Concept of learning ability. Learning ability – This is a general cognitive ability, which manifests itself in the speed and ease of acquiring new knowledge and skills, the quality of mastering educational material and the quality of performing educational activities. .
Recently, based on a number of experimental studies, it has been suggested that general learning ability as an ability does not exist, but learning ability as a system of special abilities. There is a hypothesis about two abilities, i.e. two types of learning ability. The first was called “implicit” learning, the second – “explicit”. Implicit learning represents the ability for elementary forms of learning and memorization. It persists even in patients with the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex removed and manifests itself in the fact that a person in an experiment improves the performance of certain tasks, but he himself cannot describe what he has learned . Implicit learning ability, along with creativity, is due to the dominance of unconscious mental activity.
Explicit learning manifests itself in rapid learning, sometimes after the very first “lesson”. It allows us to recognize previously occurring and unfamiliar events. Explicit learning ability, like intelligence, is associated with the dominance of consciousness over the unconscious in the process of regulation. It is also called “conscious” learning.
Learning ability, creativity, intelligence . The difficulty of studying learning ability as an ability lies in the fact that the success of learning is influenced by many factors, and not only general intelligence, but primarily attitudes, interests, motivation and many other mental properties of the individual. It is not for nothing that from some scientific and popular science books there are examples of how a student who did poorly at school subsequently reaches the heights of scientific “Olympus”: becoming a Doctor of Science or a Nobel laureate. Indeed, students with a high level of mental development fall into the category of low-achieving schoolchildren. The reason lies in the lack of motivation to study. However, people with below average intelligence are never among the successful students (Bleicher L.F., Burlachuk V.M., 1978). This relationship is similar to the relationship between intelligence and creativity presented in E. P. Torrance's model. According to this model, intelligence serves as the basis of creativity, so a person with low intelligence will never be creative, although an intellectual may not be a creative person.
Ability/inability
. The idea “every person is capable of anything” is defined by many scientists as incorrect.
This raises the question of what constitutes inability. failure to
– (bad abilities) – this such a personality structure that is unfavorable for mastering a certain type of activity, performing it and improving in it
.
Inability is the degree to which a given individual fails to meet the requirements of a particular activity. Performing any activity while being unable to do it causes not only the appearance of persistent erroneous actions, but also a feeling of dissatisfaction. Inability to perform a particular activity is much more difficult than lack of ability. K.K. Platonov defined it as a negative ability. This is also a certain personality structure, which includes its negative traits for a given activity. Inability, like abilities, is a general quality of personality, or rather, the same quality as abilities, but with a “negative” sign.
Talent. A higher level of manifestation of abilities is called talent. Talent – this is a set of abilities that allows a person to obtain a product of activity that is distinguished by novelty, high perfection and social significance . Just like individual abilities, talent is only opportunity acquiring high skill and significant success in creativity. Talent is a combination of abilities. An individual ability, isolated from others, cannot be defined as a talent, even if it has reached a very high level of development and is clearly expressed.
Talent structure depends primarily on the nature of the demands that one or another activity places on an individual (political, artistic, industrial, scientific, etc.). There are also common structural elements of talent, identified through psychological studies conducted mainly on gifted children. First group features are associated with control and performance. Talented individuals are characterized by attentiveness, composure, and constant readiness to work. Second feature manifests itself in a penchant for work, sometimes even in an irrepressible need to work. Third group features is directly related to intellectual activity - these are features of thinking, speed of thought processes, systematicity of the mind, increased capabilities of analysis and generalization, high productivity of mental activity. In addition, talented people are characterized by a need to engage in a certain type of activity, often a genuine passion for their chosen business. The combination of private abilities of talented people is special, characteristic only of them.
Genius . Genius is the highest level of manifestation of a creative personality. Genius is expressed in creativity that has historical significance for society.
If we rely on the interpretation of creativity as a largely unconscious process, a genius is a person who creates on the basis of unconscious activity. He is able to experience the widest range of states due to the fact that he is beyond the control of rationality and self-regulation. Consequently, genius primarily creates through the activity of the unconscious creative subject. “Talent creates rationally, on the basis of a well-thought-out plan. Genius is primarily creative, talent is primarily intellectual, although both have common abilities” (V.N. Druzhinin, p. 173). Other signs that distinguish genius from talent include versatility, greater originality and the duration of the creative period of life.
Unlike “just creatives,” a person of genius has a very powerful activity of the unconscious. In this regard, he is prone to extreme emotional states. Which of them is a consequence and which is a cause has not yet been established, but a relationship has been identified between creativity and neuroticism.
V.N. Druzhinin offers the following “formula of genius”:
Genius = (high intelligence + even higher creativity) ´ mental activity.
A genius creates a new era in his field of knowledge. Characteristics of a genius:
· extreme creative productivity;
· mastery of the cultural heritage of the past while decisively overcoming outdated norms and traditions;
· activities that contribute to the progressive development of society.
Test questions for topic No. 21
1. What classifications of abilities do you know?
2. Name the types and levels of abilities.
3. Describe the general abilities of a person.
4. What concepts of abilities do you know?
5. Define the concept of creativity.
TOPIC 22. TRAINING
Lecture 22. Training
Basic concepts:
education; education; education; teaching; behavioral and cognitive theories of learning; operant learning theories; programmed learning; humanistic theories of learning and education; "free model"; "dialogical model"; “personal model”; "enrichment model"; “developmental model”; "activating model"; “formative model”; learning motivation; knowledge; concept; breadth of operation; generality; completeness of the image; dynamism of the image; thesaurus; self-education; self-study.
Education and global educational trends
Education - the process and result of mastering a certain system of knowledge and ensuring on this basis an appropriate level of personal development . Traditionally, education is acquired through the process of training and education in educational institutions under the guidance of teachers. Education in the literal sense of the word means the creation of an image, a certain completeness of education in accordance with a certain age level. Therefore, education is often interpreted as the result of a person’s assimilation of the experience of generations in the form of a certain amount of systematized knowledge, skills, abilities, and ways of thinking that the student has mastered. In this case, they talk about an educated person. Education- the quality of a developed personality that has mastered universal human experience, with the help of which it becomes able to navigate the environment, adapt to it, protect and enrich it, acquire new knowledge about it and through this continuously improve oneself, i.e. improve your education again. Consequently, the main criterion of education is systematic knowledge and systematic thinking, which is manifested in the ability to independently restore the missing links in the knowledge system using logical reasoning.
Development of civilization and education
Currently, the main demand of the world elites is the need for an urgent change in the general civilizational development model: a transition from a “consumer society” to an “alternative civilization” and “the concept of sustainable development” (“Agenda for the 21st century”). In order for these requirements to become a reality, it is necessary to prepare a younger generation capable of leading life on the planet into a qualitatively different ecological, sustainable and peaceful direction by the middle of the century. Modern world pedagogy is unlikely to cope with such a task. It is enough to note that all modern content of education (from secondary to high school) is an adaptation of the “fundamentals of science” for a particular age level of knowledge acquisition. For this purpose, an appropriate method of training and education is proposed - contemplative-verbal . In order to prepare for solving promising social and economic problems in the future, it is necessary to have the ability to independently develop, based on the learned experience of previous generations, a new vision of the lifestyle of your generation, to have the ability to active-search And creative and transformative activities.
Problems of modern higher education and ways to solve them
You can call it at least three main problems of the modern education system. First - This the quality of education , which must meet not only the requirements of the rapidly changing present, but also be tuned to the distant future. Therefore, the way to solve this problem is a new philosophy of advanced education , which is possible if two conditions are met: the fundamentalization of education and the use of innovative teaching. If you receive knowledge that is relevant at the time of training, then by the end of the university or in a couple of years it will be completely outdated, and besides, there will be no holistic vision of the system of professional knowledge. The second problem is pragmatic orientation , which is characterized by an education system that does not promote personal development. The main way to solve this problem can be “developmental” education, in which the student’s personality develops through the use of flexible problem-based learning and creative information technologies. As a result of such education, each person has the opportunity to develop the most optimal way for him to acquire knowledge and the ability in the future not only to use this knowledge, but also to transform and replenish it in accordance with changing conditions. And the last one, the third problem is the inaccessibility of quality education for each student . The most productive way to solve this problem is information support for education: telecommunication technologies, database availability and, of course, distance education.
Training and teaching
Concept of learning.
Education– This is a specially organized, purposeful and controlled process of interaction between the teacher and students. Its main goal is the assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities, the formation of a worldview, the development of mental strength and potential capabilities of students.
Learning always has an educational character, despite the fact that its basis is the student’s acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities.
The concept of teaching.
There are many different approaches to defining doctrine. First of all, theoretical and empirical definitions can be distinguished.
The vast majority of authors empirically determine learning as the acquisition of specific experience (knowledge, abilities and skills), types of behavior and activities in a certain area . This point of view is shared not only by Russian psychologists (starting with Vygotsky and Rubinstein), but also by Gestalt psychologists and supporters of the concept of social learning.
However, representatives of the behaviorist movement (Thorndike, Skinner, Tolman, etc.) teaching called acquisition of both knowledge, teachings and skills, as well as logical and creative operations . Some domestic authors also include in the teaching, along with the acquisition of concrete experience, the acquisition of logical thinking techniques. By development they mean the acquisition of the ability to act internally, to act arbitrarily, etc. A.V. Zaporozhets, N.F. Talyzina and others are inclined to this point of view regarding the term “teaching.”
In what follows, we will focus on purposeful And mediated teaching , when it is specifically aimed at acquiring knowledge, it is accompanied by comprehension of information with the active use of sign-symbolic means.
Thus, doctrineis the process of acquiring and consolidating (or changing existing) ways of an individual’s activity . The results of the study are elements of individual experience (knowledge, abilities, skills).
From the point of view of the theory of the gradual formation of mental actions (P.Ya. Galperin), the learning process consists of four phases. In the first phase on the basis of the mental reflection of the object in the subject, a sensory image of the object arises: the teacher in a visual form offers the student educational material and a problem situation so that the latter understands their meaning, and thereby introduces him into the learning process. In the second phase a mental image is isolated from the mental process as its possible result, i.e. there is an active formation of solution moves and their training with the help of a teacher. In the third phase what the subject has mastered returns again to the mental process and to the activity of the student; this phase is used to consolidate and test knowledge. The fourth phase represents a synthesis of new knowledge with past experience and its practical application.
Behavioral and cognitive learning theories .
One of the most influential representatives of the behavioral movement B. Skinner in his operant conditioning theories
relied on the ideas of I.P. Pavlov. The results of his research, although related to the learning of animals, were the basis for many pedagogical concepts both in his homeland
(in the USA) and in other countries of the world. Skinner argued that human and animal behavior is determined, predictable, and controlled by the environment. He believed that it is preferable to modify the circumstances in which an individual exists rather than to blame and punish him for actions that deviate from normal behavior. In his opinion, repeatedly confirmed by experiments and practice, positive reinforcement– the most effective method for eliminating negative behavior or action. Therefore, in the United States, in many areas not only of education and upbringing, but also in business and industry, there is a tendency towards increasing encouragement of desirable behavior rather than punishing unwanted behavior.
Experiments on animals also prompted Skinner to come up with the idea of the so-called programmed learning. Skinner's main idea about the role positive reinforcement in teaching has not lost its relevance in the development of computer training programs today. The new generation of training programs not only reduces punishment to a minimum, but also acts only as positive reinforcement.
The largest representative of the cognitive movement, Ulrik Neisser, entered into a scientific debate with him.
Neisser argues that the behavioral approach to learning deprives a person of freedom. Truth makes us free. “Genuine learning is not primarily a method of manipulating students, as some claim, but its direct opposite. And not because education makes a person more militant, but because it allows him to see more alternative possibilities of action” (Neisser, p. 195). Only in a “rich” environment is it formed flexible cognitive structure, suitable for use in many other purposes.
Humanistic theories of learning and education .
In his approach to man and his method of teaching, A. Maslow turns out to be a supporter of internal determination, in contrast to Skinner, who advocated external determination of both behavior and learning.
Understanding education more broadly than traditionally accepted, Abraham Maslow insists that it is necessary first of all to educate the individual humanity. He is not satisfied that learning means only the acquisition of associations, skills and abilities, external, and not internal in relation to character, to the person himself. This is only one, albeit a useful, part of a person's training; it is important and useful in a technological society for the study of objects and things. You can learn driving skills using a behavioral approach, or you can teach a foreign language using the association method. But it is impossible to learn humanity in this way. In addition, “the world can only tell a person what he deserves, what he is proportionate to, what he has grown to, ... by and large, a person can receive from the world or give to the world only what he himself represents” (A. Maslow, p. .152).
Maslow notes that in education today there are clearly two fundamentally different approaches to learning. The main goal of education in the first approach is the transfer of knowledge necessary in an industrial society. Teachers do not question why they teach what they teach. Their main concern is efficiency—that is, getting more facts into the heads of as many students as possible while spending the least amount of time, money, and effort.
The function and main goal of education and upbringing in a humanistic approach is essential, human. In this case, teachers are engaged in self-actualization of their students, i.e. help a person become as good as he can be.
These two approaches give rise to two types of education: external And internal . The humanistic approach is characterized by internally education, which ultimately allows the student to acquire such a set of knowledge and skills that allow him to become a “good person”. Then the problem of education will shift not to finding a way to acquire information at greater or less cost, but to how a person can most effectively understand and personally evaluate this information for inclusion in his experience for further use in any area of life: at home and at work. It is with this approach that the acquired knowledge becomes meaningful, as does the learning process itself.
Domestic psychologically oriented teaching models .
In the practice of domestic education, constant attempts have been made to introduce psychologically oriented models, which are built taking into account the psychological mechanisms of the student’s mental development and which are associated with the creation of specific innovative technologies for both school and university education. All the models presented below are arranged in the form of a hierarchical “ladder” depending on the priority in their goals of either the prevalence of the student’s “freedom of subjective choice” or an increase in the volume of “control influences” of the teacher.
For "free model" characterized by an informal attitude to the learning process - in this case, there is no traditional class-lesson system, mandatory curricula, monitoring and assessment of students' knowledge. The key psychological element is “freedom of individual choice.” This model takes into account as much as possible internal initiative student.
"Dialogical model" involves the targeted development of students’ intellect, which is understood as the “deep development of the mind.” Education is aimed at students mastering the cultural foundations of human cognition. They develop dialogism as the main definition of human thought. In such a model, a dialogue between knowledge and ignorance constantly occurs, since knowledge in its highest forms turns out to be full of doubt and problematicity. Adherents of this model recognize the unpredictability and originality of the individual’s intellectual development, including the opportunity even for a child to learn independently, “alone” (at home, reading a book). Instead of textbooks, this model uses texts as works of the relevant culture. The key psychological element is the “dialogue nature of individual consciousness” (V.S. Bibler, S.Yu. Kurganov et al., 1991).
The term itself "personal model" assumes that the purpose of learning in this case is the general development of the student: his cognitive, emotional-volitional, moral and aesthetic capabilities. Training occurs at a high level of difficulty. At the initial stage of training, the leading role belongs to theoretical knowledge. The key psychological element is “holistic personal growth.” It is achieved through a constantly trusting atmosphere of communication, the focus of teachers on the development of different aspects of the personality, and the consistent complication of the knowledge offered for assimilation (L.N. Zankov, 1990; Amonashvili, 1993).
Close in some elements to the personality model "enrichment model". Within its framework, due to the complexity of the student’s mental (mental) experience, his intellectual education is carried out. It is assumed that each of us is “filled” with our own mental experience and has an individual range of possible growth of our intellectual powers (has its own “zone of proximal development” L.S. Vygotsky). Therefore, the student is offered specially designed educational texts, the content of which affects the main components of individual mental experience (M.A. Kholodnaya et al., 1997).
The “developmental model” is aimed at developing the student’s theoretical thinking. It was developed with a focus on younger schoolchildren. Much attention was paid to developing the ability to generalize. Together with the teacher, the child learned to think according to the principle “from the general to the particular” (D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov et al., 1986).
Aimed at increasing the level of cognitive activity "activating model". To achieve this goal, problematic situations are included in the educational process, reliance is placed on cognitive needs and intellectual feelings. This model is closest to the traditional learning model. “Cognitive interest” is the key psychological element of this model (A.M. Matyushkin, M.N. Skatkin, etc.).
We complete the analysis of psychologically oriented learning models of the so-called "formative model", which is based on the activity approach in psychology and pedagogy. In such an educational model, the controlling influence of the teacher’s “commands” is great. Creative activity is also a process performed at a conscious level. A variation of this model is programmed and algorithmic learning. Therefore, the key psychological element is “mental action” (N.F. Talyzina, V.P. Bespalko et al., 1975, 1983).
Thus, « free model» meets the criterion of “maximum freedom of subjective choice with a minimum of control influences,” and the last one on our list is « formative model» corresponds to the opposite criterion: “maximum control influences – minimum freedom of subjective choice.”
However, each of these models faces a serious question: if you choose a strategy to provide solid knowledge and specific ways to solve problems, to form “mental actions with predetermined qualities,” then the boundaries of personal intellectual freedom are initially determined. If you provide complete intellectual freedom, then there is a high probability of developing a personality incapable of intense and productive intellectual work. This dilemma is not currently resolved by any of the existing teaching models.
Psychology of educational activities
(psychology of teaching)
The term "knowledge" has several meanings. In a universal, philosophical meaning, it means humanity’s reflection of objective reality in the form of facts, ideas, concepts and laws of science (that is, it is the collective experience of humanity, the result of people’s knowledge of objective reality). From the point of view of the psychology of teaching knowledge– These are ideas and concepts about objective or subjective reality acquired through individual experience or learned from previous generations.
Knowledge acquisition includes the perception of educational material, its comprehension, memorization and practical application.
Education of scientific concepts. Scientific concepts are presented in the subjective reality of a person in the form of ideas and concepts. Concept– one of the logical forms of thinking, the highest level of generalization, characteristic of verbal-logical thinking. A concept is a form of knowledge through which the universal, individual and particular of a certain class of objects or phenomena of reality are simultaneously displayed. Depending on the degree of generalization and properties reflected in the concept of objects and phenomena, concepts can be concrete or abstract. There is a difference between everyday and scientific concepts. The most abstract scientific concepts are called categories.
V.V. Davydov, one of the creators of the “developmental model” of teaching, proposed the following scheme for the formation of concepts:
perception ® representation ® concept.
The success of the transition from a reflection of real objects or teacher descriptions to a concept depends on the student’s ability to identify what is essential, that is, making a generalization not according to the so-called “formal generality” (classifying objects to one class only on the basis of external characteristics).
Through scientific concepts, socio-historical experience is assimilated, while with the help of images, historical experience is correlated with subjective experience. The assimilation of a scientific concept is possible by abstracting from everything logically unimportant from the point of view of universal human (tribal) experience. The image cannot be torn away from the sensory basis on which it arises. Creating an image is always based on individual (subjective) experience.
A change in any attribute included in the content of a concept often leads to a distortion of this concept and to incorrect assimilation. When forming concepts, it is necessary to be distracted, to “break away” from everything unimportant in one’s personal experience, “obscuring” the essence of the concept being acquired.
However, we emphasize that any knowledge there is an alloy concepts and images.
There are many different approaches to defining doctrine. First of all, theoretical and empirical definitions can be distinguished.
The vast majority of authors empirically determine learning as the acquisition of specific experience (knowledge, abilities and skills), types of behavior and activities in a certain area . This point of view is shared not only by Russian psychologists (starting with Vygotsky and Rubinstein), but also by Gestalt psychologists and supporters of the concept of social learning.
However, representatives of the behaviorist movement (Thorndike, Skinner, Tolman, etc.) teaching called acquisition of both knowledge, teachings and skills, as well as logical and creative operations . Some domestic authors also include in the teaching, along with the acquisition of concrete experience, the acquisition of logical thinking techniques. By development they mean the acquisition of the ability to act internally, to act arbitrarily, etc. A.V. Zaporozhets, N.F. Talyzina and others are inclined to this point of view regarding the term “teaching.”
In what follows, we will focus on purposeful And mediated teaching , when it is specifically aimed at acquiring knowledge, it is accompanied by comprehension of information with the active use of sign-symbolic means.
Thus, doctrineis the process of acquiring and consolidating (or changing existing) ways of an individual’s activity . The results of the study are elements of individual experience (knowledge, abilities, skills).
From the point of view of the theory of the gradual formation of mental actions (P.Ya. Galperin), the learning process consists of four phases. In the first phase on the basis of the mental reflection of the object in the subject, a sensory image of the object arises: the teacher in a visual form offers the student educational material and a problem situation so that the latter understands their meaning, and thereby introduces him into the learning process. In the second phase a mental image is isolated from the mental process as its possible result, i.e. there is an active formation of solution moves and their training with the help of a teacher. In the third phase what the subject has mastered returns again to the mental process and to the activity of the student; this phase is used to consolidate and test knowledge. The fourth phase represents a synthesis of new knowledge with past experience and its practical application.
Behavioral and cognitive learning theories .
One of the most influential representatives of the behavioral movement B. Skinner in his operant conditioning theories
relied on the ideas of I.P. Pavlov. The results of his research, although related to the learning of animals, were the basis for many pedagogical concepts both in his homeland
(in the USA) and in other countries of the world. Skinner argued that human and animal behavior is determined, predictable, and controlled by the environment. He believed that it is preferable to modify the circumstances in which an individual exists rather than to blame and punish him for actions that deviate from normal behavior. In his opinion, repeatedly confirmed by experiments and practice, positive reinforcement– the most effective method for eliminating negative behavior or action. Therefore, in the United States, in many areas not only of education and upbringing, but also in business and industry, there is a tendency towards increasing encouragement of desirable behavior rather than punishing unwanted behavior.
Experiments on animals also prompted Skinner to come up with the idea of the so-called programmed learning. Skinner's main idea about the role positive reinforcement in teaching has not lost its relevance in the development of computer training programs today. The new generation of training programs not only reduces punishment to a minimum, but also acts only as positive reinforcement.
The largest representative of the cognitive movement, Ulrik Neisser, entered into a scientific debate with him.
Neisser argues that the behavioral approach to learning deprives a person of freedom. Truth makes us free. “Genuine learning is not primarily a method of manipulating students, as some claim, but its direct opposite. And not because education makes a person more militant, but because it allows him to see more alternative possibilities of action” (Neisser, p. 195). Only in a “rich” environment is it formed flexible cognitive structure, suitable for use in many other purposes.
Humanistic theories of learning and education .
In his approach to man and his method of teaching, A. Maslow turns out to be a supporter of internal determination, in contrast to Skinner, who advocated external determination of both behavior and learning.
Understanding education more broadly than traditionally accepted, Abraham Maslow insists that it is necessary first of all to educate the individual humanity. He is not satisfied that learning means only the acquisition of associations, skills and abilities, external, and not internal in relation to character, to the person himself. This is only one, albeit a useful, part of a person's training; it is important and useful in a technological society for the study of objects and things. You can learn driving skills using a behavioral approach, or you can teach a foreign language using the association method. But it is impossible to learn humanity in this way. In addition, “the world can only tell a person what he deserves, what he is proportionate to, what he has grown to, ... by and large, a person can receive from the world or give to the world only what he himself represents” (A. Maslow, p. .152).
Maslow notes that in education today there are clearly two fundamentally different approaches to learning. The main goal of education in the first approach is the transfer of knowledge necessary in an industrial society. Teachers do not question why they teach what they teach. Their main concern is efficiency—that is, getting more facts into the heads of as many students as possible while spending the least amount of time, money, and effort.
The function and main goal of education and upbringing in a humanistic approach is essential, human. In this case, teachers are engaged in self-actualization of their students, i.e. help a person become as good as he can be.
These two approaches give rise to two types of education: external And internal . The humanistic approach is characterized by internally education, which ultimately allows the student to acquire such a set of knowledge and skills that allow him to become a “good person”. Then the problem of education will shift not to finding a way to acquire information at greater or less cost, but to how a person can most effectively understand and personally evaluate this information for inclusion in his experience for further use in any area of life: at home and at work. It is with this approach that the acquired knowledge becomes meaningful, as does the learning process itself.
Domestic psychologically oriented teaching models .
In the practice of domestic education, constant attempts have been made to introduce psychologically oriented models, which are built taking into account the psychological mechanisms of the student’s mental development and which are associated with the creation of specific innovative technologies for both school and university education. All the models presented below are arranged in the form of a hierarchical “ladder” depending on the priority in their goals of either the prevalence of the student’s “freedom of subjective choice” or an increase in the volume of “control influences” of the teacher.
For "free model" characterized by an informal attitude to the learning process - in this case, there is no traditional class-lesson system, mandatory curricula, monitoring and assessment of students' knowledge. The key psychological element is “freedom of individual choice.” This model takes into account as much as possible internal initiative student.
"Dialogical model" involves the targeted development of students’ intellect, which is understood as the “deep development of the mind.” Education is aimed at students mastering the cultural foundations of human cognition. They develop dialogism as the main definition of human thought. In such a model, a dialogue between knowledge and ignorance constantly occurs, since knowledge in its highest forms turns out to be full of doubt and problematicity. Adherents of this model recognize the unpredictability and originality of the individual’s intellectual development, including the opportunity even for a child to learn independently, “alone” (at home, reading a book). Instead of textbooks, this model uses texts as works of the relevant culture. The key psychological element is the “dialogue nature of individual consciousness” (V.S. Bibler, S.Yu. Kurganov et al., 1991).
The term itself "personal model" assumes that the purpose of learning in this case is the general development of the student: his cognitive, emotional-volitional, moral and aesthetic capabilities. Training occurs at a high level of difficulty. At the initial stage of training, the leading role belongs to theoretical knowledge. The key psychological element is “holistic personal growth.” It is achieved through a constantly trusting atmosphere of communication, the focus of teachers on the development of different aspects of the personality, and the consistent complication of the knowledge offered for assimilation (L.N. Zankov, 1990; Amonashvili, 1993).
Close in some elements to the personality model "enrichment model". Within its framework, due to the complexity of the student’s mental (mental) experience, his intellectual education is carried out. It is assumed that each of us is “filled” with our own mental experience and has an individual range of possible growth of our intellectual powers (has its own “zone of proximal development” L.S. Vygotsky). Therefore, the student is offered specially designed educational texts, the content of which affects the main components of individual mental experience (M.A. Kholodnaya et al., 1997).
The “developmental model” is aimed at developing the student’s theoretical thinking. It was developed with a focus on younger schoolchildren. Much attention was paid to developing the ability to generalize. Together with the teacher, the child learned to think according to the principle “from the general to the particular” (D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov et al., 1986).
Aimed at increasing the level of cognitive activity "activating model". To achieve this goal, problematic situations are included in the educational process, reliance is placed on cognitive needs and intellectual feelings. This model is closest to the traditional learning model. “Cognitive interest” is the key psychological element of this model (A.M. Matyushkin, M.N. Skatkin, etc.).
We complete the analysis of psychologically oriented learning models of the so-called "formative model", which is based on the activity approach in psychology and pedagogy. In such an educational model, the controlling influence of the teacher’s “commands” is great. Creative activity is also a process performed at a conscious level. A variation of this model is programmed and algorithmic learning. Therefore, the key psychological element is “mental action” (N.F. Talyzina, V.P. Bespalko et al., 1975, 1983).
Thus, « free model» meets the criterion of “maximum freedom of subjective choice with a minimum of control influences,” and the last one on our list is « formative model» corresponds to the opposite criterion: “maximum control influences – minimum freedom of subjective choice.”
However, each of these models faces a serious question: if you choose a strategy to provide solid knowledge and specific ways to solve problems, to form “mental actions with predetermined qualities,” then the boundaries of personal intellectual freedom are initially determined. If you provide complete intellectual freedom, then there is a high probability of developing a personality incapable of intense and productive intellectual work. This dilemma is not currently resolved by any of the existing teaching models.
Psychology of educational activities
(psychology of teaching)
The term "knowledge" has several meanings. In a universal, philosophical meaning, it means humanity’s reflection of objective reality in the form of facts, ideas, concepts and laws of science (that is, it is the collective experience of humanity, the result of people’s knowledge of objective reality). From the point of view of the psychology of teaching knowledge– These are ideas and concepts about objective or subjective reality acquired through individual experience or learned from previous generations.
Knowledge acquisition includes the perception of educational material, its comprehension, memorization and practical application.
Education of scientific concepts. Scientific concepts are presented in the subjective reality of a person in the form of ideas and concepts. Concept– one of the logical forms of thinking, the highest level of generalization, characteristic of verbal-logical thinking. A concept is a form of knowledge through which the universal, individual and particular of a certain class of objects or phenomena of reality are simultaneously displayed. Depending on the degree of generalization and properties reflected in the concept of objects and phenomena, concepts can be concrete or abstract. There is a difference between everyday and scientific concepts. The most abstract scientific concepts are called categories.
V.V. Davydov, one of the creators of the “developmental model” of teaching, proposed the following scheme for the formation of concepts:
perception ® representation ® concept.
The success of the transition from a reflection of real objects or teacher descriptions to a concept depends on the student’s ability to identify what is essential, that is, making a generalization not according to the so-called “formal generality” (classifying objects to one class only on the basis of external characteristics).
Through scientific concepts, socio-historical experience is assimilated, while with the help of images, historical experience is correlated with subjective experience. The assimilation of a scientific concept is possible by abstracting from everything logically unimportant from the point of view of universal human (tribal) experience. The image cannot be torn away from the sensory basis on which it arises. Creating an image is always based on individual (subjective) experience.
A change in any attribute included in the content of a concept often leads to a distortion of this concept and to incorrect assimilation. When forming concepts, it is necessary to be distracted, to “break away” from everything unimportant in one’s personal experience, “obscuring” the essence of the concept being acquired.
However, we emphasize that any knowledge there is an alloy concepts and images.
The psychology of learning studies a wide range of issues covering the process of acquiring and consolidating the ways of an individual’s activity, as a result of which a person’s individual experience is formed - his knowledge, skills and abilities. Teaching accompanies a person’s entire life, since he receives knowledge from life itself, learning something new in any interaction with the world and improving ways to satisfy his needs. In other words, teaching is present in any activity and represents the process of formation of its subject. This teaching differs from changes in the human body caused by its physiological maturation, functional state, etc. Thus, teaching - The concept is quite broad, including not only its organized forms (schools, courses, universities), but also the spontaneous processes of a person’s acquisition of knowledge and experience in everyday life.
From the point of view of the activity approach, psychology considers organized forms of learning as educational activities, having its own specificity that distinguishes it from other main types of activity - work and play. Its main feature is that it forms the basis of any other activity, since it prepares a person for it.
Educational activity cannot be identified with the processes of assimilation of various knowledge and methods of action that occur during work, play, sports and other activities. It, in contrast to these processes, is designated by the general term “teaching”. Learning activity is a part, a specific type of learning, which is specially organized so that the student, by carrying it out, changes himself.
An important component of educational activity is the learning task. In the process of solving it, like any practical problem, certain changes occur in the objects studied by the student or in ideas about them, but as a result, the acting subject himself changes. An educational task can be considered solved only when predetermined changes have occurred in the subject.
Educational activity has the following general structure: need - task - motives - actions - operations.
Need manifests itself in educational activities as the student’s desire to master theoretical knowledge from a particular subject area. Theoretical knowledge reflects the laws and patterns of the origin, formation and development of objects in a certain field. They can be learned only in the process of organized educational and theoretical activity, while empirical-utilitarian knowledge, which records the characteristics of objects, is acquired in the course of practical activity, i.e., outside of specially organized training.
The most important element of the structure of educational activities is educational task, solving which, the student performs certain educational actions And operations. The motives for educational activities may be different, but the main motive, What is specific to her is cognitive interest.
The implementation of educational activities represents sequentially performed educational actions or operations by students to solve an educational task, driven by a specific motive. Target This activity is the assimilation of theoretical knowledge.
If the solution of any practical problem leads to a change in individual individual objects and this is the goal, then the solution of an educational problem does not set the goal of the changes themselves in the subject, although they can occur, but of mastering the method of action to make these changes.
The student, as a subject of educational activity, must master the most general way of solving a relatively wide range of particular practical problems. And the teacher, who has set an educational task for the student, must introduce him to a situation that will orient him to this general method of solution in all kinds of private and specific conditions.
One cannot count on genuine mastery of a scientific discipline, on real mastery of science, until the entire learning process turns into a system for solving educational problems. In other words, educational activity should consist not of episodic, but of systematic solution of educational problems in applying the theory being studied to reality, if we understand by educational activity the active activity of the student himself, and not the transfer of ready-made knowledge to him by a teacher or receiving it from a book.
The very process of students solving problems is educational activities, which includes the following elements:
a) setting an educational task by the teacher to the student or to the student himself;
b) acceptance of the problem by the student to solve;
c) transformation by the student of a learning task in order to discover in it some general relation of the subject being studied (recognition of the general in this particular task);
d) modeling of a selected relationship (in mathematics this could be drawing up, for example, an equation, and in psychology - drawing up a diagram of the logic of reasoning from the point of view of the activity approach, etc.);
e) transforming the model of this relationship to study its properties in its “pure form” (for example, transferring the logical scheme of reasoning to the analysis of specific activities to study the problem of creative thinking in a psychology course);
f) building a system of particular problems on a given problem, solved in a general way (such problems can be compiled either by the teacher and offer them to students, or by the student himself, taking them from life);
g) monitoring the implementation of the previous action in order to correctly move on to the next action; and finally
h) assessment (self-esteem) of the success of performing all actions as a result of mastering the general method of solving an educational problem (in psychology, this result can be confident mastery of the method of reasoning when solving creative problems).
The ability to learn is the ability to independently carry out educational activities, which is impossible without the conscious acceptance and creative implementation of an educational task with mandatory reflection - introspection and self-assessment of the degree of success of one’s own actions. Learning to learn means mastering the ability to carry out educational activities, which is the most important task for any student, including students.
the individual’s activity in assimilation of educational information (object of study, content of the academic discipline). “The activity of a subject always meets some of his needs and is aimed at an object that can satisfy this need. This object motivates and directs the subject’s activity. Due to this understanding of activity, teaching is an actual activity only when it satisfies a cognitive need. The knowledge that the teaching is aimed at mastering appears in this case as a motive in which a cognitive need has found its objective embodiment... If there is no such need, then he either will not study, or will study for the sake of satisfying some other needs. In the latter case, learning is no longer an activity, since the acquisition of knowledge in itself does not lead to the satisfaction of the subject’s needs, but serves only as an intermediate goal. In this case, teaching is an action that realizes another activity; knowledge, being the goal of action, does not serve as a motive, because the learning process is not stimulated by them, but by what the subject learns for, which leads to the satisfaction of the need behind it. Regardless of what need the teaching is aimed at satisfying - whether it is specific to it or not, it is always realized by an action or a chain of actions.” As can be seen from the above quote, in psychology teaching is considered as an activity only when teaching satisfies the cognitive need of the individual, i.e. a conscious need by the subject to learn something new about the chosen object. Otherwise, learning is considered as an action in some other activity. In relation to teaching in a higher military school, one cannot argue so unambiguously, since if the teaching satisfies any conscious need of the subject, it represents an activity. For example, the vital need to obtain a well-paid specialty may be associated with the study of such objects, which the subject of the study would never study on their own. Most likely, learning should be considered as an activity as an ideal for constructing learning, in which the subject of learning would not only perform prescribed actions, but would also have the opportunity to realize that own (or future professional) need that is satisfied by studying what is recommended by the teacher (the program of the academic discipline). ) object, i.e. consciously accept the object being studied as a motive for learning, plan this activity taking into account one’s capabilities (or choose one of the recommended plans) and independently implement the actions included in this plan (or transformed, taking into account available funds and one’s own capabilities). Departing from this ideal (for example, due to limited time resources), the teacher can consciously assess the losses that will occur in the activity of the subject of the teaching, and provide measures to compensate for these forced losses. The possibility of conscious choice, planning of one’s activities to master educational material, at least in time, taking into account the need to satisfy one’s other needs, makes the subject of learning more active.
Psychologicaltheory of educational activity
psychology educational activities cultural historical
The psychology of learning studies a wide range of issues covering the process of acquiring and consolidating the ways of an individual’s activity, as a result of which a person’s individual experience is formed - his knowledge, skills and abilities. Teaching accompanies a person’s entire life, since he receives knowledge from life itself, learning something new in any interaction with the world and improving ways to satisfy his needs. In other words, teaching is present in any activity and represents the process of formation of its subject. This teaching differs from changes in the human body caused by its physiological maturation, functional state, etc. Thus, teaching * is a fairly broad concept, including not only its organized forms (schools, courses, universities), but also spontaneous the processes by which a person acquires knowledge and experience in everyday life.
From the point of view of the activity approach, psychology considers organized forms of learning as educational activities that have their own specifics, distinguishing them from other main types of activities - work and play. Its main feature is that it forms the basis of any other activity, since it prepares a person for it. Research by psychologists in this area began relatively recently (starting around the 50s), and in the psychological theory of educational activity there is still a long way to go before the “blank spots” are eliminated. But the fundamental provisions that affirm the activity approach to learning have basically already been formulated, and they allow a fairly unambiguous approach to solving specific applied issues of the theory of learning, in particular, psychology itself.
What are the fundamental principles of the psychological theory of educational activity and how do they relate to the development of methods for teaching psychology?
First of all, a psychology teacher working in any applied field must know the basic principles of the theory of educational activity. This is necessary for the correct construction of a teaching methodology that takes into account the laws of knowledge acquisition.
Educational activity as a scientific concept in psychology does not have an unambiguous definition. In the interpretation of “classical” Soviet psychology and pedagogy, it is “a leading activity in primary school age”, “a special form of social activity”.
In the interpretation of D. B. Elkonin and V. V. Davydov, educational activity is one of the types of activities of students (schoolchildren and students), aimed at mastering theoretical knowledge and promoting the intensive development of thinking. Educational activity cannot be identified with the processes of assimilation of various knowledge and methods of action that occur during work, play, sports and other activities. It, in contrast to these processes, is designated by the general term “teaching”. Learning activity is a part, a specific type of learning, which is specially organized so that the student, by carrying it out, changes himself.
An important component of educational activity is the learning task. In the process of solving it, like any practical problem, certain changes occur in the objects studied by the student or in ideas about them, but as a result, the acting subject himself changes. An educational task can be considered solved only when predetermined changes have occurred in the subject.
In the process of learning activities, students adopt the experience of the older generation. Each new generation receives knowledge about the world only through direct contact with the surrounding reality, but young people do not discover this knowledge themselves, but receive it from the older generation with the help of “things and through the special organization of the new generation’s activities with these things.” This specially organized work “with things” is an educational activity to master the experience of creating this thing - a product of the activity of previous generations, a product of human experience. Students' learning activities reproduce the work of those who created this product, thanks to which they master it. A. N. Leontyev wrote that in order to master “the product of human activity, it is necessary to carry out an activity adequate to that which is embodied in this product” x. The effect of educational activity is its direct result of “students’ activities that connect them with the world around them.” It is the activity and precisely the students themselves, but organized by teachers and professors with whom the students collaborate in the process of its implementation.
Educational activity has the following general structure: need - task - motives - actions - operations.
The need manifests itself in educational activities as the student’s desire to master theoretical knowledge from a particular subject area. Theoretical knowledge reflects the laws and patterns of the origin, formation and development of objects in a certain field. They can be learned only in the process of organized educational and theoretical activity, while empirical-utilitarian knowledge, which records the characteristics of objects, is acquired in the course of practical activity, i.e., outside of specially organized training.
The most important element of the structure of educational activity is the educational task, in solving which the student performs certain educational actions and operations. The motives for educational activities may be different, but the main motive specific to it is cognitive interest.
The implementation of educational activities represents sequentially performed educational actions or operations by students to solve an educational task, driven by a specific motive. The purpose of this activity is the assimilation of theoretical knowledge.
So, the specific content of educational activity is the solution of educational problems. What is the essence of the learning task? What is the final result of the solution to the educational problem?
Psychologists have written more than once about the need for a strict distinction between an educational task and various types of practical problems that arise throughout life. If the solution of any practical problem leads to a change in individual individual objects and this is the goal, then the solution of an educational problem does not set the goal of the changes themselves in the subject, although they can occur, but of mastering the method of action to make these changes. If a service technician restores sound or adjusts color in a home TV, then a polytechnic student, doing the same in a training laboratory, achieves not only the elimination of these malfunctions, but also masters the method of eliminating them. He acquires a certain new ability and thereby changes himself as a subject of educational activity.
In all likelihood, it is not enough for a student to do this work just once in order to act as a television equipment adjuster. To become a versatile and capable specialist in his field, he will have to repeat similar operations more than once. And the specificity of the educational task lies precisely in the fact that the student does not master a single, separate method of solving one typical problem, but learns a general principled approach to solving all problems of a given class, no matter how diverse they may be in themselves. Thus, the student, as a subject of educational activity, must master the most general way of solving a relatively wide range of particular practical problems. And the teacher, who has set an educational task for the student, must introduce him to a situation that will orient him towards this general method of solution in all kinds of private and specific conditions.
In the educational practice of schools and universities, the greatest experience has been gained in posing and solving mathematical problems. Therefore, we can use an example from the field of mathematics to illustrate the difference between a particular problem with a specific solution and an educational problem with a general method of solution. For example, solving one or two typical problems on the topic “Logarithms” with obtaining correct answers is a solution not to one educational problem, but to a whole series of problems of this class (topic, section of the curriculum) varying in complexity and simplicity, originality and typicality, prevalence and rarity, leading to mastery of the method of finding the logarithm of any numerical, algebraic or other expression. And mastering this general method of action means that the subject of educational activity - the student - has changed as a person, since he has become able to perform this previously unknown logarithmic action and thereby acquired a new ability.
This mathematical example quite clearly shows the difference between an educational problem and any other, including a particular mathematical one, but successfully solving one or two of them does not mean that a person has become able to solve any problem of this class or act confidently in this field of activity.
Meanwhile, this example may create the impression that in other academic subjects, especially the humanities, which includes psychology, it is difficult or impossible to apply the term “learning task.” This is the usual view of many humanities scholars. Nevertheless, in humanitarian subjects, solving problems (including psychological ones) is sometimes practiced, but they cannot always be interpreted as educational, since most often they are episodic, specific, isolated in nature and serve as a particular illustration of some general theoretical position . In order for them to be subsumed under the concept of “learning tasks”, they in their totality must constitute a certain system in which their solution must ultimately lead to a change in the student himself - to form in him the appropriate abilities. When students study psychology, a teacher can, for example, compose and offer them to solve a series of problems on a wide variety of human actions, actions, behavior and accompany each of them with one single question: “Is this an activity?” The result should be the assimilation of the concept of “activity”.
We are convinced that one cannot count on genuine mastery of a scientific discipline, on real mastery of science, until the entire learning process turns into a system for solving educational problems. In other words, educational activity should consist not of episodic, but of systematic solution of educational problems in applying the theory being studied to reality, if we understand by educational activity the active activity of the student himself, and not the transfer of ready-made knowledge to him by a teacher or receiving it from a book.
The process of solving problems by a student is the learning activity, which includes the following elements: a) setting a learning task by the teacher in front of the student or the student in front of himself; b) acceptance of the problem by the student to solve; c) transformation by the student of a learning task in order to discover in it some general relation of the subject being studied (recognition of the general in this particular task); d) modeling of a selected relationship (in mathematics this could be drawing up, for example, an equation, and in psychology - drawing up a diagram of the logic of reasoning from the point of view of the activity approach, etc.); e) transforming the model of this relationship to study its properties in its “pure form” (for example, transferring the logical scheme of reasoning to the analysis of specific activities to study the problem of creative thinking in a psychology course); f) building a system of particular problems on a given problem, solved in a general way (such problems can be compiled either by the teacher and offer them to students, or by the student himself, taking them from life); g) monitoring the implementation of the previous action in order to correctly move on to the next action; and, finally, h) assessment (self-esteem) of the success of performing all actions as a result of mastering the general method of solving an educational problem (in psychology, this result can be confident mastery of the method of reasoning when solving creative problems).
The consistent implementation of all the indicated elements of each educational action constitutes the student’s educational activity as a whole.
These are, in a brief summary, the main provisions of the theory of educational activity, developed in Russian psychology on the basis of cultural-historical theory (L.S. Vygotsky), the principle of the unity of the psyche and activity (S.L. Rubinshtein, A.N. Leontiev), in the context of psychological theory of activity (A.N. Leontiev) and in close connection with the theory of the stage-by-stage formation of mental actions and types of learning (P.Ya. Galperin, N.F. Talyzina, etc.). Experimental and theoretical studies were carried out in schools by D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov, A.V. Zaporozhets, I.I. Ilyasov, A.I. Podolsky, V.Ya. Lyaudis, as well as employees of P.Ya. Halperin, their many followers. However, the general provisions of this teaching theory can be applied to a certain extent not only to school education, but also to other parts of the education system, which has been confirmed more than once in the experience of teaching adults (students, students of advanced training courses, military personnel, etc.) 1 .
The very concept of “educational activity” appeared relatively recently, a little over 20 years ago, in connection with the development of criteria for the qualitative characteristics of schoolchildren’s knowledge (scientific, systematic, generalized, solid knowledge, etc.) and the need that arose in connection with this to consider a holistic educational activity, which includes not only knowledge, abilities and skills, the techniques behind them, actions and operations of students with educational material, but also the student’s acceptance of an educational task, his exercise of self-control, self-esteem, etc. The ability to learn is the ability to independently perform educational activity, which is impossible without conscious acceptance and creative implementation of the educational task with mandatory reflection - introspection and self-assessment of the degree of success of one’s own actions. Learning to learn means mastering the ability to carry out educational activities, which is the most important task for any student, including students.
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