Professional Training Of A Literary Teacher: From Risks To Finding Resources

Abstract

The relevance of the search for resources and technologies for the preparation of a literary teacher in the information era of the higher pedagogical education reform is due to the needs of science and society for teachers ready to work in the digital educational environment under conditions of uncertainty. The leading competencies of teachers are communication, corporativity, creativity and critical thinking. The search for harmony, a reasonable combination of online and offline education determines the risks of organizing professional training of a literature teacher, updates the technological possibilities of studies and methodological resources of all academic disciplines. The leading methodological approach of the research is an integrative approach, which realizes interdisciplinary, intra-subject, interpersonal and intrapersonal integration of the training of future literature teachers. The research methods are theoretical analysis and pedagogical experiment aimed to develop modern technologies for the professional and personal development of students in the information environment of the university. The results of the research are presented in the article as technological universal algorithms reproduced during the training of future teachers. The search for modern reserves of professional training for literary teachers continues in the era of risks, uncertainty and the digital educational environment. The path from risk to finding resources in the digital age of educational development is promising.

Keywords: Integrative approachoffline and online learningpedagogical technologies

Introduction

Professional training of a literature teacher should be ahead of time, focus on the future development of a teacher, and respond to the “challenges” of pedagogical science and the needs of society. Literature at school as an academic subject connects knowledge and understanding, word and meaning, education and training. The training of a literature teacher is the process of creating conditions for the professional and personal development of a person who consciously chooses creative pedagogical activity throughout his life.

The most difficult task of preserving the “human in a man” falls on the teachers of humanitarian subjects. And the teacher education is now in the zone of turbulence and uncertainty.

Problem Statement

The research problem: how to use the developed pedagogical technologies as resources for the preparation of a literary teacher in the information era of the higher pedagogical education reform.

Research Questions

The twenty-first century is characterized by the search for methodological resources that would be adequate to the digital economy, cultural and scientific achievements of the global world, national priorities of education in each country and human needs. Our research looks at these issues.

Purpose of the Study

The objective is the development of modern educational technologies, integrating offline and online education resources at modern university.

Research Methods

The pedagogical experiment at the Faculty of Philology and Media Communications, Vyatka State University was aimed to develop and master pedagogical technologies for studying subject techniques and work experience. Technological experience actualizes communication, corporativity, creativity and critical thinking of future teachers in the modern information environment. Integrative and student-centered approaches to the preparation of a literature teacher open the way to the education of understanding. In the process of developing technologies, we used a formative experiment, results of students' creative activity, questioning, targeted observation, simulation modeling, and design.

The experiment has covered five years of training bachelors of the profile Russian Language and Literature, the direction of Pedagogical Education, and two years of training masters of the profile Literary Education, the direction of Pedagogical Education. 67 people took part in the experiment.

Three stages of the experiment, motivational, design and reflexive, included students in the development and mastering of pedagogical modern technologies that provide students with technological competence, methodical experience and readiness for self-education in online and offline education.

The first stage is motivational. It was experimentally proved that the quality of the methodical preparation of the future teacher is influenced primarily by the motivational self-determination of students. An enormous challenge is the formation of motivation for the pedagogical activity of modern youth. The authority of the profession is destroyed by the media, educational policies, intensification of pedagogical work and social tensions between parents and teachers. At this stage of the experiment, two technologies were designed and implemented: the reader’s motivational seminar “Teacher in the Modern World” and “Meetings with Professional Teachers of Our Time”.

The algorithm of the reader’s motivational seminar “Teacher in the Modern World” included the following methods of students' activity in studying the course “Actual problems of teaching literature”.

Creating a bank of texts of different genres: a chapter from fiction, a story, a scientific article, results of a sociological study, an essay, a student’s essay, a teacher’s review, methodical reflections. The general topic is “Teacher in the Modern World”. Twenty materials were used: stories (Bondarev (1981) “Forgive us!”, Averchenko (2008) “Talk at school”, Tkachev (2016) “Teacher”, Kutsenko (2018) “First teacher”), a chapter “Joy of life” from the book “Look here” by Zhvalevsky and Pasternak (2016), a chapter “October, 10” from the book “Firtree. From school with love, or teacher’s diary” by Kamaeva (2013), a chapter “Felix” from the book “Ninth grade. Second School” by Bunimovich (2012), a chapter “Parents” from the book “Matilda” by Roald Dahl, a student’s essay “Why did Gerasim drown Mumu?”, Galitskikh’s (2018) scientific articles “Teacher and Society: Fiction Truth and the Truth of Life”, “A novel “Geograf globus propil” by Alexey Ivanov as a reason for discussion with readers” (Galitskikh, 2016a, 2016b), “Reading teenagers dream of a good teacher of literature” (Borusyak, 2018).. Informational materials are constantly updated with new pages, chapters from books about the school and the teacher.

Reading texts by students (not less than six). The selected texts gave readers information about the modern teacher and provided material for reflection and discussion.

Filling the mind map with selected quotes and ideas from each material.

Preparation of three-part speeches:

I have read the texts of such authors ….

I have chosen …. ("story, chapter, article ...) by the author …

Three most useful and interesting ideas, thoughts, quotes in this material for me are ….

Group discussion (four people) of materials of mind maps and generalization of questions and ideas on the topic “Teacher in the Modern World”. Three directions for group discussions are:

– problems of teacher’s profession;

- “portraits” of modern teachers, their personal qualities;

- risks of the profession;

- reserves of teacher's self-development.

Findings

In each event, work, impression, text, you need to find answers to three questions, which will be the personal result of understanding: What have you found out (novelty content)? How is it done (form, genre, structure)? What is the meaning of this unity of form and content (perspective, benefit, application)?

After the seminar, 36 students of the 5th course of studies (2018 and 2019) were surveyed. The questionnaire included three questions: Assess the quality of your reading (motives of choice, pace, interest, quality of reading). What in reading has influenced your attitude to teaching? Formulate your prospects for professional reading in the near future.

All students marked the novelty of the read, professional interest, enthusiasm for reading, concentration on the problem and the image of the teacher, the opportunity to look at the teaching profession from different points of view: as a teacher, student, researcher, writer, journalist, scientist, sociologist.

Each questionnaire was marked by reserves of development: debatable materials, need for discussion, expansion of ideas about the profession of a teacher, brightness of teacher images.

All participants in the survey pointed out books for prospective reading and even suggested that the list of materials should include chapters about the school from the book “Brisben” by Vodolazkin (2019) and “Flying Owl” by Tarkovsky (2017).

This technology actualizes intellectual cognitive activity emotionally, actively, creatively within the framework of educational practical training and is aimed to form communication, corporativity, creativity and critical thinking.

The students summarized their conclusions by the following phrase: “The image of a modern literature teacher reflects the literature of our time, this teacher is not indifferent to the internal problems of the child, his choices and assessments, he is capable of “penetrating attention”, he respects the student’s personality. This is a person who takes "the noise of time" creatively and actively, an intelligent reader and researcher of writer’s fiction, fate and creativity".

It should be noted that the technology of the reader’s workshop is universal. You can freely use information material on various topics, give students the opportunity to study it at home online using the Internet, and at the lesson go to the discussion of the problem.

The second technology “Meetings with professional teachers” was tested at the motivational stage of the experiment. The purpose of these meetings was to obtain "live knowledge" by communicating with teachers of the new generation, young leaders of education. There were invited literary teachers and graduates of the faculty with bright personal potential and conscious professional choice. The winner of the competition “Teacher of the Year”, the director of the Vyatka Humanitarian Gymnasium, the participant of the project “Education Leaders”, the deputy director for educational work, the presenter of the creative club “Literary Salon at school” were among them. The technology included three stages of the meeting as events: To invite a successful teacher; To show a presentation that reflects the life and pedagogical creativity of the guest; Teacher's methodological discoveries as methods of interaction with the text and its readers in an interactive mode.

Answers to audience’s questions about the problems of pedagogical work.

7 secrets of teacher's happiness (“Everyone understood in his own way what is happiness”).

The second stage of the formative experiment is the design. At this stage, we organized work to create pedagogical workshops for teaching literature in high school. The work included the following steps:

Studying theory and practice of pedagogical workshops as a modern learning technology (Galitskikh, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c) in an advanced lecture and webinar with masters. At the end, students created a summary table.

Creating a workshop (a knowledge-building workshop, a life-creative workshop or a creative-writing workshop) on a literary topic by a group of students (4-5 people).

Presenting the workshop project.

Creating a bank of methods and discoveries. Workshops exchange.

As an example, we list several “methodical discoveries” recorded by students in pedagogical diaries:

- the teacher's story in the form of an essay about the writer, reflecting the personal impressions of the meeting with the writer;

- multimedia excursion to literary places with personal impressions and comments;

- teacher’s reading a poem by heart that opens the "doors" to the world of the writer or poet;

- the description of the portrait and character of the author by contemporaries;

- details of the biography in order the author can be guessed;

- showing a short film about the writer with comments and discussion;

- feedback forms (matrices, pleasant notes, mind maps, association essays, problematic issues, digests of read texts, creation of texts of a new nature, infographics).

Thus, the formation of pedagogical experience takes place by immersion in professional pedagogical creativity. The participation of future literature teachers in the design of workshops ensures the translation of methodological, hermeneutic and student-oriented knowledge into the language of practical actions in the field of literary education.

The third stage of the experiment is reflexive aimed at the self-development of the future teacher. Two technologies were tested at the reflexive stage of the experiment: the technology of generalization and systematization of knowledge “List” (Galitskikh, 2016d) and the technology of reflective clocks. This technological key required an infographic - an hourglass pattern on a sheet of A4 paper; two diagonals dividing the sheet into four segments. Each segment performs its task and is filled by a student:

• Books read on subject teaching methods.

• Practical results (techniques, practice, techniques, technology).

• Professional choice (understanding risks and prospects for self-development).

• Plans for offline and online learning and self-educational reading.

When filling the segments, you can rotate the sheet with an “hourglass”, mark the main things, use signs and symbols.

An important result of targeted observation and questioning was the development of the typology of participants in the experiment. The first type was “a teacher by vocation”. These students are distinguished by the awareness of their professional choice, independence, creativity, and communicative talent. This type was represented by 21 students from 67 respondents. The second type was “a doubting teacher”. These students love literature, reading and the subject more than the process of its teaching. They doubt in their abilities, but hope that they can work at school (40 students out of 67). And the last type was “fellow travelers”, there were only 7 people. They are afraid of schools, don’t want to teach, but they believe that education at the university will contribute to their development.

We can state the scientific awareness of three important changes enriching the preparation of literary teachers:

Professional training of a literary teacher is characterized by the implementation of an integrative approach, in which a harmonious combination of pedagogical, psychological, methodical and subject training is necessary for the teacher’s personality to become the conductor of the “living word” of cultural, valuable and creative power of the word art. Here, tradition and the history of methodical thought are important, but modern technologies, forms of interaction, self-education, and cognition should become the modes of its development.

Modern information technologies have updated the methodological tools of the teacher, the technical equipment of lessons, the ways of interaction with students. Therefore, the technological preparation of the future teacher should be interactive, variable, creative, based on a combination of offline and online learning.

The content of literary education concentrates meanings, is enriched with new points of view, interpretative approaches, open contradictions in assessments, the choice of authors and texts. Therefore, it is so important to form a value and holistic view of the literary process, its historical canons and development opportunities in both genre and stylistic directions. Methodical thinking of a future literary teacher should be open, free, heuristic, and emotional. It is necessary to study the texts of the new nature, which are characterized by hypertextuality, the synthesis of multimedia and verbal structures, the active use of infographics, interactive graphics, augmented reality and other communication possibilities.

Discussion questions included a description of the risks of technology introduction in the process of preparing literature teachers: (1) The difficulty in the preparation of didactic materials and the need for their constant updating. (2) The danger of formalization of training, where integrative and personality-oriented approaches are the priority. (3) Insufficient provision of the educational process with technical means of the Internet. (4) Psychological barriers to communication in the context of integration of online and offline education.

Conclusion

The author has developed and tested modern pedagogical technologies, which are resources for professional training of a literature teacher. Communication skills, corporativity, creativity and critical thinking of future teachers are formed in the process of mastering these technologies. Technology algorithms ensure the implementation of integration in education through the harmony between online and offline teaching. The search for modern reserves of professional training for literary teachers continues in the era of risks, uncertainty and the digital educational environment. The path from risk to finding resources in the digital age of educational development is promising.

As a result of the experiment, recommendations have been developed that were reflected in the complex of publications (Galitskikh, 2016d, 2018; Galitskikh & Ponomarenko, 2016):

- study of technologies and methods of motivation in the humanities education;

- development of an integrative technology for the study of subject techniques;

- formation of a modern methodological thinking based on the implementation of the competence-based approach;

- finding out reserves of a combination of offline and online teaching;

- development of pedagogical practices for future teachers to master texts of a new nature;

- receiving feedback from future teachers in the process of professional training and the development of individual educational routes.

References

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