Implementation Of Tutor Support In Preparation Of Educational Managers

Abstract

The article discusses issues related to the organization of productive interaction between a teacher and students in the framework of professional training of educational managers through tutoring. The specifics of this interaction and the ways of its organization are revealed, the essential characteristic of these concepts and all related tutoring segments is determined. Concepts, such as “organization of interaction”, “productive interaction”, “design”, “project teams”, “project skills and methods”, etc. are used in this work, the specifics of the above concepts are considered, their most important features in the context of the selected topic are highlighted. It is significant for the authors, that the collective of students is a complex structure that requires special attention both to the integrated complex and to its individual segments, especially within the framework of such a complex and complicated area of training as educational management. In addition, the main conceptual result of the study is the analysis of the questionnaire conducted on the basis of one of the federal universities of the Russian Federation - FSAEI HE “V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University” on the topic “Assessing the quality of the organization of productive interaction in student project teams”, among the students of various forms and areas of training. The study revealed the advantages of project teams over spontaneous groups of students, and the degree of importance of tutoring for each design subject.

Keywords: Educational managementorganization of productive interactionproject worktutor supporttutoringstudent project teams

Introduction

Educational management is the latest area of interdisciplinary knowledge, which integrates pedagogy, management, psychology, sociology, and many other scientific trends and fields. The educational management methodology is based on regional policy trends (Donina & Vezetiu, 2019; Ermakova & Nikulina, 2017; Strizhov, 1999), the development of concepts of the quality of educational services in a market economy, trends in the development of educational information resources and approaches to the implementation of control results in digital university (Donina & Vodneva, 2019; Romanova et al., 2019); factors affecting the effectiveness of virtual teams (Ilyashenko et al., 2019), the transformation of science and education in the context of the digitalization of the economy (Kivarina, 2019; Olson & Kalinski, 2017), models and methods of informatization of education (Grigoryev & Grishkun, 2008).

The two foldness of this direction is important here: on the one hand, it is aimed at managing and regulating the educational process using managerial technologies and techniques, and on the other, at developing the educational institution itself through the education of its employees, inspiring a desire for innovation, etc. e. Thus, we can judge the breadth of directions and the predictably extensive list of problems in the near future, one of which may be the training of specialists in this field.

The organization of productive interaction within the educational process today is not only the advanced task of the modern education system, but also a kind of motivation for teachers throughout the country to study the concept of effective student interaction both in their team and between students and teachers, managers. Such mutual influence is characterized, according to Fedotova (2015), on the one hand as an “additional interaction effect”, and on the other hand, as an indicator of its productivity.

The potential of the process of organizing productive interaction through tutoring opens up broad prospects for improving not only a specific student group of future educational managers requiring a special approach, but also in the global sense of the entire system of higher education. Undoubtedly, this requires considerable efforts and modernization, optimization of the educational process in order to achieve the most effective result of the principle of interaction and educational results. In addition, we note that this kind of interaction contributes to the development of personal, creative, design, professional, organizational, managerial and social skills, as well as self-organization and self-education skills.

Distance tutoring is particularly relevant today, thanks to which the future manager in the field of education can replenish stocks of knowledge and skills constantly and in a convenient form. We think it is necessary to pay attention to such structural parts as the definitions “student team”, “project team” and “design” in the framework of this study for the most complete consideration of this topic, since, in our opinion, this type of interaction is especially important and relevant in the modern pedagogical space. In addition, such a differentiated approach will allow a qualitative assessment of the essence of the chosen teaching methodology - tutoring - in accordance with modern pedagogical trends. We also note the importance of considering design skills within the framework of students’ project activities, since it is such skills that form the design and professional basis of students - future specialists in the field of educational management - during their training at the university.

Problem Statement

Some authors, considering the issue of the effectiveness of teamwork, conclude that teamwork is an effective form of organizing the activities of a leader, which is widespread in many areas of social activity in democratic countries (particularly in education). Team support and initiatives in the digital economy has great potential for building managerial competencies (Konovalova et al., 2019; Sazhneva et al., 2019; Tatarenko et al., 2019). Plotnikova (2016) believes that a team includes a fixed number of people who share common values and goals, are ready to solve common problems, take common approaches to teamwork, are ready to share roles in the team and be responsible for the result of teamwork.

In this regard, let us draw attention to the results of anonymous questionnaire among students of the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education “V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University” on the topic “Assessing the quality of the organization of productive interaction in student project teams”, conducted in 2020 among students in the relevant areas of training (management) using mathematical and statistical methods of expert estimates (as cited in Beshelev, 1980). About 300 people took part in the questionnaire, for the most part there were full-time students (almost 79% of the total number of respondents), to a lesser extent - extra mural and part-time (the remaining 21%). Questionnaire results are described in more detail in the following Table 01 .

The results of this questionnaire, presented in the table, illustrate the attitude of students to the pedagogical organization of productive interaction in student project teams. We can identify a number of problems based on them.

The first problem of the phenomenon of tutoring practice in the form of such an interactive formation of teams is the form of organization of their educational and project activities. Students note the lack of satisfaction with the organization of their ability to take part in such forms of activity as olympiads, team projects, on-line and off-line thematic conferences, etc.

Often, students working in a team have problems with self-esteem and self-actualization, with the definition of their role in the project team. In this regard, the questionnaire included questions of the individual nature of the implementation of the activity and the opinion of student-managers about its assessment. 51.2% of respondents were not satisfied with the results of the assessment of individual project activities. Perhaps this is due to the insufficient participation of the tutor in the distribution and identification of the leading role of each of the team members in order to ensure the maximum effectiveness of team project work. It is necessary to identify the lack of competence of future educational managers to act as a tutor of project teams as the third problem. It was probably difficult for them to take on organizational functions, functions of planning, distribution of areas of responsibility, methodological support of project activities, monitoring the achievement of results. In this context, project activity acts as a contextual activity for the future leader and has great potential for the development of their professional managerial skills.

Research Questions

3.1. What are the most preferred forms of organizing project activities in the context of developing the competencies of future educational managers?

3.2. What is the vision of the role of tutor of project team members as future educational managers?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to study the effectiveness of the tutorial organization of productive interaction in student project teams as part of the training of educational managers of the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education “V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University”, to identify the specifics of such a process, its essential characteristics, and also the degree of satisfaction with its functioning with the help of anonymous questioning.

Research Methods

The authors selected a questionnaire of students of the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Vocational Education “V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University” as a research method on the subject “Satisfaction with the quality of team project activities organization within the educational process”, conducted in 2020 among students of relevant training areas (management). A questionnaire was developed containing open and closed questions to identify the expectations of students from teamwork in the framework of project activities.

Also, students were asked questions aimed at identifying the characteristics of the tutor, which are important for working with future educational managers. The sample comprised 300 respondents studying both full-time, part-time and extra mural.

Findings

The present study and questionnaire within its framework illustrated the existence of a significant number of problems associated with the tutorial organization of productive interaction in student project teams: the problem of insufficient material and technical equipment for project activities; inadequate and unsatisfactory attitude to the assessment of individual activities outside the project team (low self-esteem); low level of tutor organization of project teams for participation in olympiads, contests, etc. in connection with the individualization of the competitive program.

According to the authors, it is training in teams that creates those new conditions that are the foundation for the development of skills in business and managerial interaction for students-managers.

The system of these skills includes the following:

1. Regulatory skills aimed at planning, coordination, goal setting. These skills include: in accordance with the objectives of the project, the development and planning of their own (individual) activities, as well as the activities of the team headed by the team, the selection of performers capable of implementing the project on time, and their readiness for self-development.

2. Search and research (cognitive) skills, which include: search and processing necessary for the project, the ability to analytics: hypothesis, establish causal relationships between the system elements of the project, search for solutions to achieve the goals. This group of skills allows the future educational manager to cultivate the objectification of their own activity and self-esteem, and to develop the sphere of self-regulation.

3. The communication and presentation skills of the future educational manager are aimed at publicly presenting the results and proving their point of view (and the point of view of the project team), communication within the group, active interaction and communication with other project participants, etc.

This group of project skills is focused on the ability to apply effective communication skills in the field of professional communication, which is especially important for managers, since their activities are directly related to communication, as well as the socio-cultural behavior of the future educational manager in the team.

We also note that any professional training within the educational process of a university is a complex, multi-level process that requires tutor and students to pay special attention, patience and responsibility, since it involves the constant restructuring of guidelines, curricula and programs, as well as the system for the formation of professional skills, design culture. The main goal of such changes is to train the most competent managers, who in practice use only rational methods and means, make the right decisions based on the knowledge gained and the skills and abilities developed. In addition, an urgent need is to actualize project activities among this new area of training, especially through the formation of productive interaction in student project teams.

It should be noted that project activity as a whole today expands the possibilities of the educational process and pedagogical education in the field of not only design, modeling and formation of the concept of an idea, but also in the field of general theory and practice of pedagogy, educational management and tutoring. This type of tutorial organizational and managerial activity promotes continuous, timely and appropriate education and self-education, allowing students to become not only professionals in the field of educational management, but also to master modern project activity technologies used in all related fields of activity.

Conclusion

We found that the attitude of future managers to the quality of the tutoring organization of such interaction is more positive in connection with the results of this questionnaire, consisting of a single conceptual block of questions, they believe that project teams led by tutors are effective, whose pedagogical competence in this the question is high, interaction with tutors-specialists in the field of project activities and proper educational management is extremely productive, which corresponds to the dynamics not only of the field of team project activities, but of the entire education system as a whole. The principle of productive interaction in student project teams is of great importance for tutoring project teams of future educational managers.

Summarizing all of the above, we note that this study can be especially useful for the pedagogical assimilation and implementation of their own project knowledge and experience in project activities and for mastering the skills of tutoring by future educational managers, which is a solid foundation for effective management in the framework of their future professional activities, involving the management of the teaching staff as a whole and project teams of teachers.

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