Innovative Technologies In Legal Education Of The Students Of Non-Legal Specialties

Abstract

Increasing the legal awareness of citizens is a strategic goal of the modern state, in the implementation of which a huge role belongs to the system of education, especially higher education. The state takes measures aimed at increasing legal education (new curricula corresponding to established state standards, propaganda of legal knowledge in the media, etc.), but they do not give the proper result - the legal culture of a large number of students remains low, including who have completed their studies. Traditional theoretical training, aimed at obtaining students only theoretical legal knowledge, has shown its insufficient effectiveness. The modern labor market requires the system of higher education to form students' practical competencies so that the graduate has the functionality of a trained specialist in the relevant field of activity. The authors of the article emphasize that legal education for non-core students should use other methods of teaching that are different from those used in the training of law students. The results of the research allow us to offer innovative technologies for teaching legal disciplines to students of non-core professions in order to increase their legal literacy. The study may be of interest to students and teachers of secondary specialized institutions and universities in the relevant fields.

Keywords: Educationinnovative technologieslegal educationteacher

Introduction

The modern states are characterized by social and economic development, dynamics of political processes, appeal to the formation of an initiative personality, its active formation not only in a pedagogical environment, but also in a broad social environment. Among the main strategic goals of their socio-economic policy is included, besides ensuring economic growth and strengthening the country's external competitiveness, increasing the legal awareness of citizens. Today, the economic growth of countries and their social progress are hampered by acute problems with legality, the level of offenses and crimes, corruption, and imperfection of the judicial system. One of the reasons for these negative phenomena is undoubtedly the low legal culture and insufficient legal education of citizens.

Problem Statement

The issues of legal enlightenment are highly relevant; it is not only the pedagogical community who should be distressed about this, but also the bodies of government as legal ignorance and legal nihilism destroy stateness and hamper the transition of the country to a higher socio-cultural level.

Thus, “The Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Development of Legal Literacy and the Legal Consciousness of Citizens” were accepted in Russia, in 2011. In the preamble of this act it is noted that the development of a state based on the rule of law, the formation of a civil society and the strengthening of national consensus in Russia require a high legal culture, without which such basic values and principles of society can not be fully realized, such as the rule of law, human priority, inalienable rights and freedoms, ensuring reliable protection of public interests. These Fundamentals specify the principles, objectives, guidelines and content of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the area of development of legal literacy and citizens' legal awareness. The educational system plays a decisive role in the implementation of this direction of state policy.

Research Questions

In accordance with The Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Development of Legal Literacy and the Legal Consciousness of Citizens, the significant amendments are adopted in the federal legislation, including educational legislation, that is based on the need of the upgrade of the legal awareness of students in the dynamic socio-political and economic processes of contemporary Russia.

The Russian State and society are interested in raising of the level of legal and civic education that is reflected in the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”. The most important strategic task that faces the Russian education is the training of a legally enlightened person and citizen, who is successfully adapting in the society.

It should be noted that the task of training students with skills appropriate to modern conditions is inherent in the education of any country in the world. Foster & Yaoyuneyong (2016) note that globalization continues to shape national and international marketplaces, employers' workforce needs are constantly changing (Foster & Yaoyuneyong 2016). According to Geissler, Edison, and Wayland (2012), today's employees must be able to communicate and work effectively in cross-functional teams. In addition, as Gibbs (2014) correctly notes, contemporary economic and social contexts including the creative knowledge of the economy provide competing perspectives on the future of higher education and the role of the academic within these contexts.

Purpose of the Study

We define the development of the innovative technologies in legal education of the students of non-legal professions as the research goal.

Research Methods

The search for new teaching methods is continuously in process in the modern scientific and pedagogical community. So, innovative in higher education became the concept of “Learning gain”, discussed in terms of the distance traveled by a student, became innovative in higher education (Turner, Sutton, Muneer, Gray, Schaefer, & Swain, 2018). The concept of “Learning gain” is explored in different perspectives and correlations by Schleicher (2016), McGrath, Guerin, Harte, Frearson, & Manville (2015) and others. Internationally, there are three drivers underpinning current rhetoric around learning gain – accountability, teaching enhancement and student learning (Varsavsky, Matthews, & Hodgson, 2014) and others.

Forsythe and Jellicoe (2018) suggest using a goal-orientation approach in higher education. The authors argue that the key to measuring learning gains is to evaluate student progress through the measurement of self-reported positive changes in student behaviour, rather than incremental changes in their grades.

Russian academics state that recently the Russian education has been characterized by “a shift from recognizing the absolute value and self-sufficiency of the knowledge to taking it to mean a tool for solving tasks of professional and personal development, turning to the personality of trainees, inducing the development of their latent abilities” (Kamaleeva, 2018, p. 146).

However, if we return to legal education, despite all attempts to improve the legal culture and legal education (the new curricula corresponding to the established state standards, the mass media, the Internet, the legal systems "Garant", "Consultant", etc.), remains low legal culture of a large number of students, including those who graduated. In this regard, the search for effective educational methods that enhance the legal awareness of modern students is the most important task of pedagogical science.

It becomes obvious that the traditional theoretical training, aimed at getting students only theoretical legal knowledge, is not effective enough. It is necessary to apply a practice-oriented education. If students of the legal profession are taught practical skills through solving situational problems, conducting role games and other interactive activities, then non-core learners need a completely different approach - a more creative, creative. As Okello & Quaye note, this can be the catalyst for self-empowerment, deeply powerful co-operation, and substantive critique (Okello & Quaye, 2018, p.43). The authors point out that such an approach contradicts theorized education, therefore its founders will always oppose liberal introductions, discuss, coming up with alternative possibilities and prospects for such education. This position is shared by other authors (Schegolev & Novoseltsev, 2015).

Findings

The authors of the article have been searching for the most productive method of teaching law to students of non-legal professions for several years with the aim of forming their legal knowledge and practical skills of using them. The best success is achieved with the use of the following practices: training and development of skills in working with reference and legal systems located on the Internet; organization of meetings in the field in human rights organizations or state bodies (police, judicial bodies, public reception of the Ombudsman for Human Rights) with the opportunity to gain knowledge about their practice; participation in thematic scientific events - mainly discussions, round tables, which are characterized by lively dialogue and dialogue; use of visual material: viewing of thematic videos, programs and discussion in a group, etc.

As noted in the scientific pedagogical literature, the peculiarity of using practice-oriented projects consists in the preliminary formulation of a clear, meaningful result for the learner with practical significance (Makova & Ponomareva, 2016; Vengerova, Lyuik, & Piskun, 2016, Zakieva, 2018).

Our time is an epoch of rapid changes in the field of visualization: the amount of information transmitted has grown enormously, new types of visual information have appeared, as well as the ways of its transmission. The formation of a new visual culture can not but exert a powerful influence on the sphere of education.

Gibbs notes: “Contemporary economic and social contexts including the creative knowledge economy provide competing perspectives on ‘the future’ of higher education and the role of the academic within these contexts. Increasingly educators and educationa leaders are expected to act in ‘futures’ oriented ways whilst remaining true to the professional standards of their present environments” (Gibbs, 2014, p.5).

“The teacher's task is to use all possible new methods of presenting the material, to help the student in the processing and assimilation of a huge volume of existing information, while developing his creative abilities, stimulating the search for new solutions. It is necessary to organize the learning process at the level of the student's interaction with the teacher, a joint discussion, a joint discussion in which the teacher is an equal partner, directing a counselor, and not a mentor-edifier. The future of our educational institutions is behind new, innovative methods of education” (Kurmanbaev, 2016, p. 57).

The modern system of education requires not only teachers, but also those who learn legal self-awareness and legal literacy. A number of normative and legal documents focuses attention on the fact that a modern graduate must possess a wide range of competences, among which there is both legal self-awareness and legal culture.

The result of the impact on the students using the proposed methods is their familiarization with the knowledge of the state and law, the law, the rights and freedoms of the individual, the development of a stable orientation towards law-abiding behavior; the formation of a legal culture in the content of which the following components are distinguished: legal literacy, legal thinking and legal skill. Legal literacy: familiarity with the essence of concepts (law, constitution, legislation, normative act, rule of law, law).

The development of legal literacy is carried out in practical classes, where students conduct comparative analysis of documents, draw conclusions about the similarities and differences in conceptual bases with the use of reference and legal systems located on the Internet.

Legal thinking and skill are based on legal knowledge and represent the ability to assess the ideas, actions, behavior of people from the point of view of the rule of law. For the development of legal thinking, organization of meetings in the field in human rights organizations or state bodies (police, judicial bodies, public reception of the Ombudsman), discussions, round tables, characterized by lively dialogue and dialogue, are used; viewing thematic videos, programs and discussions in a group, etc., which allow you to analyze specific situations of real life. In the course of solving these situations, students learn to connect legal knowledge, project their actions to reality, to realize the value of the individual, her rights, freedoms and duties to herself, society and the state, to understand the natural freedom of man and human freedom in society (Dolinina & Shakirova, 2014).

Conclusion

Pedagogical activity on legal education of students of non-legal specialties will be effective if:

• in the educational process, two types of activities will be realized: educational and educational, and legal education will act as a purposeful and system-forming process for the transfer of legal knowledge, attitudes, beliefs with the aim of forming a legal culture;

• the basic principles of a democratic society will be based on the basic principles of a democratic society: partnership of subjects, orientation to universal values and ideals of humanism, inadmissibility of propaganda of violence and cruelty, pluralism: the right to express one's opinion, the inadmissibility of illegal censorship in relation to educational programs, projects and activities, the reliability of the information reported, the consideration of national and social interests, the interests of certain social groups;

• in the structure of the educational process, legal education will perform the following functions: educational (expand, supplement and deepen the knowledge obtained during the implementation of educational programs); information (increase the availability of legal information); explanatory (to ensure the adequacy of clarification of information and knowledge); ideological (popularize the main ideas and concepts of law); advocacy (to disseminate information about rights and duties). The study led us to the conclusion that educational institutions at the present stage should not act as institutions in which formal learning and mastering of knowledge is carried out but must turn into social institutions in which conditions for moral, emotional, social and intellectual formation of the individual are created.

The investigated methods of legal education of students of non-legal specialties allow obtaining stable results if there is a desire for success in all aspects of the educational process.

The content, subjective and objective composition of legal education depends on what goals are set before the educational process. The preventive goal of legal education artificially narrows the circle of objects and subjects of the system, restricts the use of various means and methods of influence. And only putting before the legal education a comprehensive goal for the formation of the legal culture of the individual, it is possible to bring the awareness-raising process from the dissemination of legal information through the stage of formation of value orientations and skills of lawful behavior to the involvement of the individual in all spheres of state and public life, regulated by law, i.e. before the formation of social and legal activity. Legal education is designed to eradicate legal nihilism and legal idealism, stereotypes that have developed and raise the level of legal culture, because only in this case it is possible to create a law-governed state and a civil society, in the conditions of which the full realization of all the rights and freedoms of the individual is real.

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