Recently, in the education system, one can increasingly come across such a term as “open education”, or OO. That is why it is worth figuring out what phenomena and concepts are behind it, what scientists, practitioners and educators put into it?
Objectivity of appearance
The system of open education has become a consequence of the processes of globalization, democratization and humanization of society. It was they who allowed this category to appear in the educational process.
Open education is the result of a historical evolutionary path of development and formation of an information civilization. It is also an integral part of it, independent of the government's policy in the field of educating citizens.
Open education is the most rational synthesis of the most well-known forms of knowledge acquisition based on the use of telecommunication and communication technologies. This process, which is called convergence, is natural and objective. A similar trend is inherent in the phenomena and objects of the real world,developing in the context of informatization. It can be seen especially clearly in the development of the means by which the use of information technology becomes real. A prime example of this is the computer. It combines the functions of a receiver and a TV that are unusual for it. By the way, the latter also becomes a rather complex programmable electronic device, which in its functionality approaches a computer. Based on this, it can be assumed that in the future all existing forms of education will move into one, which will be called, for example, virtual.
Need for OO
Open education is one of the qualitative characteristics of the modern educational process. Today, its use is essential for society. After all, if five decades ago, the worker who was able to perform typical operations clearly and according to the instructions provided was of value, today the specialist who is able to offer a non-standard product created by him comes to the fore. And this is a necessary condition for the successful work of not only the head of a large corporation, but also, for example, a chef in a cafe. Any employee should be able to analyze the situation as a whole and find the best solution that will be most effective for the current situation. In addition, it is important for an employee to be able to play various scenarios and compare them to make the right decisions.
Another reason to introduce open education is to change the attitude towards the game. Previouslyit was considered necessary, but at the same time only a child's occupation. Today, the use of game forms is becoming commonplace in many communities and professions.
Open education is what allows a modern schoolchild and student to communicate not only with his classmate, housemate or peer. It makes it easy to connect with students living in other countries. The reason for such communication is the unity of hobbies and interests. Such communities have existed before. Examples of this are chess and philatelic correspondence clubs, amateur radio networks, etc. Nevertheless, the world continues to globalize. And thanks to computer technology, participation in such communities is becoming more accessible.
Thus, in connection with the changes that have taken place in human society, the system of open education is quite relevant. After all, it allows the student to be included in modern forms of life and professional practices.
Performing tasks
The essence of open education lies in the fact that schoolchildren and students get the opportunity to:
- Solve the real problems he proposes.
- Feel responsible.
- Experiment with your own status and social role.
- Conduct independent construction of their life strategies and the world of knowledge, highlighting in it ethical and logical principles, as well as priorities and values.
Today, the organization of open education is considered an addition to traditional education. However, such a systemhas significant differences from sections, studios and circles that duplicate school classroom lessons. OO takes the form of online clubs and communities, as well as intense immersions. At the same time, it is very important that all this does not go by itself. Each of the online communities is pre-designed and subsequently managed.
Structure
When studying the characteristics of open education, it becomes clear that its main unit is the curriculum. However, this is not any plan (by lesson or activities). A learning program in the field of open education is a way of programming events that occur with its participant. It sets the student a task that is both a task and an image of what should happen to them as a result. At the same time, a schoolboy or student is invited to do something that was simply impossible to do before, or to come up with something that no one has yet come up with. This assignment is open. This allows you to do it differently each time.
For an open educational event, you will need the appropriate space. It is an intensive communication, the construction of which is carried out around one topic. This may be a common cultural field, a common circle of music, films, reading, etc., in which the schoolchild or student understands what he is listening to. And he looks not for evaluation, but in order to reveal the general meaning of the information offered.
Ideally, open education is hosted on a platform of pages and sites insocial networks. At the same time, it is a system of information, pedagogical and organizational technologies in which protocols and formats for information exchange are provided with structural and architectural solutions. All of them are necessary to ensure stability, interoperability and mobility, efficiency, and other positive qualities of TOE elements.
Functionally, the system of open education includes a number of subsystems. Among them:
- Managing the learning process. These are functions designed to create timetables, curricula, educational and methodological support for the process of obtaining knowledge, as well as their control.
- Administrative and managerial. With the help of this subsystem, teams, resources, contacts, projects are managed, and databases are replenished with instructions and orders.
- Technical. This subsystem contains telecommunications and office equipment, consulting and classrooms, multimedia laboratories, etc.
- Personnel. Its functions consist in the formation and maintenance of personal files of students, teachers and employees of the educational institution.
- Financial. This subsystem is necessary for accounting. In the system of higher open education, it is entrusted with the task of supporting contracts and projects.
- Marketing. It is especially relevant for open vocational education. Such a subsystem is designed to identify the needs of enterprises in specialists, maintain databases for their training andcarry out promotional activities.
- Legal. Necessary for legal support of contractual activity.
- Informational. The tasks of this subsystem are extensive. The main one is the information support of the classes.
OO principles
This form of obtaining knowledge is used relatively recently. Nevertheless, studies conducted on its study made it possible to formulate the basic principles of open education. Among them:
- Personally oriented direction of educational programs. This principle takes into account the educational needs of students and implements a marketing approach to the process of obtaining knowledge.
- Practical orientation of the ways and content of joint activities. Here we mean the integrity and consistency of activities and the educational process.
- Problem of learning and its dialogical nature.
- Reflexivity. This principle is expressed in students' awareness of the methods and content of activities, as well as their personal changes.
- Variability. This principle lies in the variety of educational programs. The material presented to students should reflect different points of view on the problem posed, as well as many options for solving it.
- Sustaining motivation.
- Modular block. This principle concerns the organization of the content of student activities and educational programs.
At present, the contours of the entire system of national open education are becoming more and more visible. Itbegins to be regarded as an organic and rational combination of all forms of obtaining knowledge known to pedagogical science. At the same time, educational and information technologies and the educational and methodological base of any educational institution allow the use of OO regardless of whether the entire process is full-time, part-time, remote, etc. In the case when the necessary material, as well as all didactic manuals, are designed in the proper form and placed in the PC, it does not matter where such knowledge will be submitted. It can be either one audience or a computer of a person who is outside not only the city, but also the country.
Among the principles of open education for higher education institutions, the following are also distinguished:
- The possibility of non-competitive admission to a university
- Self-study planning, which allows you to make an individual program selected from the course system.
- The ability to choose the pace of learning and time, as there are no fixed terms of study.
- The ability to skip classrooms and study wherever you want.
- The transition from movement to knowledge to the reverse process, when knowledge is delivered to the student.
- Freedom to develop individuality.
Principles of open education (distance) are additionally included in the following:
- Interactivity. This principle reflects the peculiarities of contacts between teachers and students, as well as between students.
- Activities. In this case, the content of the materials and the organization of the learning process are considered. All of these factors should be built in such a way as to surround the main activities of students and form a supportive friendly environment.
- Customization. This principle consists in the assessment of starting knowledge, as well as their input and current control.
- Identification. This principle lies in the control of independent learning.
- Regularity. The educational process is subject to strict control in its planning, and it must also be open and flexible.
Any system, including open education at the municipal level, is inherent in the principle of openness. It indicates the presence of feedback from the external environment. This principle is typical for all education systems, including open ones. This principle is especially clearly manifested during the period when human society enters a new, informational stage of its development. In the case of OO, it allows you to raise the process of obtaining knowledge to the level of social creativity. By integrating the most valuable of what has been developed by science, open education can become the basis for the further active development of civilization.
OO Technologies
It is unlikely that global changes will be carried out in the country without the modernization of the education system and its effective renewal and development. This will make it possible to embody the principle of open education. Unfortunately, many educators understand it as connecting educational institutions to the Internet and creating access to a PC for students, andalso conducting basic training of schoolchildren and students in the main areas of application of communication and information technologies. However, one can only partially agree with this.
Of course, the platform of open education is the Internetization of educational institutions. Nevertheless, this topic should be considered in its broader sense. After all, the main goal of obtaining knowledge in the field of OO is the possibility of using them in a variety of life situations, as well as the ability to make the most effective decisions in the event of certain problems. In order to successfully implement these tasks, open education technologies are used. We will consider the main ones in more detail.
Debate
This is an international technology, the purpose of which is to teach tolerance, as well as respect for the different views of interlocutors and the ability to work successfully in a team. Such an educational technique allows you to form partnership communication skills and the student's ability to concentrate on the very essence of problems, defend their ideas, find the necessary information and turn it into arguments.
Educational technology "Debate" originated in the 30s of the last century in the United States. To date, it has found its wide distribution and is used in schools and universities in more than a hundred countries around the world. Outwardly, this technology is a discussion, but it is only organized in a playful way. Two people take part in the debateteams of three. The teacher gives them a topic to discuss. During the discussions, there is a clash of opinions, since one team, according to the rules of the game, must defend a certain thesis, while the other must reject it.
Those students who participated in the debates indicate that the program has given them the skills they need to succeed. This technology of open education can be applied both at school and beyond. The presence of competition elements in it allows stimulating the search and creative activity of students, as well as a thorough study of the material they study.
Developing critical thinking through reading and writing
This is one of the core technologies of open education. It, like the previous one, is universal. With its application, any subject teacher can work effectively with students of various ages - from elementary school to university students.
This technology uses the basics of pedagogical practice, relying on reading and writing, which are the basic processes of any kind of knowledge acquisition. Its application allows:
- simultaneously solve the problems of both learning and development;
- harmoniously combine the students' communication skills with the skills of working with text material;
- to form students' ability to master large amounts of information.
The application of this technology involves the passage of three stages - a call,comprehension and reflection. The first of them allows students to generalize and update their knowledge on the proposed topic. It awakens interest in its study and motivates to gain knowledge.
At the stage of comprehension, the teacher offers new information. This stage involves matching what you hear with your own knowledge.
At the stage of reflection, students need to take stock and develop their own attitude to the material being studied. At the same time, an unknown problem or topic for further work is identified. She is a new challenge. It is carried out at the stage of reflection and analysis of the process of studying the entire material. This technology of open education is successfully used not only in this area, but also in any educational process.
Project method
The main technologies of open education discussed above are a continuation of the traditions of pedagogical methods, with the help of which at different times an attempt was made to overcome the boundary between study and extracurricular activities. This can be done using the project method. When it is applied, the student ceases to formally acquire knowledge. He acquires them through direct planning, as well as the execution of steadily increasing tasks.
Implementation of the project method is possible using two directions:
- Dewey method. In those schools that have switched to work on this technology, there are no permanent curricula. Students are taught only the knowledge they need to gain life experience. Apart fromTherefore, teachers do not have a separation between educational and extracurricular activities. They strive to build the process of obtaining knowledge in such a way that the work of students is organized in a social environment in the form of group projects.
- D alton plan. This technology can be called the method of individualized projects. When using it, students are not bound by common group or class work. They have the right to choose for themselves classes, as well as the order of study of academic subjects. Freedom is also granted in the use of working time. The entire volume of the educational material that is to be studied during the year is divided into contracts or monthly sections. They, in turn, are divided into daily classes. Before the start of the school year, students enter into a kind of contract with the teacher, which provides for the independent study of a particular task at the scheduled time. This process can take place not only in school, but also outside it. Thus, students begin to work in the system of open education.
Changing the pedagogical system
The use of the principles and technologies of open education leads to transformations in the learning process. The pedagogical system is undergoing the following changes:
- The logic of scientific knowledge ceases to be the basis of the content of the educational process. Instead, professional tasks come to the fore. Thanks to this, open education contributes to the transition from the subject principle used in the construction of the educational process tointegrated training courses that reflect a holistic picture of any professional activity.
- There is a change in the nature of knowledge itself. The criterion for its receipt is “under activity”. Knowledge in the OO system is a means of solving certain professional problems. But at the same time, one should not assume that fundamental skills completely disappear in such a system. They remain, but at the same time they begin to meet completely different criteria. Knowledge in such a system is not obtained for the future. They are given on the basis of real needs and problems arising in practical activities. Methodological (universal) knowledge is also of particular importance. With their help, the student is able to assess the future and predict it.
- The requirements for the forms and methods of organizing the educational process are changing. Group and active individual forms of work with subject material come to the fore.
The type of activity is changing, as well as the nature of the relationship that takes place between teachers and students. The student becomes a full-fledged subject of the educational process, taking part in solving not only educational and professional, but also his own professional tasks, which he solves thanks to the necessary assistance of the teacher.
To master the OO system, you can refer to the resource of the Center for Open Education. It provides online services for additional education for teachers.
