University Electronic Environment In The Development Of Students’ Creative Abilities

Abstract

The article discusses the realization of the potential of the information and educational environment of Moscow State Pedagogical University and Kutafin Moscow State Law University in the process of developing creative abilities of students, using the example of the design and testing of the electronic module "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis". The development of creativity as a highly important quality of a person of the future deserves special attention in the professional training of philologists and speech experts when teaching linguistic disciplines. The choice of the electronic module "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis" to demonstrate the potential for developing the creativity of future Russian language teachers and speech experts is due to the importance of this type of analysis for the formation of professional competences of philologists and lawyers. The article substantiates the productivity of blended learning, which optimally combines modern distance education technologies with interactive forms of classroom-based training. It presents the content and didactic matter with due account of the creative focus for the online format of the universal electronic module (subcourse), thoughtfully embedded in any linguistic electronic course of any university on the Moodle cross-platform. The article also outlines prospects for further development: universal subcourses combined with metacourses open up the possibility of forming new electronic resources and online courses as a necessary set of separate modules. Amid the digitalization of higher education, such interuniversity cooperation becomes a factor in the development of a strategic network of universities and can consolidate the efforts of teachers of Linguistics.

Keywords: Online environmentmorphemic analysisderivational analysis

Introduction

Modern documents, e.g., The Concept of Long-Term Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation for the Period Until 2020 (Strategy 2020), the National Education Doctrine of the Russian Federation (2000–2025), state that the new conditions of the country's development call for creative individuals. The Strategy 2020 introduces the concept of "creative class", which is defined as people of creative work whose regular job already involved developing innovations. And it further says that it is them who "will ensure key competitive advantages in the competition of the 21st century economies" (Kontseptcia dolgosrochnogo socialno-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya RF na period do 2020 goda., 2008, p.23). Creativity, which most researchers (Büchner, 2016; Gajdaa, Beghetto, & Karwowski, 2017; Halverson, Spring, Huyett, Henrie, & Graham, 2017; Milloway, 2017; Salkrig, Keamy, 2017) include in the list of the so-called soft skills, is one of the most important qualities of a person of the future (Child Trends. Workforce connections: Key soft skills that foster youth workforce success, 2015; Education and Social Progress. Skills for Social Progress, 2015), therefore its development is recognized as one of the leading areas in professional training. Thus, in 2015, creativity as a basic quality ranked 10th in the report The Future of Jobs (The Future of Jobs. Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 2016), in 2018 it moved to the 5th position, and it is forecasted that by 2022 it will have risen to the 3rd place (The Future of Jobs. Centre for the New Economy and Society, 2018).

A number of scientists (Аleynikov, 1989; Dronova, 2008) suggest that modern development of pedagogical science is at the stage of a new type of pedagogical civilization – creative and pedagogical.

Creativity is one of the priorities in the training of a student in Philology or a speech expert. The Russian language itself provides tremendous opportunities for the development of creativity: it is in the creation of units of different levels that the creative potential of the language system is realized.

According to Russian (Kyazimov, 2016; Verbitskiy, 2016) and international (Howe & Strauss, 2008; Roskams, 2015) researchers, modern students belong to the "digital generation" ("generation Z"), and when developing their creativity, it is necessary to take into account the features of their thinking, ways of perceiving information and working with it. Therefore, according to Dzib-Goodin (2012) and Harandi (2015), the education system should use online technology, and the training itself should be modelled on modern learning platforms. In this regard, the instructor is tasked with designing educational materials and forms of work with due account of the creative focus for the online format.

One of the most common LMS (Learning Management System) platforms in Russia is Moodle (https://moodle.com) (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) (Büchner, 2016).

Moscow State Pedagogical University (MSPU) and Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL) implement systems based on Russian Moodle 3KL that are constantly updated: MSPU offers more than 1500 educational resources and online courses, more than 40 mass open online courses with open access, and 8000 digital editions (MPGU: Tsifrovoye Obrazovanie, 2018); MSAL has more than 2000 educational resources, including e-courses, reference legal systems (Sokolova, 2018) and a 24-hour virtual reading room.

In conformity with Halverson, Spring, Huyett, Henrie, and Graham (2017), who pointed out that in online education communication is asynchronous, and training of specialists is impossible without systematic synchronous interaction, the aforementioned universities recognized the blending learning technology as the best learning scenario. But the development of students' creativity in the Moodle system (Erokhina, 2018; Gordienko, 2017) remains the most difficult problem.

The article is devoted to the development of creative abilities of students in Philology and in Forensic Speech Examinations in the context of mixed education in the information and educational environment of the university through the example of the electronic module "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis".

Problem Statement

The main issue in the training of specialists for the fields of education and law is the need to adapt existing systems to the challenges of the time and demands of employers, taking into account all the features (psychological, cognitive, technological, etc.) of the new generation and the development needs of creative individuals who are capable of finding original and successful solutions in difficult professional situations. The key problem is turning to digital technologies while transforming and modifying them for humanistic ideals: communication, cooperation, critical thinking, creativity, value (Burnage, 2016; Gajdaa et al., 2017; Gordienko, 2017). This article intends to show a solution to the problem using the example of the development and testing of the subcourse "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis", that is, to answer the following question: "How to transform traditional teaching of derivational and morphemic analysis into the form that would be optimal for the development of students' creative activity, using the potential of the information and educational environment?"

Research Questions

The main research question consists in identifying the most effective methods of professional creative development of students in Philology and in Forensic Speech Examinations in the implementation of blended learning based on the Moodle platform and in designing trajectories for the further development of the university’s information and educational environment.

The choice of the topic to demonstrate the potential of the information and educational environment of two universities is due to the fact that in the era of globalization and digitalization of higher education, universities are forced not only to compete with each other, but also to look for ways of interaction in developing the strategic network (Bailey, Vaduganathan, Henry, Laverdiere, & Puglese, 2018; Neborskiy, 2018).

We propose the development of a universal electronic module in the subcourse format: when included in the structure of any university's linguistic e-course (on the Moodle cross-platform), it becomes its full-fledged element, on the one hand, and takes into account the students' achievements obtained from studying under this subcourse as part of another e-course, on the other hand. In combination with metacourses, this contributes to the further development of the information and educational environment of the university and makes it possible to design new courses as a set of separate modules.

Purpose of the Study

The research aims to identify and present the potential of the information and educational environment of the university in the development of creative abilities of students in Philology and in Forensic Speech Examinations using a specific subcourse (electronic module) "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis" as the example.

Research Methods

The following methods were used for the research: an analysis of Russian and international sources on the problem in the retrospective and long-term scopes; comparative analysis, independent assessment method, observation, case study (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018), modeling, feedback analysis (Coe, Waring, Hedges, & Arthur, 2017).

Findings

The article will further show how blended learning enables to implement a creative study of morphemics and word formation. Morphemic and derivational analysis is part of the curriculum of the "Modern Russian Language" course, but the ability to see the structure of the derived word, to understand the meaning of the parts that this structure consists of, is necessary for anyone who works with text professionally. That is why the expressive and stylistic resources of word formation are studied in many areas of training.

The methodological foundations of morphemic analysis are laid in the works of the prominent Russian linguists Peshkovsky (2001) and Vinokur (1959). The relevance of derivational analysis is associated with the neologization of the modern Russian language. The influx of new words and the need to describe them and establish the causes of their appearance led to the development of neology (Neologiya i Neografiya: Sovremennoe sostoyanie i perspektivy (k 50-letiyu nauchnogo napravleniya): sbornik nauchnykh statei, 2016).

Working with text as one of the most important aspects in the training of future Russian language teachers and speech experts makes it possible to demonstrate the features of the modern creative functioning of the language and to develop students' creative professional abilities in the conditions similar to professional activity.

To form competencies associated with text analysis, especially at the morphemic level, the Moodle-based Subcourse "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis" was created in Moscow State Pedagogical University and Kutafin Moscow State Law University.

Subcourse Structure

Description: the role of morphemic and derivational analysis in the formation of special competencies of philologists / speech experts.

The Database includes:

bibliography on the topic under study;

files uploaded by the instructor – extracts from the works The Concept of Word Form by A. Peshkovsky, Notes on Russian Word Formation by G. Vinokur, Modern Lexicography and New Naming Units by S. Togoeva, etc.;

works on morphemics, word formation and neology independently found and uploaded by students;

morphemic and derivational dictionaries;

examples of morphemic and derivational analysis, illustrative material selected by students and presented in a creative visual form (photo, poster);

for the development of students' creative abilities, the instructor allows them to comment on the posts and evaluate the "usefulness" of the uploaded file for mastering the course.

In addition, the Database template ensures a visual display of the information in a user-friendly mode. When the auto-linking filter is activated, the database record is automatically linked with the identical word and/or phrase found in the electronic course.

The Glossary makes it possible to create and maintain a list of necessary terms and their definitions, browse it alphabetically or by category; when employing the auto-linking filter, a mention of a term in the course will refer to its definition in the glossary. For example:

Peshkovsky square: the selection of salient parts of the word based on the inclusion of this word in a double row of juxtapositions – horizontal to highlight functional morphemes and vertical to highlight the root;

Neology: the section of linguistics that studies new words (neologisms), ways of their formation and characteristics of usage.

In addition, the Glossary resource is used to test the knowledge of terminology on the topic: on the basis of the glossary, the program automatically creates the game Crossword, and the instructor sets the evaluation criteria (time, limitations, number of points, etc.). While completing the crossword puzzle, the Glossary itself (due to the "hide" function) is unavailable to students. For the development of students' creativity, a mirrored version is offered, under which students create crossword puzzles themselves and offer their fellow students to solve them.

The Test element allows the instructor to create different types of questions.

Multiple choice:

The example: пришл-а читал-а видел-а; пришл-и; пришл-о

/prishl-a chital-a videl-a; prishl-i; prishl-o/

presents a Peshkovsky square

presents a fragment of a Peshkovsky square

presents only the horisontal row of the juxtaposition

presents both rows of the juxtaposition.

True / false:

A. Peshkovsky's method involves the detection of salient parts of the word based on

the inclusion of the word in the double juxtaposition row

the inclusion of the word in the horizontal juxtaposition row

the inclusion of the word in the vertical juxtaposition row

The following chain:

о-слеп-и-тельн(ый) ← о-слеп-и(ть) ← слеп-и(ть) ← слеп(ой)

/o-slep-i-tel'n(yi) ← o-slep-i(t') ← slep-i(t') ← slep(oi)/ demonstrates

a method of isolating functional morphemes

a method of establishing the immediate generating word

a method of establishing related words

Matching:

Match the examples with the categories: 1) no inflexion; 2) inflexion is present: сослепу, кашпо, людьми, смеёшься, читая, стая, другая /soslepu, kashpo, lyud'mi, smeesh'sya, chitaya, staya, drugaya/.

Match each word with its word formation method: 1) suffixal; 2) non-affixal; 3) prefixal and suffixal; 4) prefixal: комп, белеть, подранок, переход, доныне, подлокотник, спец, безналичный /komp, belet', podranok, perekhod, donyne, podlokotnik, spets, beznalichnyi/.

Grouping:

Divide words into three groups: 1) contains the -к- /-k-/ suffix; 2) contains the -лк- /-lk-/ suffix; 3) has no suffix: тарелка, грелка, галка, горелка, стрелка, прогулка, иголка /tarelka, grelka, galka, gorelka, strelka, progulka, igolka/.

Numeric:

How many morphemes does the word общедоступность /obshchedostupnost'/ have?

How many suffixes does the word прибавляя /pribavlyaya/ have?

The Task element opens up new opportunities for the presentation of student work in a digital environment: the student does not need to use special characters to indicate the elements of a parsed word (which is often difficult and time consuming); the answer can be sent in the form of any digital content, including a photo of a handwritten analysis, an image that the instructor can correct, comment on, evaluate in real time.

5. The Subcourse structure includes three topics in the Task format: "Morphemic Analysis", "Derivational Analysis", "Morphemic and Derivational Analysis of Neologisms".

Each Task has a Folder with Files attached to it:

1) an algorithm for analysis (morphemic, derivational, analysis in the context of neology – respectively), where students are offered not only to familiarize themselves with the algorithm, but also to present it in a rational or creative form (graph, diagram, table, poster); 2) examples of the application of the corresponding algorithm; 3) requirements for the design of the completed task; 4) assessment criteria for the task.

Evaluating the Mastering of the Module

For the intermediate assessment of knowledge on each of the three themes of the module, the Survey element is used. It makes it possible to optimally use the advantages of the blended format of education: during the first part of the classroom-based lesson, the instructor hands out one printed out task, which students perform without using additional sources; during the second part, students enter the LMS, post their answers (a photo of them) in it and start doing other tasks, while the instructor promptly corrects the answers online (thus allowing each student to immediately make adjustments to the answers to similar tasks in the LMS). The third part of the lesson is devoted to a discussion of the blitz survey results and to summarizing them in the direct communication mode.

Using the potential of the information and educational environment helps to overcome the methodological difficulties in teaching morphemic analysis: the traditional building of horizontal rows does prevent mistakes, since not all parsed words can be included in juxtaposition rows (Popova, 2014), e.g., for the adjective погорельческий /pogorel'cheskii/, the row погорелый, опустелый /pogorelyi, opustelyi/ seems possible, which leads to the incorrect extraction of the suffixes -е-, -л- /-l-/ and -ческ- /-chesk-/ in the derived stem. The morphemic structure of the derived word reflects its derivational history, which may be unique, and this history must be expressed to identify the salient parts of the word. This is possible by referring to morphemic and word-formation dictionaries, but this time-consuming path often does not attract modern students, and a basic Internet search fails to provide verifiable results. The electronic system makes it possible not only to include the necessary lexicographic sources in the database, but also to provide a vivid explication of the derivational history of specific derived words. For instance, when including the resource "Book from the Rucont E-library System" in the structure of the module, an instructor of MSAL has the opportunity to provide the link to a specific dictionary page, and a student accessing the module can immediately view the specified part of the book, without the need for manual authorization.

Having passed the indicated formats of work, which help in forming strong competencies, students prepare to use their knowledge in more creative forms.

Thus, in the Opponent Circle chat, a student can express his or her opinion of the analyses done and justify it; other course participants can evaluate the arguments and leave their comments, including in the form of counter arguments. A controversy is thereby organized, which trains students for an academic discussion on the linguistic topic. This form of work develops the creative and critical thinking of students. The instructor monitors the discussion and assesses both the initial statement and the comments.

Neology-Based Cases

The use of the electronic environment for teaching neologisms opens up the greatest opportunities for the formation of students' creative abilities. For a multidimensional discussion of neology problems in a classroom-based environment, the Seminar format is optimal. This format makes it possible to collect, view, review and mutually evaluate student work (research papers, essays, presentations, tables, graphs), presented as Word documents, electronic spreadsheets, presentations, etc., at the stage of preparation for the classroom-based lesson. The experience of using this form (Remchukova, Sokolova, Zamaletdinova, 2017) shows that in-person discussion is only fruitful when it is well-prepared and manageable.

In addition to the aforementioned elements, the Task resource includes specific cases (artificially created trademarks, commercial designations, brand names with their image and the necessary package of accompanying registration documents) that most contribute to the development of creative abilities. Thus, the goal of practice-oriented learning is achieved: students are offered to write a fragment of an expert opinion (identifying the derivational model of artificial naming and formants of the neologism, in order to establish the semantics of the name). E.g., in the names of the residential complex Мос-Анжелес /Mos-Anzheles/, the shopping center вАСТОРг /vASTORg/, the children's clothing store МОДАГАСКАР /MODAGASCAR/, the cafe Буркина-Фасоль /Burkina-Fasol'/, students are expected to identify the replacement of the root morpheme as a means of derivation and to clarify that the meaning of the new root morpheme overlaps with the meaning of the substituted one, is embedded in the semantics of the well-known word, thus leading to a complication of the plane of content while simplifying the plane of expression. The derivational formant in substitution is usually represented by a graphic highlighting of the replacement fragment and/or a distortion of the graphic appearance of the word. In addition, students are encouraged to find examples of similar neology or create names themselves, which undoubtedly contributes to the development of their creative abilities.

A face-to-face discussion of the case devoted to the derivational history of the urbanonym Япоша (япоша ← япошка ← японец) /Yaposha (yaposha ← yaposhka ← yaponets)/, on the one hand, makes it possible to identify the role of the suffix in the stylistic modification and to analyze the processes occurring on the morphemic boundary, and, on the other hand, to engage students in a language game.

The case "Trademarks with the root morpheme квас /kvas/" can clearly demonstrate the activity of neologisms in the naming of products (Квасевич, Квасёнок, Квасяня /Kvasevich, Kvasenok, Kvasyanya/, etc.), where suffixes with a usual meaning are primarily used, and encourage students to creative activity (e.g., via the task to design new verbal trademarks). This form also allows students to develop their creativity and consolidate their knowledge.

Conclusion

Summarizing the results, the authors came to the following conclusions:

the development of creativity of students in Philology and in Forensic Speech Examinations is possible not only in the traditional format, but also by means of the electronic educational format;

the most productive way of implementing students' creativity on the basis of the Moodle platform is blended learning, which makes it possible to effectively combine traditional and digital technologies, to conduct real and virtual dialogue and polylogue;

the inclusion of tasks on creativity development in the information and educational environment causes a number of difficulties, but allows, first, to instantly establish feedback between all participants in the educational process, making it possible to quickly correct the necessary theoretical and practical material; second, to develop a written electronic communication etiquette; third, to analyze the digital footprint of each student and draw conclusions about the level of the acquisition of the material, the maturity of soft & hard skills. In addition, the electronic format is closer and more familiar to modern students, due to the type of communication and the structuring of the material; and the development of creativity in this environment has a greater influence on the formation of personal qualities of a future language teacher or speech expert.

The presented material concerning the possibilities of using the information and educational environment of the university in the development of creative abilities of students in Philology and speech experts is one of the ways to solve the problem. The authors see the perspective of the research in its further deepening and expansion, the search for new methods, the adaptation of traditional methods to the e-learning format in line with the development of the strategic network of universities.

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