Self-Realization Of Future Teachers As A Factor Of Formation Of Pedagogical Professionalism

Abstract

The article presents the attitude-and-activity educational paradigm, the basis of which is the formation of student's value attitudes to creative self-realization manifested in content-formation of successful professional and pedagogical activity. A necessary condition for the actualization of student self-realization is creation of an innovative professional environment that initiates changes in the personal and professional values of the future teacher, supports his/her desire to gain new knowledge, offers a range of opportunities and attempts to implement students’ creative ideas. The idea of self-realization of the future teacher is based on the personal aspiration of each student to realize his/her potential in professional and educational activities, which determines the problem of research. The aim of the study is to develop a conceptual model of creative self-realization of the student in an innovative professional-educational environment which initiates changes in personal and professional values of the future teacher on the basis of sustainable interest in the values of self-realization, transformation of outer goals into internal needs. Research methods: analysis of the actual relationship between the content of the standard of higher education and pedagogical education at the University. The content of this model became the basis of modernization of pedagogical education in professional training of bachelors at K. E. Tsiolkovsky Kaluga State University.

Keywords: Pedagogical professionalismself-realization of the studentattitude-and-activity educational paradigmpedagogical education at the Universityinnovative professional-educational environment

Introduction

Today, there is an active discussion of the urgent need for a highly professional, competent teacher, a teacher of a new generation who would strive for self-actualization in professional and pedagogical activity, embodying the humanistic principles of education and upbringing, on the basis of changing the meaning and nature of pedagogical interaction. The personal qualities and spiritual world of the teacher today become the most important factors and a fundamental principle for the successful organization of the educational process (Seriozhnikova, 2015). As noted in the professional standard, the teacher needs to be ready for self-development and self-improvement in order to realize the main values of pedagogical activity - self-realization of the subjects of the pedagogical process. Speaking about the self-improvement of the future teacher, we emphasize the subjective position as the unity of his individual and personal manifestations.

In connection with this, it is necessary to recognize the deepening of the psychological influence of pedagogical processes on the formation of a morally stable and spiritually rich image of a student-future teacher, capable of self-development and possessing for this purpose the necessary personal qualities. Since, the semantic elements of the innovative educational environment are: a specially organized activity that ensures the initiation of integration processes that constitute the basis of professional-personal self-realization; monitoring, providing information for the reflection of their own professional and pedagogical activity, correction and construction of its development prospects. To achieve this goal, we highlight the relative-activity educational paradigm that determines the deep process of the student's spiritual and moral development, which activates the individual-personal effect of the self-realization of the future teacher. Its basic psychological content is the effective mastery and sensual perception of the students by the human centered educational environment, which is represented in the developed model of the student's creative self-realization (Dmitrienko, Yurina, & Kutsova, 2017). Vocational education in the context of these reflections is represented as a system of three fields: the field of values (the creative-reflexive environment), the field of values (creative self-actualization), the field of meanings (subjective self-realization). At the same time, the innovative educational environment is conditioned by relatively independent but complementary phases: cognitive-emotional, critical-regulative, value-aesthetic. Each of these phases has its own meaningful and personally significant filling.

Problem Statement

The multifaceted activity of the future teacher requires, first of all, his self-realization in professional activity, since one cannot teach students what one does not know himself. Scientific achievements of professional pedagogy determine new conceptual approaches to higher education, indicate ways to overcome conservatism in professional pedagogical education, highlight the problem of self-realization of subjects of the educational process in higher education as an independent factor of primary importance (Seriozhnikova, 2015). Self-interest, self-cognition, reflection, self-determination, self-projecting, self-improvement, self-development, self-affirmation – this is a chain of "self-processes" opening the way to self-realization. That indicates the problem of modern university pedagogical education. The problem is to determine the characteristics of the attitudinal-and-activity educational paradigm, the benchmark of which is the success and effectiveness of the student's progress is creative self-realization in an innovative educational environment. The innovative educational environment can be represented as three interpenetrating planes: the plane of creative development of the student's personality (the individual-creative aspect); the plane of the future teacher's relationship to professional activity (the motivational-value aspect); and the plane of subjective activity (the reflexive aspect). This view determines the possibility to consider the didactic organization of professional development through the operational and value spheres.

Innovative educational environment ensures in-depth inclusion of students in education through the management of the internal attitudinal stratum of actions, through of the value relationship to learning, the activation of students' value emotions, their spiritual unrest that contribute to the formation of professional competence, which is reflected in the developed model (Table 1 ).

In the integrated process presented in the model, the processes of self-education and education, self-education and upbringing, teaching and learning, self-development and development of students are activated. Priority is laid on the processes of reflexive self-regulation, which provide self-stimulation of students to the observance of manifested emotional values expressed by students towards professional and life priorities.

The theoretical basis of the research is research in the development and self-development of the individual, which are the subject of research of many psychologists and teachers (Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, 1991; Seriozhnikova at al., 2015).

Of particular importance for our study are scientific works in which the processes of individualization of the teacher's professional and pedagogical preparation, of self-actualization of the teacher's personality, the personal self-realization of the future teacher in the educational-upbringing environment of the pedagogical university, the formation of the teacher's subject position as the basis for his self-realization in the environment of innovative schools, the formation of the teacher's values for creative self-realization, the preparation of the future teacher for n professional self-realization, etc. (Zolotukhina, 1999; Maksimova, 2007).

Theoretical analysis made it possible to find out that 1) the ability for creative self-realization of the future teacher is manifested through his social competence; 2) professional competence is the driving force of the self-realization; 3) the motivation of professional-pedagogical self-realization is a set of conditions guiding this process; 4) the future teacher has a high level of creative self-realization, if he has a project-making culture. This served as a prerequisite for substantiating the model of creative self-realization of the student, which include the axiological, information-epistemological and activity blocks, which contribute to the creative self-realization of the student in innovative educational environment.

It should be pointed out that when developing the conceptual model, they focused on ontological and epistemological foundations of self-realization of the individual, namely, on chaos and self-organization, where chaos is represented by the uncertainty of the external and internal world of the individual (Prigogine & Stengers, 1986; Fishman et al., 2017). Self-organization is the ordering of the inner world of the individual; the ordering of all levels of social and physical environment in accordance with their own world picture. Therefore, the need for future teachers’s self-realization is a fundamental property of the world – its self-organization. In developing the model of creative self-realization of the student, the following scenario was proposed:

- in an open, non-linear innovative educational environment, random or planned fluctuations take place, they help to create new structures (attractors);

- the structure arises as a form of order (hence, stability), and in its development, through the processes of exchange with the environment, the structure evolves to new forms and acquires new qualities;

- in the process of self-organization of the student, an important role is played by "a factor that creates heterogeneity in the educational and pedagogical environment and a by factor analogous to dissipation that dilutes it"; - under the influence of fluctuations, the picture of the student's world changes, which allows one to actualize his need for self-realization in the process of professional and pedagogical education (Boguslavsky, 1995; Dmitrienko, Yurina, & Kutsova, 2017; Prigogine & Stengers, 1986).

The content and temporal realization of the student's self-realization is a chain that consists of these links: the actualization of self-interest and self-knowledge; self-identification of self – first of all as a future teacher; self-determination in ambiguous pedagogical situations, self-projecting of professional pedagogical educational activity; self-improvement; self-realization.

The above-mentioned has determined the allocation of such areas of student self-realization as epistemological (to know the world), axiological (to use vital values and meanings), activity (to transform the world). Therefore the model contains the same blocks. At the same time, both the internal aspirations of the teacher and the external influences determine the process of formation of the personality of the future teacher, which is the basis of an innovative educational environment.

An innovative educational environment acts as an attractor, which initiates the processes of transformation of the semantic, or internal position of the student, his attitude to himself and his environment. In this case, the focus of attention is not the forcible introduction of modern positive values into the value-semantic sphere of the student or into the consciousness of the pedagogical community – it is the identification of the values that can determine individual-personal self-determination and creative self-realization of the future teacher in the context of modernizing pedagogical education.

That is why the actualization of the desire for self-realization in vocational education is viewed through the prism of changes in value orientations in the ontogenesis of the personality of the student. The changes occur due to regulatory or innovative influences proposed by social institutions, by the professional community, and by the logic of the university's own internal development. From the synergetic point of view, the student is a self-organizing system and therefore his desire to establish a balance between the inner and outer world of values is the determining factor providing the mechanism of his professional-personal self-realization (Seriozhnikova, 2015).

The non-linearity of the process of professional-personal self-realization of the student determines the multivariate nature and diversity of individual strategies for self-realization of the future teacher; we combined these factors into a single unified theoretical scheme of the model.

Research Questions

What influence does creative self-realization of future teachers has on their professional development?

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop a conceptual model of creative self-realization of the student in an innovative professional-educational environment which initiates changes in personal and professional values of the future teacher on the basis of sustainable interest in the values of self-realization, transformation of outer goals into internal needs.

Actualization of creative self-realization by the student is viewed as one of the highest values of pedagogical professionalism, including the basic psychological foundations of pedagogical interaction – attitude, action and communication; their mode of organization determines the dynamics of interaction development.

The proposed model reveals the features of the innovative professional educational environment that activates the student's aspiration for self-realization in three interrelated planes: the axiological plane (as a personal need to determine the values (goals, motivation, values of self-realization, positive Self-concept); the information-epistemological plane (as an understanding of the need for new knowledge and ways of activity, objective and subjective prerequisites for professional and pedagogical activity, monitoring the latter for decision-making); the activity plane (as the activity and the result of this activity (self-realization in the subject, scientific, methodological, research, educational, social and other activities).

Research Methods

The article presents a development of the conceptual model of creative self-realization of a student in an innovative educational environment. Our methods were the analysis of the actual relationships between the content of the standard of higher education and pedagogical education at the university on the basis of educational products (curriculum, basic educational program); other methods were observation and questioning of students.

Findings

Theoretical analysis made it possible to reveal that the implementation of the relative educational activity paradigm is facilitated by an integrated innovative educational environment, the psychological basis of which is subject-to-subject relations, dialogic communication, independent, internally free will-directed, purposeful and responsible educational and professional activities of future teachers. At the same time, the active development of the environment means the organization of valuable willful actions of students in the mode of subject self-realization, which is an incentive for self-development and professional growth. Attitudinal (sensory) perception of the educational situation is created by the experience of each student of his individual success, which stimulates more powerful volitional efforts and positive emotional reactions.

The formation of the professional competence of the future teacher is transition to a relatively stable state at the level of the design strategy in his profession, when pedagogical activity organically fits into the general culture of life self-determination and is the product of the reflexive systemic representations of the student and of his professional self-creation in the context of self-development and self-realization, which is the modernization strategy of the content of pedagogical education. The main features of the project strategy of the future profession of the student is an adequate and coordinated with objective values, adoption of the goals of creative self-realization; the definition of an individual development trajectory in accordance with the identity of his individuality with the objects and values of the external world.

Priority directions of modernization of the content of teacher education at K.E. Tsiolkovsky Kaluga State University are not only the acquisition by students of new professional knowledge, modes of activity, norms and values, but also the disclosure of their own potential.

So, the content of pedagogical education includes the following blocks:

- the social and humanitarian block (the socio-cultural and natural-scientific module, communicative activities and language communication, the foundations of a healthy and safe way of life, the module of elective disciplines (MEDs);

- the block of project activities, research activities and practical training (the module ‘introduction to project activities’, practice, research work);

- the block of professional disciplines (the psychological-pedagogical module, the professional compulsory module (fundamental disciplines), the elective disciplines of the professional mandatory module, the module of professional orientation (mandatory and elective disciplines);

- individual trajectory of training (elective disciplines (minors, project activity, MEDs).

Each block is oriented at the structure of the model and is based on the following structural components: personal – the personality of the student; teleological – the goal pursued by this block; conceptual – the content of training; operational and activity – analytical work, forms and methods of pedagogical interaction; effect-reflexive – the results of activity, criteria for assessing the student's desire for self-fulfillment.

Modernizing the content of pedagogical education at the university requires taking into account subjective and objective conditions, which at the same time is both relatively independent and interacting elements of the student's self-realization process. This is facilitated by the allocated pedagogical conditions: 1) the presence of an innovative educational environment; 2) a new system for managing the educational process; 3) scientific and methodological support. The first condition – an innovative educational environment – involves transformation of professional training at the university into a more "responsible educational environment", the basis of which is the logic of self-organization and self-development. The second condition - a new system for managing the educational process - requires the formation of a "new" mindset in the sphere of managing students' education (educational management), which is characterized by the "human-centric orientation" (competency-activity approach); holistic view of the student as a person (holistic approach); development of the "total quality philosophy" – here the concept of "quality" comes from the student (the internal state) and is created by the student’ environment and depends on the level of his motivation for the learning process, the basis of which is the student's motivation for a quality level of educational process. The third condition - scientific and methodological support – is regarded as a combination of substantive and procedural means that enable the student to overcome difficulties of objective or subjective nature, moving along his individual trajectory towards his self-realization and a guaranteed successful result.

To confirm the effectiveness of the features of the attitudinal-activity educational paradigm, a study was made of ways to organize attitudes, educational activities and communication of students. More than 50 classes in different subjects at the university were analyzed; the classes were taught according to the curricula in accordance with the modernization of pedagogical education; the questioning of undergraduate students was conducted, too.

The data obtained during the implementation of the attitudinal-activity educational paradigm in accordance with the matrix of the developed model allow us to state that during the entire class session, the teacher actively interacts with students, and students also actively interact in the course of problem discussions and dialogues. At the same time, the inter-dependent role-playing positions do not create barriers in communication, which allows the participants in the discussion to express their point of view, to take into account the interlocutor's opinion, to understand the speaker and, by comparing different versions, to formulate sound conclusions. Subject-subject relations of the participants in the vocational-educational process were detected; the relations contribute to efficient interaction, to manifestation of students' internally free educational activities, to their self-regulation and self-development. The questioning revealed changes in the manifestation of the students' subject position (dynamics - 20%) and value self-determination to the pedagogical profession (dynamics - 35%).

Conclusion

Summing up, the pedagogical conditions in each plane of the model of self-realization – axiological, informational-epistemological, activity – are aimed at the achievement of a definite goal, are provided by the pedagogical accompaniment of the process of actualization of the student's aspiration for self-realization and are determined by the respective organizational forms. In this case, the matrix arrangement of the above-mentioned planes in the model displays the set of possible individual trajectories of student self-realization. They determine the nature and scope of the student's educational activities and attitudes. At the level of relations there are professional-personal attitude, motives, students’ aspirations for professional-pedagogical activity; at the level of actions their personal and professional qualities are manifested. The nature of student’s self-realization is defined as creative in constant search for ways to self-development, and as a reproductive one, when a normatively given educational and professional process is carried out.

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