Personal and professional development of students – future teachers with the use of blended learning

Abstract

Introduction. The relevance of the research is conditioned by the needs of education in development of innovative approaches providing high-quality competence training of future pedagogues. The forms of blended learning have a potential to strengthen the subjectivity and optimisation in the process of personal and professional development of students, but they are applied fragmentarily in higher pedagogical education and are not systematically explored. Purpose of the research: development of a model of personal and professional development of students – future pedagogues with the use of blended learning forms as well as testing its effectiveness in the course of experimental work. Materials and methods. The experiment involved 54 students, future bachelors of pedagogical profile studying at Moscow State Regional University (Russian Federation). Methods: testing, students’ self-assessment and peer assessment, expert evaluation of students’ personal and professional development by teachers. Statistical methods: Mann-Whitney U-test. Results. The model of personal and professional growth of students – future pedagogues was developed with the use of the forms of blended learning – as a set of components (value/target focused, organisational/managerial, design/technological) and stages (informational/stimulating, productive/activity based, evaluative/reflexive) integrating students’ personal activity, students’ joint activity and teachers’ activity as subjects of electronic educational environment. It was revealed that the application of the developed model of personal and professional development of students – future pedagogues with the use of the forms of blended learning showed efficiency in the development of competence parameters: academic proficiency, involvement and motivation of future educators (U = 187; p < 0.01). Conclusion. The novelty of the research lies in the elaboration of a model for personal and professional development of students with the use of the forms of blended learning, as well as of a complex of supporting content and assignments for group and independent work. The results can be used for designing of educational technologies based on the developed model, for other areas and levels of higher education.