Contemporary Educational Process Research Articles

Contemporary secondary school: what is the competitive edge of a school graduate?

In the context of the contemporary educational process, researchers consider competitiveness as a system-forming category. On the one hand, they reflect on the level of formation of basic skills and competencies of a person, and on the other — on the range of adaptive capabilities of a person in a system of the changing social relations. This article aims to analyze the main factors affecting the formation of competitiveness among the contemporary high school students. The results of this study indicate that the most significant factors contributing to the development of competitiveness include social activity, initiative, hard work, readiness for constant self-development, and actualization of personal potential. According to the surveyed respondents, the listed qualities become a prerequisite for successful studying and socializing of high school students, as well as for their further and professional development after graduation.

SATISFACTION WITH E-LEARNING QUALITY EXPRESSES READINESS TO DEVELOP OWN ONLINE COURSE, NOT ONLY JUST TO FURTHER STUDY ONLINE

E-learning has become an important part of contemporary educational process. Satisfaction with e-learning quality was studied among 133 Bulgarian participants in an online survey, of which more than the half took part is some e-learning courses. The results indicated that the learners for whom e-learning was a part of their education at school or university tended to do more online courses and were more satisfied with e-learning quality, so traditional education seemed to support e-learning. The participants who had been enrolled in some online courses, who had their own Internet site and who were satisfied with e-learning quality were more self-confident in their ability of developing an online course. Satisfaction with e-learning prevailed in the sample, because approximately one out of ten participants stated firmly not being satisfied with e-learning quality and four out of five participants would like to use e-learning as a part of their further education. More male participants were satisfied with e-leaning quality than the female participants in support of some previous findings concerning higher life satisfaction in men than in women. Satisfaction with e-learning could be considered as a domain-specific satisfaction that is a part of overall life satisfaction. Keywords: gender differences in satisfaction, e-learning quality, satisfaction with e-learning.

THE TEACHER OF THE FUTURE WE WANT

Comparative analyzes of educational systems indicate that a teacher is one of the most important factors in improving the education system. The greatest challenges of the modern era faced by teachers are: increasing student's antisocial behavior, inadequate cooperation with school community actors, parents and other educational institutions, the absence of greater autonomy in curriculum innovation, and technological development in educational system. That is why modern teachers are expected to adopt new roles and competences. When talking about a teacher of the future, it is most often meant to teach learners for and in the context of the digital age. No less important emphasis is on the capacity of future teachers who, besides cognitive development, develop theirs and students' emotional, social and working competences. Emotional and social education of teachers is an imperative of contemporary school. Freedom of emotional expression of students' represents an optimal pedagogical contribution to emotional development, and the development of social competences influences the regulation of social relations in the class. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the democratic style of teacher management based on mutual trust and respect. Such an approach is based on the authority of values and encourages interaction, autonomy and mutual compromise. A teacher who tends to implement such a humanistic approach makes it possible to create an incentive environment that is subordinate to the interests, needs and opportunities of the child, which the school of the future should be based on. How much teachers are willing to respond to some of the challenges of the modern age? How far are we from achieving that teachers promote values based on the humanistic conception? How much are these values consistent with the needs of the pupil's themselves? Our study is an attempt to answer these questions. In this social and theoretical context, this study examines: 1) the extent to which teachers are oriented towards the implementation of the humanistic conception in education, and 2) how students' perceive the real and ideal roles and characteristics of teachers. These two analyzes are compared and we use a quantitative and qualitative approach. For the analysis of teacher orientation, we used the scale of assessment of the pedagogical climate in the school (ISC-S). The scale contains 44 items grouped into nine categories, which measure: teacher's support for students, clarity and consistency in the application of rules, student's dedication, orientation to achievement; disciplinary rigor, students's involvement in decision-making, teaching innovation, negative and positive peer interaction and cultural pluralism. The scale was filled by 30 teachers from a primary school in Niš. The results suggest that teachers who teach natural and social-humanistic subjects, as well as teachers with different years of service, differ in their degree of focus on humanistic education. The student's perceptions of teacher roles were measured through the focus of a group interview on three topics: the personality of the teacher, the role and influence on pupil's behavior and the ideal teacher. In the focus group interview, 12 students of the seventh and eighth grades of the same elementary school participated. The basic results of focus groups with pupils indicate the similarity of pupils in understanding the role and personality of teachers and the difference between sexes in perceiving the ideal teacher. Based on the results, we conclude that it is necessary to develop the competencies of teachers regarding the management of contemporary educational processes, independent and cooperative research of their own practice. It is necessary to create a mutual climate of trust, support and encourage the ethical behavior of students, all for the purpose of better mutual relations and the future we want.

EDUCATIONAL AND THEMATIC REVIEW OF FOLKLOR IN MUSIC TRAINING IN KINDERGARDEN

The course of the changes in the Bulgarian education system is a direct reflection of the changes in the different structures and institutions in recent years. Among the key areas of refor, the pre-school and school education system has undergone significant changes in structures, models and practices. The personal development process starts from childhood, with the upbringing in the kindergarten, where children get acquainted with the world and themselves. The musical upbringing has an important role for their socialization and formation of social and civic competences. In the pre-school music education curricula developed in accordance with the new SER for educational content and approved by the Ministry of Education and Science, Bulgarian musical folklore as a factor for children's musical, emotional, intellectual and physical development is educational and thematic. The positive aspects of communication between children from the earliest age with its models - the variety of songs and music for performance and perception, movements, folk dances and games - is the basis for the authors of all approved educational materials for the kindergarten in the educational field Music to include it. During the work with Bulgarian musical folklore in the contemporary educational process of music in the kindergarten the musical pedagogue skillfully combines traditional and interactive methods, integrates knowledge, experience and skills with the other educational directions. This greatly encourages unity to be enjoyable and beneficial. Children learn easily about music content in an interesting and entertaining way. Working with musical folklore provides incredible opportunities to develop the individual abilities and interests of each child, while building team skills. The specificity of musical-pedagogical work with folklore in the kindergarten reflects the personal and professional profile of the musical pedagogue, covers both the methods and approaches that the teacher uses in the music education, the acquired knowledge, skills and competences on a professional basis, as well as the personal attitude that the teacher uses to present the Bulgarian musical folklore as a national spiritual value. Building this value in children from pre-school is one of the most important. The professional training of the music pedagogues allows them to gain both knowladge and develop self-discipline. It models the conditions in which the child enriches his personality, forms any kind of culture - ethic, moral, musical, mathematical, ecological, health, physical. In this sense, the figure of the music pedagogue is also a factor and a condition in the process of building the child's personality, as well as the guardian of the national values. In the kindergarten the modern music teacher performs new tasks in the modern educational environment, adopts new criteria for structuring the pedagogical and educational process of music, preserving the individuality and stimulating the creativity of the children. The educational and thematic presence of Bulgarian musical folklore is the basis for understanding these ideas.

WITH KNOWLEDGE TO BETTER FUTURE

Innovation in education technology, under the influence of the modern information and communication complex, has allowed the development, modernization and rationalization of education, thus creating completely new paradigms in the field of knowledge transfer. New technologies provide efficient, diversified and autonomous access to knowledge, and this significantly changes the organization of the teaching or educational process as a whole. In addition, the complexity and multidimensionality of modern communication transmits the educational process into a simulated environment. By the way, the condition in such a way of simulated - virtual reality is interaction. Contemporary educational processes require new studies, as well as teaching and upbringing through modern means of communication and modern expression, which become an integral part of a specific and autonomous field of knowledge process in pedagogical theory and practice. The use of information and communication technologies in education is the future, which all speaks in favor of Serbian enlightenment and how they want new knowledge and discussion about how the future of the future will look. And exactly in this virtual space, outside the classroom, and actually in the classroom, the biggest changes are taking place. Because of the enormous amount of information from modern media (TV, radio, computer networks), the teacher of the future becomes more and more difficult to teach young people why it is important to be able to read, write. Indeed, the media, TV, radio, and computers were created by people with literacy skills, not people from the media. In order to filter the enormous amount of information that students will encounter inside and outside the school, using multimedia computer networks, the teacher of the future must act as a measure, perspective of the provider. The simplest way to provide this perspective in the context of a curriculum is to learn from where information came from: History of technology, history of science, history of mathematics, history of language, art history, history of history (including the history of the "future"!). In other words, regardless of the subject to be taught, the teacher will in the future have to give the students a sense of evolution of the subject in order to provide a reason for thinking in the continuous flow of information, not in parts. " The School of the Future will be moved from classrooms to parks and museums, students will learn to meditate, and the main assistant teachers will be artificial intelligence. It is time for pedagogy to catch up with technology. Since recently, computer networks are paradise literacy, the textual state is rapidly passing, and computer network research quickly moves to multimedia This means that digital images (moving images, audio, graphics) will become the biggest influence on these networks.

Teoría Educativa desde el Paradigma de la Complejidad para Formar Pensamiento Crítico y Complejo

El presente ensayo tiene como objetivo considerar la necesidad de una teoría educativa que sea vista desde el paradigma de la complejidad para la formación de pensamiento crítico y complejo. Para lograrlo se parte, en un primer momento, de una exploración histórica del problema epistemológico, teniendo como inicio a los presocráticos y terminando con los psicopedagogos del siglo XXI. Luego, se toma en cuenta el surgimiento de la teoría crítica y cómo influyó en la necesidad de crear un pensamiento crítico dentro del sistema social y educativo; y por último, se tiene en consideración al paradigma de la complejidad desde Edgar Morín, y como ésta perspectiva considera necesaria la formación del pensamiento complejo y crítico en el proceso educativo contemporáneo.

Teaching Philosophy And Learning Support In Higher Education As Inspired From The Senior Fellowship of The Higher Education Academy, Uk: A Case Study From Bahrain

Teaching and Research conveys to people in general a surge of articles that address vital and integral subjects from thepoint of view of comprehension, dissecting, and trying to change contemporary educational processes and to advancethe progression of educating and instructive research. Progressing toward this path requires the examination of asignificant number of us who are available in developmental spaces, going from colleges and universities to schools,Hence, in this article I have adopted a holistic approach to reflect my teaching experience and learning support in highereducation for almost two decades in terms of(1) design and plan learning activities, (2) teach and support learning,(3) assess and give feedback to learners, (4) develop effective learning environment, and (5) engage in continuingprofessional development (CPD) in subjects, as inspired from the SFHEA, UK. Consequently, openings can be madefor the constitution of other instructive procedures, upheld by new practices equipped for beating existing issues in thehigher education sector. The significance of this article lies in the way that it is imperative to develop examinations andreflections on how educators are prepared and function. All things considered, teaching individuals is an extremelycomplex movement, and little is thought about mental improvement and learning forms in grown-ups.

Continental Pedagogy Through the Eyes of CEUPES Symposium Participants (17-18 October 2016)

The article is a brief review of presentations at the international symposium of the Central European Philosophy of Education Society in Slovakia in 2016: “Continental Pedagogy: Its Problems and Challenges Through the Lens of History and Philosophy”. The work of two sections is analyzed. One of them is devoted to continental pedagogy in its regional and historical aspects; the participants of the second sections analyzed the philosophical problems of continental pedagogy. Understanding contemporary educational processes through interaction of the pedagogical and philosophical research traditions is not only powerful impetus for the deployment of innovative trends in education, but it also creates a conceptual framework for interdisciplinary dialogue between pedagogy and philosophy, as it is in the case, for example, with philosophy of education.

Професійна підготовка майбутніх фахівців у контексті сучасних освітніх викликів: актуальні проблеми, шляхи вирішення

The paper reviews the main issues of future specialists’ vocational training at higher education institutions in the context of contemporary educational processes in Ukraine. It singles out the discrepancy between the educational process at higher school and its practical orientation, the specifics of future student professional activity, and the society, market requirements to the prospective specialist competence. The article also outlines the qualities of dual education as a significant condition for overcoming these problems; outlines the possibilities and precise ways of introducing elements of dual education into the vocational training of specialists at a higher education institution, which combines academic education, practical activity in a workplace, and the conditions resembling professional environment. The authors consider the main principles of the person centered approach to the introduction of innovations in the educational process, according to which each student is an active doer of educational activity, acknowledges and regulates the process of personal cognition, independently constructs knowledge, and acquires experience. The article analyses the trends of organizing the educational process in the context of the future vocational activity of students. It also emphasizes the need for establishing a link among the content of educational classes, methods of training and practical activity in the workplace according to the purpose and nature of specific courses. The authors also propose to apply and develop vocation oriented, meaningful terms in training future specialists, and involve them in solving the actual problems that are relevant for their professional activity. The paper singles out the professional and pedagogical skills of a teacher that are necessary for creating a productive environment favorable to the effective organization of the profession and practice oriented educational process. The very first thing a teacher has to do is to organize teaching and learning as a dialogue with students, in which all the participants are equal partners who are authentic, sincere, open and trust each other. Key words: vocational education, vocational training, educational process, dual education, person centered concept, professional and pedagogical skills.

Оцінка ефективності електронних навчальних видань

In the article it is outlined the perception of electronic educational publications by students, distinguished the main issues of understanding editions of such kind as well as the readers’ expectations are identified. Recently the newest kind of educational literature has provided the contemporary educational process, namely an electronic educational publication. It is worth considering that lately the number of electronic publications has been growing rapidly recently, the industry of electronic information distributing has been actively developing as well as the information presentation through the digital media has being developed and improved. According to all mentioned above, the generalization of obtained practices appears to be an extremely important vector for its developing and determines the relevance of conducted research. Despite the rapid so called overtaking the educational environment by electronic devices for learning it is possible to tell about an insufficient theoretical understanding of the processes occurred from the side both scholars and students, creators and users of these editions. Therefore, the goal of the research is to find out the truth situation of electronic educational editions in terms of their perception applying the survey methodology to the users, in particular student-age population. The conclusions of conducted research presented that the most of users perceives the electronic edition as a network product but do not understand its real concept and nature. According to the results of the survey the respondents paid attention to reviews of other participants as well as to the price and quality of publications while choosing an electronic edition. Above that, it was considered such parameters as ease to access and information completeness, user-friendly search capability as well. At the same time, they almost do not attach importance to the possibility of feedback of publishers and authors.

JOINT PROJECTS – EFFECTIVE TOOLS FOR FACILITATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF GLOBAL EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES

Contemporary educational processes have to be in tune with the increasing global tendencies. All the world countries strive to unite under the umbrella term “global village”, which implies interconnected and almost unified political, economic, cultural, juridical and even educational spheres of life. Special grave challenges are faced by contemporary post-Soviet countries. They have to undergo the post-communist era, to struggle for the survival via radical correctional policy and to interweave globally oriented as well as capitalistically oriented strategies. The greatest challenge is posed to the educational sphere. Many post-Soviet higher educational institutions strive to join the European Higher Education Area. The given institutions try to interflow for the genuine overcoming of the existed “insurmountable” barriers. They consolidate collaboration and cooperation on different research and educational programs. Many newly-created joint projects appear and “play a key role in creating the rightful architecture of modern society. A central point in this process is the enquiry to identify… most urgent problems in national educational systems”(Pourtskhvanidze, 2016), to determine the strategies of functioning in multilingual society and to create a universal educational model of post-communist area via finding a balance between national and worldly. The given paper presents innovative university projects, which belong to two different worlds: the highly developed capitalistic world (Italian international project “Linguaggi e attività Produttive”) and post-Soviet “capitalistically-directed” space (Georgian-Ukrainian “DIMTEGU”). “Linguaggi e attività Produttive” and “DIMTEGU” have different nature and individual ways of development. However, both of them present innovative mechanisms of the preservation of multiculturalism and plurilingualism. The promotion of multiculturalism, facilitation of the preservation of plurilingualism, introduction of multilingual teacher education, development of appropriate curricula and teaching materials, suggestion of the fruitful ways of the adaptation to the global challenges – these are the major issues of our paper and crucial problems of today’s educational world.

The Process of Knowledge Acquisition with the Use of Various Teaching Methods and Its Effect on the Creativity of Employees of the Creative Sector

Contemporary educational process is subject to constant evolution, whose driving force is an on-going process teaching methods development. Transformations regarding the use of various methods in the teaching process arouse cognitive interest in the field of efficient knowledge acquisition among both teachers and learners. Properly assimilated knowledge becomes a source of education determining the quality of professional competence of creative human capital. Today, creativity, which is directly connected with the knowledge and skills of its acquisition, is believed to be one of the most important factors of the human capital development. The main objective of the research was to study and determine the actual use of conventional and unconventional teaching methods in the process of creative human capital development. The article is a literature and empirical study based on different ways of processing materials and their systematization. Furthermore, methods of economic phenomena analysis such as: descriptive, qualitative (comparisons) and quantitative, as well as methods of sociological research (primary and secondary), were used in this article. In order to verify the objective and the research hypothesis, the study was conducted on a group of 911 employees of small and medium-sized entities from the creative sector. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n6p143

Radio-Learning: A new tendency of web radio

The present educational-communicative paradigm requires a new way of thought about the pedagogic models and new intervention strategies in society, which are able to respond to contemporary educational and intervenient processes. In this sense, the radio has been a great ally for Education for over one hundred and fifty years, taking the information and knowledge to the most inhospitable places. Nowadays, with a web format, the radio makes available, in virtual space, an ample group of technological interfaces with an alternative and complementary environment of teaching-learning. Appears, therefore, learning through the Internet radio - the Radio-learning, providing the virtual space and a set of interfaces for technology that teachers can disseminate their scientific work, suggest readings, stimulate debate on issues related to discipline (forums discussion), information notes, reviews, interviews with local experts and invited, promotion of academic events (congresses, seminars, lectures, conferences or meetings), lessons in podcast, beyond the possibility of synchronous communication with the network, through email, blog, messenger, chat, myspace and others. In this communication, we will make a reflection about the web radio and the concept of radio-learning, showing its present panorama as an educational-communicative media and highlighting the case study of the Rádio Universitária do Minho.

M.M. BAKHTIN’S DIALOGIC PEDAGOGY AND CONTEMPORARY TEACHING METHODS IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL IMSTITUTIONS

The article presents the investigation positions to dialogic approach to teaching grammar, dialogic pedagogy theory developed by M.M. Bakhin as to the conceptions which constructively influenced upon contemporary teaching methods taking into account the context of language unit usage, teaching methodology of rhetoric grammar and language activity teaching connected with the production of meaning and sense in general. Dialogue pedagogy based on Bakhtin’s philosophy offers the specific view on the teaching and training processes as polyphonic phenomena. Along with this, the thinker’s polyphony conception is based on his aesthetic views on communication as the interaction between two spaces. The special accent is made on the teacher’s ability to provide the possibility to the voices to be manifested in the game and to the direct participants of the educational process to speak for themselves. Contemporary educational process is inherently the social activity and as a consequence it is the dialogic activity as well. Involving into the dialogic interaction in the auditorium is the communicative basis to ensure that the student should recognize himself / herself as an active educational community representative. In conclusion the article presents the basic directions in the developing of education as the process of students’ entering the target discourses a priori involving multivoicedness.

Using The Internet to Enhance Teaching Process at Universities For The Development of Creativity Competencies

Contemporary educational process is a subject to constant evolution, whose driving force is the process of technological development. The institution of higher education is also perceived differently, namely as a place of acquiring knowledge virtually rather than in a traditional way. Changes, which aim at using the latest communication and information technologies, provoke controversy among both the faculty and students. The quality of human capital professional creativity competencies is determined by knowledge and the ability to acquire it from various sources already at university student level. Today it is believed that creativity is one of the most significant factors of human capital development. One must bear in mind that creativity is directly connected with knowledge. The primary scientific objective of this article is to learn and investigate the frequency of the Internet use in the teaching process at selected institutions of higher education by means of scientific procedures and appropriate methodology in order to define the influence of on-line teaching on human capital professional creativity competencies. The findings have given basis to formulate a research hypothesis: The higher and more advanced ability to use the Internet in the teaching process, the higher level of human capital professional creativity competencies, which as an element of intellectual capital constitutes a major factor for development on micro and macroregion scale. The following article is a literature and empirical study based on various methods of data processing and systematizing. In order to achieve the objective and verify the research hypothesis the survey was conducted among students from three institutions of higher education. The article is concluded with findings stemming from theoretical deliberations and the conducted research.

The Sinergy Aspects of the Contemporary Educational Process

Using the comparative analysis method, the authors examine the evo- lutional process of the natural science methodology and the methodology of education. The outlined analogies show some definite trends of education development in the emerging post-industrial society. It is demonstrated that the openness and correlation of the individual educa- tional activities with other co-players results in the actual cooperation of the educa- tional process. According to the authors, the implementation ground for the distributed inter- actions in the virtual space of the Internet, capable of supporting the life long learning process of society members, should be the personal educational environment, as a part of global information environment; the former being developed and used by the individual both for personal professional realization and life-long continuing self- education.

INOVAÇÃO E APRENDIZAGEM INDEPENDENTE NA EDUCAÇÃO BÁSICA

This article discusses the possibility to include innovation into basic education and to explore within this education, a compatible methodology known as “independent learning”. An additional requirement to contemporary educational processes is to prepare future professionals and the general public to a world where innovation is of great importance. Therefore, it is crucial the role that new technologies, especially digital technologies including the Internet, can play on the educational experiences of students and teachers throughout their school lives. The main feature of the independent learning approach is to explore the learner’s autonomy, and it is of key importance to adopt the student as the center of the learning process and, the stimulus to “learn to learn” as the main reference. Although the general definition includes self-learning stricto sensu, in fact, for most cases, within the regular school, in this methodology the protagonists are the integration with the curriculum and the teacher. Likewise, even though the potential use of this approach is, in general, associated with adults, it is at the young age that the habit of learn to learn better develops, more naturally and relevant. We will also present essential issues associated to the third great educational revolution, symbolized by the digital technologies and the innovation’s central role in the contemporary world, which are deeply affecting two key items of the teaching-learning process: the way we produce new knowledge, and the way we construct it pedagogically. So, we quickly evolve to a scenario where the complex digital competence and the vocation for innovation will match, in level of importance, the traditional knowledge and to the typical skills taught in today’s schools, demanding “independent learning” as the appropriate methodology for elementary and intermediate schools.

The Conceptual Learning of Physics in Slovenian Secondary Schools

The Conceptual Learning of Physics in Slovenian Secondary Schools In the last decade, educational researchers have been intensively searching for new, innovative teaching approaches. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a great didactic potential and project COLOS (Conceptual Learning of Science) encourages the use of ICT in the contemporary educational process. In this paper we present the conceptual learning of Physics. With experimental research we investigated the effectiveness of such learning in Slovenian secondary school. Two groups of third-year students who were enrolled in an introductory Physics course participated in the study. In the experimental group students were taught through the conceptual learning and in the control group a traditional expository instruction was used. We examined the knowledge of students after carrying out lessons specifically on the topic of Electricity. Five thinking processes were assessed - Knowledge (Recall), Analysis, Comparison, Inference and Evaluation. We found that the conceptual learning was more effective than the traditional instruction.

Digital Radio Broadcast: New technological resources to produce educational programs online

The radio as a vehicle of mass communication has undergone many changes over the years through the development of informatics and cybernetics. The process of digitization suffered by conventional broadcasters and the availability of its content on the Internet, produced the latest step in the recent history of media - the Web Radio. In turn, the education has been used in the new technological resources to produce educational programs multidisciplinary in several areas of knowledge and in different parts of the world. Therefore, the present educational-communicative paradigm requires a new way of thought about the pedagogic models and new intervention strategies in society, which are able to respond to contemporary educational and intervenient processes. In this sense, the radio has been a great ally for Education for over one hundred and fifty years, taking the information and knowledge to the most inhospitable places. Nowadays, with a web format, the radio makes available, in virtual space, an ample group of technological interfaces with an alternative and complementary environment of teaching-learning. Appears, therefore, learning through the Internet radio, providing the virtual space and a set of interfaces for technology that teachers can disseminate their scientific work, suggest readings, stimulate debate on issues related to discipline (forums discussion), information notes, reviews, interviews with local experts and invited, promotion of academic events (congresses, seminars, lectures, conferences or meetings), lessons in podcast, beyond the possibility of synchronous communication with the network, through email, blog, facebook, forum, messenger, chat, myspace, twitter and others. In this communication, we will make a reflection about the web radio, showing its present panorama as an educational-communicative media and highlighting the case study of the Rádio Universitária do Minho (RUM).