Raising The Issue Of Subjects' Recomposition In Higher Education System

Abstract

The key development in organizing the educational process makes it required to address pedagogical science and practice to the problems of planning and implementing pedagogical discourse in the modern educational space. This article actualizes the problem of thekey subjects’recomposition (teacher, student) in the system of modern higher education in general, and in higher education in a foreign language, in particular. The aim of our research is to consider theoretical positions and experience of transforming pedagogical reality (educational environment, activities of subjects). The main research methods we have applied were theoretical analysis of scientific literature, study of documentation, purposeful pedagogical observation, study and generalization of pedagogical experience, retrospective analysis of the own pedagogical experience. The research was based on the Chelyabinsk State University. The results of the study were the following, firstly, on the basis of the system-functional analysis, the main characteristics of the pedagogical discourse were revealed, and secondly, on the basis of the synergetic approach, we have reasoned the conditions for providing the experience of the constructive transformation of the pedagogical reality and productive educational technologies, providing a step-by-step value-semantic organizing the educational process and self-realization of students and teachers.

Keywords: Foreign language education, higher education, recomposition, subject of educational activity

Introduction

In a globalized and dynamically developing world, digital technologies have rapidly spread in recent years, actively shaping the digital environment of life. There are required not only special competencies for a specific profession in the emerging digital society, but also digital skills and competencies necessary for communication, learning and work (From, 2017). In response to social demands, the higher education system is intensively adapting to the new realities and systematically transforming in the direction of digitalization (“Digital competence: the…”, 2020). In recent years, a lot of efforts have been made to use and actively disseminate digital technologies in the educational process. The main priorities for the development of digital higher education are outlined in many federal regulatory documents (Project "Modern digital educational environment in the Russian Federation", approved by the Presidium of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for strategic development and priority projects dated 10.25.2016 No. 9; Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 09.05.2017 No. 203 "On the Strategy for the Development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation for 2017-2030", Order of the Government of the Russian Federation of 28.07.2017 No. 1632-r "On Approval of the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation Program ( section 2 - "Personnel and education"), etc.). One of the key tasks of higher education is to prepare educational programs’graduates for life and professional activity in the conditions of digital economy. The expected results of the introduction of digital technologies into the educational process are considered as following (Blinov et al., 2020):

• complete personalization of the tutorial process, established on the construction of respective educational trajectories and continuous personalized supervision of the tutorial achievements of students, their personal and skilled development;
• expansion of opportunities for the utilization of assorted individual and team varieties of organizing educational activities;
• contribution of each student in a dynamic activity throughout the whole lesson, expanding the pace of learning activity, guaranteeing the objective time use of training meetings;
• maintaining stable learning motivation among various groups of students at all stages of the educational process, including through the creation of repeated situations of success in learning;
• providing complete assimilation of the given educational outcomes - individual characteristics, proficient information, abilities, skills vital for acquiring proficient capabilities;
• computing and accelerating the process of forming the required career skills;
• providing the design nature of educational activities, the integration of theoretical and practical training;
• creation of new and expansion of existing opportunities for pedagogically effective socialization, vocational education and training of persons with disabilities;
• arrangement of operational response to students, fast and target appraisal of educational outcomes straightforwardly throughout performing studying activities;
• recording and observation of educational outcomes based on total assessment schemes (rating, portfolio);
• important reduction in terms of development, establishment and implementation of skilled academic programs, which is the main demand of up-to-date employers;
• guaranteeing the accessibility of academic programs for individuals living in distant and difficult to-arrive zones, etc.

Problem Statement

In this context, the readiness of teachers and students, to use innovative technologies in the educational environment and to change their own roles in connection with the emerging opportunities of digitalization acquires particular relevance. The foregoing determines the relevance of this research, which boils down to the need to study theoretical positions and experience in transforming pedagogical reality (educational environment, activities of subjects).

Research Questions

We have set ourselves the following research questions: what changes are occurring in the higher education system, what they will entail, how it will affect the subjects of the pedagogical process?

Purpose of the Study

The results of theoretical and empirical analysis of the situation in the pedagogical practice of domestic universities indicate the need to develop digital skills and competencies of teachers. Digital skills and competencies are understood as a system of applied knowledge, abilities and attitudes that make conceivable to arrange all stages of pedagogical work and improve the quality of education based on the opportunities provided by digital technologies (individualization of training, technical solution of creative problems, interactive project work, etc.)

The most challenging issue is the issue of the student's recomposition as a subject of the educational environment in the system of modern higher education in general, and in higher education in a foreign language, in particular. Changes in the functional of students, the change of the object position to the subject position actualize the task of expanding the area of responsibility of students.

Student obligations included so far:

• conscientiously acquire the educational program, complete an individual educational plan, including attending classes, complete tasks given by teachers;
• follow the necessities of the sanction of the university, inner guidelines, rules of habitation in hostels and other local regulations;
• to care about the preservation and consolidating of their health, to strive for moral, spiritual and physical development and self-improvement;
• to regard the honour and dignity of other students and employees of the university performing educational activities, not to create impediments for other students to obtain education;
• deal carefully with the organizations’ property carrying out educational activities;
• fulfill other obligations established by federal laws and the education agreement (Rights and obligations of students).

In addition to the existing responsibilities, for successful study at the university, students now must have digital literacy, be able to clearly and correctly convey their message online, achieve its correct understanding by the recipient, understand the difference between informal and formal communication and effectively interact in both dimensions, in general, have a high culture of interaction online. (Bychkova & Smirnova, 2020; Glukhov et al., 2019).

Research Methods

There were applied following methods in the study: theoretical analysis of scientific literature, study of documentation, targeted pedagogical observation, study and generalization of pedagogical experience, retrospective analysis of one's own pedagogical experience, questionnaires, interviews, methods of assessment and self-assessment, analysis.

As the material of the study, we selected regulatory and educational documents, scientific works of domestic and foreign researchers, activities and results of the subjects in the educational process.

Findings

Digital technologies have great didactic potential and provide a wide range of opportunities for effectively building a modern educational process and solving pedagogical problems that are insoluble by means of traditional education: ensuring an individual trajectory of the student's personal and professional development, personalizing the characteristics and needs of each student, creating a comfortable and productive environment digital and pre-digital generation, multi-subject flexible and adaptive interaction, symmetric interactive communication, etc. (Cöster & Westelius, 2016; Olofsson et al., 2020)

It is significant to pay attention to the traced fundamental regularities of the educational process with the use of digital technologies: increasing the degree of independence, subject activity, personal responsibility of the student for the process and results of his own education; manifestation of the motivational readiness of teachers and students and their proficiency to apply the potential of the digital educational environment; increasing the share of creative individual activity and teamwork, the use of activity content, including the way of various types of activity (communicative, professional, social, etc.); replacement of a narrative way of presenting information with an infographic one that activates visual thinking, multidimensional and nonlinear logic; intensification of education, etc.

There is not any doubt that the development of the above possibilities of digital educational reality largely depends on whether teachers, students and other subjects of the educational process of educational institutions will consciously and effectively use innovative technologies, and are interested in its digital transformation.

From the analysis of research and educational practice, it is culture, as a specific key mode of human activity, which includes a complex and multifaceted system of mechanisms due to which the activity of people is stimulated, programmed, coordinated and implemented. In this case, all subjects of the educational process, primarily teachers and students, are formed by effective interaction. Acting as a subject of activity, teachers and students master the ways of its implementation and at the same time develop a culture (Bobykina, 2011). In turn, culture, as a universal characteristic of activity, influences the choice of methods of its implementation and, which confirms the existence of the interdependence and interconnection of culture with activity (Isaev, 1992).

Based on the system-functional analysis of digital foreign language education, we revealed the main characteristics of pedagogical.

Pedagogical discourse is a type of discourse produced by subjects of the educational environment in the open-speech interaction built on values, goals, knowledge, reflection. It is fulfilled in thinking activity, speech, text; it is intended for finding and selecting individual and personal professional meanings of pedagogical activity (Ezhova, 2007).

The goal of the pedagogical discourse includes three components: in the professional field, it is the formation of key competences of the educational process participants, in public life it is a total socialization of the person in society and in private field it is the formation of self-assured personality. So, the comprehensive goal of pedagogical discourse is to generate conditions for the creation of a balanced and harmonized person in all the diversity of his psychophysical, social and personal qualities (Bondarenko & Bulgakova, 2011).

The chronotope of pedagogical discourse is an educational organization (school, College, University, classroom, class) and a specifically assigned time for communication (lesson, lecture, exam).

The contributors of the pedagogical discourse are the teacher and the student, who act and talk in various scenarios of communication. Pedagogical discourse is defined by inequality of subjects of communication. The profiling of the participants of the pedagogical discourse involve the examination of their status and role functions, motives, values, professionally significant personal qualities, and individual understanding of purposes. Value orientation of pedagogical discourse members is reduced to recognize and consolidate the moral values of society, special values of pedagogical ethics, observe social traditions recorded in a systematic knowledge of the laws of society and nature, reveal the content of the main concepts of pedagogical discourse, such as life, freedom, truth, humanism, beauty, Fatherland, labor, knowledge (Bondarenko & Bulgakova, 2011).

The main functions of pedagogical communication (constructive, organizational, communicative) are correlated with the goals of the teacher's activity (teaching, educating, developing). They are interrelated and interdependent (Karasik, 1999).

All the operations of the teacher, his open actions areeducational in nature. Students deliberately or accidentallyaccept the teacher's speech, his manner of conversation as a model.

The formation of a humanitarian educational climate in the university implies providing a particular moral and psychological framework, supported by a set of organizational, managerial, methodological and psychological measures that guarantee the acquirement of humanitarian culture by learners and encourage their own cultural activities (Jenks, 2020; Rose, 2014; Soto, 2020)

On the basis of the synergetic approach, the following conditions are identified for providing the experience of constructive transformation of pedagogical reality and productive educational technologies that provide step-by-step value-semantic organizing of the educational process and students and teachers’ self-realization. First, at the level of the target aspect we speak about the organization of design and development of individual educational trajectories, development of the teacher pedagogical activity and student learning in the digital educational environment. The activity of the teacher is aimed at organizing the educational process and supporting the student as a subject of learning in setting goals, designing an individual educational trajectory, taking into account his needs, requests and features. This requires the education of independence and responsibility in the system of educational relations, a certain transformation of the system of values, styles of interaction, etc. Secondly, at the content level there is the providing practice-oriented, activity-oriented and personalized content of education. Third, at the technological level we mean-the introduction of active and interactive forms, methods and technologies of learning; learning in different environments and spaces (integrated network interactions, etc.), the organization of distributed learning and self-learning in the educational environment (mixed learning technologies, inverted class, etc.).

Thus, the key trend of organizing the digital educational process in higher education on the basis of a personality-oriented approach based on dialogue and understanding, individual and personal meanings of activity, choice and reflection, determines the need for pedagogical science and practice to address the problems of planning and implementing pedagogical discourse in the modern digital educational space.

Conclusion

Thus, the key trend in the organization of the digital educational process at the university on the basis of a personality-oriented approach based on dialogue and understanding, individual-personal meanings of activity, choice and reflection, makes it necessary to address pedagogical science and practice to the problems of planning and implementing pedagogical discourse in modern digital educational space.

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