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SELF-EDUCATION OF STUDENTS
IN THE CONTEXT OF LIFELONG LEARNING
V. I. Kazarenkov T. B. Kazarenkova
This article deals with the problems of functioning and development of self-education in the context of lifelong learning. The publication proves the importance of self-education as a means of vocational training and self-improvement of the personality of a future specialist.
Key words: lifelong learning, university education and self-education of students, specialist training, integration, original programs.
An intensively developing society requires a systematic update of all kinds of human resources. At the same time, a human as such is focused on the creative transformation of the world and self-improvement [1; 3; 5; 6]. Lifelong learning is becoming an essential attribute of an individual. Under these conditions, higher education is of key importance, as it tightly integrates science and education, ensuring the sustainable development of society and the individual [2; 4; 5; 7]. Higher education, in the context of the developing Russian society, addresses a number of strategic objectives: (a) professionalization (training of professionally competent people offering basic and applicative knowledge and methods of activities); (b) socialization of young people; (c) development of experience of selfrealization (development of a creative style of life). Solving these problems is only possible if students are involved self-educational activities [1; 2].
Interconnection of education and self-learning in higher education has always existed, but at the current stage of development of the information society, self-educational activities of students are becoming a major component of the university training of specialists. This interconnection gets a future specialist focused not only on the acquisition of knowledge and skills in their professional field, but on the formation of the experience of a creative activity, as well as the experience of emotional and value attitudes to the natural and social world surrounding us, and the development of self-management skills. Self-learning acts as a means of self-improvement of a young person, since it contributes to the development of various aspects of personality - intellect, willpower, emotions, motivation, and others. To implement the mechanisms of self learning, an appropriate educational environment is needed. The creation of such an environment, through which the self-educational activities of future professionals are realized, is an important task of higher education.
Investigation of the problem of self-learning of students is conducted in different fields of science - philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, psychology, and specific branches of didactics. The practice of self-learning of students in a modern institution of higher education testifies to both positive and negative aspects of the implementation of this process by future specialists. Quite often, independent activities of students are considered by teachers not as a component of the system of training of specialists, but as a form of teaching students, oriented not towards the development of interest in self-education and a need for self education in students, but towards students completing certain independent tasks. However,
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independent work is only one of components of self-learning. Unfortunately, selflearning is most often regarded by teachers from the perspective of intellectual labor (as an activity of “intellectuals”), as a means to develop only the intellectual sphere. But self-learning has a significant potential for development of both intellectual and volitional, emotional and motivational spheres of personality, and the moral qualities of a person. “Under modern conditions, university graduates should be able to set goals, manage processes, and calculate the consequences of any decisions they take”[1]. Also, self-education has a great resource for the improvement of professional training and development of a specialist, and the development of their personality.
The practice of higher education shows that many university teachers do not carry out goal-oriented systematic integration of classroom and extracurricular activities, and poorly implement the integration potential of research and educational and production activities of college and university students. Future specialists have a weak need for the holistic perception of scientific knowledge, and the possibilities to use in practice not only the knowledge acquired in the classroom, but also that which is gained in the process of scientific research and experimental work. Considerable resources of integration of classroom and extracurricular activities are available on original courses, which provide students with the latest knowledge in a field of science they study. Holding original courses in departments for non-core specialties is of great importance. The course “The Art of Human Interaction” is actively studied in the department of economics of the Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship. It is focused on explaining theoretical and technological bases of the problem of human interaction with future specialists. The course integrates certain philosophical, sociological, administrative, cultural, educational, psychological and psycho-therapeutic theoretical and applicative knowledge, essential for understanding of the given range of problems. The course can also be regarded as practice-oriented.
The integration process of self-learning and education based on regulatory and original training courses, should be carried out in the following order by the teacher: (1) to determine the degree of readiness of students for self-learning activities, (2) to identify the level of development of skills of scientific organization of intellectual labor; (3) to identify possibilities in the content of the training course taught by the teacher, in the context of developing in students’ interest in selfeducation, and the need for self-education; (4) to make up a program which involves students in systematic self-educational activities in the course of classroom and extracurricular work, taking into account the degree of readiness of a student for self-educational activities and the level of development of skills of the scientific organization of intellectual work; (5) to provide students with an opportunity to present the results of self-educational activities through various forms of classroom and extracurricular work; (6) to identify ways to assess and control the self-educational activities of students in the system of classroom and extracurricular work, based on regulatory and original training courses.
Training of future professionals to find necessary information will allow the successful integration of educational activities of students in institutions of higher education with self-educational activities that can be carried out both in the classroom and during the course of extracurricular activities. Outside the university,
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the student gets an opportunity not only to carry out self-learning (at home, at work), but also to apply the results of self learning, evaluating them in practice.
Reasons for reducing the level of self-learning of students can be social (high employment of higher education teachers; overloading students with work providing minimal or normal subsistence level, and, for many, paying for studying in an institution of higher education, the life of a young family, help for parents); pedagogical (absence of scientifically grounded concepts and technologies of realization and development of self-educational activities of future specialists in an institution of higher education; insufficient interaction of education and self-learning, classroom and extracurricular activities of students); psychological (low interest in self-learning among students, and in the need for self-learning; lack of motivation among teachers for implementing targeted training of students aimed at selflearning); managerial (lack of quality management strategies of self-education activities at all levels of management in a university, starting from professional chairs).
The interrelation of education and self-learning makes it possible to qualitatively change the strategy and tactics of planning, organization, and control over university training of specialists, to develop in students a need for self-learning in the context of lifelong education of a person, and to qualitatively solve the strategic problems of higher education.
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Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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