform for the formation of sufficient professional competences of teachers, focused on the upcoming future. A request for a teacher with new educational experience, which is not possible to get in practice in a real school, is being formed. The contradiction between the demands of modern society and the existing educational experience causes distrust or rejection of the school, as well as distrust of the system of teachers’ training on the basis of pedagogical Universities.

We believe that the contemporary training of a teacher should be predominantly oriented to finding mechanisms of inclusion of a student into pedagogical activity under the upcoming conditions.

Research Questions

In the process of developing a mechanism for the formation of the readiness of the student of pedagogical University to perform professionally in the near future, key research issues were identified:

• Identify the key professional deficits of a student in the regional educational system.

• Develop a conceptual model of activity of a student, focused on overcoming professional deficits.

• Determine the conditions for experiencing focused on the redundancy of information, dynamic and technological processes and uncertainty of situations in the professional sphere.

Purpose of the Study

The research is aimed at elaborating conceptual and content aspects within active learning environment for preparing students to perform under the conditions oriented to redundancy of the pedagogical information bank, dynamic technological educational processes at schools and uncertainty of pedagogical situations.

The aim of this research is encouraged by the discrepancy between theoretical grounds for forming teachers-to-be readiness to perform in redundant highly technological environment and their implementation practices. The lack of elaborated techniques for training students in pedagogical HEIs at present justifies the need for research in this direction.

Research Methods

The research was executed with the help of empirical study, situational modeling and forecasting, educational systems design and modeling of organization training processes in pedagogical HEI.

Findings

In the course of the study, the key deficiencies preventing the formation of professional competencies were identified on the level of the regional educational system; the structure was described; the conditions for the organization of students' activities in key areas of training were determined; approaches to the organization of the educational process were formed.

Conclusion

The changes taking place in our society are associated with the rapid development of technology. In this article, we justified the need to implement an approach aimed at shaping professional competencies conditioned by information redundancy, dynamic and technological processes and uncertainty of educational situations. Based on the theory of active learning environment, the approach is focused on the successful entry of young teachers-to-be into the regional education system. The key components of designing an active learning environment are defined. The first component of the active learning environment examines and identifies professional deficits of students at regional pedagogical Universities. The second component was devoted to the development of a flexible conceptual model of student’s learning. The third component represented the conditions for shaping competencies and professional development trajectories.

The integrity of graduates’ learning activities is aimed at designing the educational system and searching the solution to a real-life social significant problem affecting the future professional activity. The construction of the educational process in the logic of the project activity is considered to be a mechanism that allows organizing students’ learning activity effectively, focusing on the readiness for the implementation of design and constructive functions in the future pedagogical activity.

Implementation of the mechanism to shape initial professional experience in the framework of educational activities contributes to the successful entry of the student into the future profession by creating conditions for independent, creative design in the modern high-tech information and educational sphere.

References

1. Aladyshkin, I., Kulik, S., Michurin, A., & Anosova, N. (2017). Information Prospects For Socio-Cultural Development: Contradictory Grounds. The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 35, 19-25. doi:10.15405/epsbs.2018.02.3
2. Avraamova, E.M., Klyachko, T.L., Loginov, D.M., Polushkina, E.A., Semionova, E.A., & Tokareva, G.S. (2018). Monitoring ehffektivnosti shkoly. Chto izmenilos' v rabote uchitelya za poslednie gody (2014-2017) [Monitoring the effectiveness of the school. What has changed in the work of teachers in recent years (2014-2017)]. Retrieved from https://www.ranepa.ru/images/News/2018-06/28-06-2018-monitoring-school.pdf [in Rus].
3. Bell, D. (2004). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Москва: Academia.
4. Bylieva, D., Lobatyuk, V., & Rubtsova, A. (2018). Homo Virtualis: existence in Internet space. SHS Web of Conferences 44, 00021 (2018) CC-TESC2018. DOI: 10.1051/shsconf/20184400021
5. Frumin, I. D., Dobryakova, M. S., & Barannikov, K. A. (2018). Universal'nye kompetentnosti i novaya gramotnost': chemu uchit' segodnya dlya uspekha zavtra [Universal competences and new literacy: what to learn today for success tomorrow]. Modern education analyst, 2(19), 4-25. [in Rus].
6. Gashkova, E., Berezovskaya, I., & Shipunova, O. (2017). Models of self-identification in digital communication environments. The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, 35, 374-382. doi:10.15405/epsbs.2018.02.44
7. Headden, S. (2014). Beginners in the classroom: What the changing demographics of teaching mean for schools, students, and society. Carnegie Foundation For The Advancement Of Teaching. Retrieved from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/beginners_in_classroom.pdf
8. Kasprzak, A. G. (2013). Institutsial'nye tupiki rossijskoj sistemy podgotovki uchitelej [Institutional deadlocks of the Russian system of teacher training]. The issue of education, (4), 261-282. [in Rus].
9. Kastels, M. (2000). Epoch of Information: Economics, Society and Culture. Мoscow: Research State University “Higher School of Economics”
10. Luksha, P., Kubista, J., Laszlo, A., & Popovich, M. (2018). Obrazovanie dlya slozhnogo obshhestva [Education for a complex society]. Retrieved from https://futuref.org/educationfutures_ru. [in Rus].
11. Makarova, N. S., & Drobotenko, Yu. B. (2014). Fokus-gruppovoe issledovanie izmenenij obrazovatel'nogo protsessa v sovremennom vuze [Focus-group study of changes in the educational process in the modern University]. The Internet journal of the sociology of Science, (2 (21), 162 – 170. [in Rus].
12. Moiseyev, A. P., & Bakanova, E. A. (2017). Fenomen tekhnonauki [The phenomenon of technoscience]. Journal of science of Siberia, 2(25), 45-58. [in Rus].
13. Montiel-Overall, P. (2012). Students as global citizens: Educating a new generation. Library Media Connection, 31(3), 8-10
14. Pinskaya, M. A., Ponomareva, A. A., & Kosaretsky, S. G. (2016). Professional'noe razvitie i problemy podgotovki molodykh uchitelej v Rossi [Professional development and problems of training of young teachers in Russia]. The issue of education. (2), 100 -124. [in Rus].
15. Revilla Muñoz, O., Alpiste Penalba, F., Fernández Sánchez, J., & Santos, O. C. (2017). Reducing techno-anxiety in high school teachers by improving their ICT problem-solving skills. Behaviour & Information Technology, 36(3), 255-268. doi:10.1080/0144929X.2016.1221462
16. Shter, N. (2002). The World from Knowledge Perspective. Trans. from German. Sociological Journal, (2), 31-35.
17. Tennyson, R. D., & Sisk, M. F. (2011). A problem-solving approach to management of instructional systems design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 30(1), 3-12. doi:10.1080/0144929X.2010.490958
18. Yakovlev E. N., & Krasilov I. E. (2016). Iz opyta podderzhki molodykh pedagogov v stranakh ES [From the experience of supporting young teachers in the EU]. Education and science, 5 (134), 158-175. [in Rus].
19. Yudin, B. G. (2010). Nauka v obshhestve znanij [Science in the knowledge society]. Questions of philosophy, (8), 45-57. [in Rus].
20. Zhigalova, O. P. (2018) Proektirovanie i konstruirovanie ehlementov obrazovatel'noj sredy kak neobkhodimoe uslovie podgotovki pedagoga k professional'noj deyatel'nosti v informatsionnom obshhestve [Design and construction of elements of the educational environment as a necessary condition for training teachers for professional activities in the information society]. World of science. Series: Sociology, Philology, cultural studies, 2(9). Retrieved from: https://sfk-mn.ru/PDF/02SCSK218.pdf [in Rus].