L.M. Kulikova, professor, Dr.Hab.
L.M. Kulikov, professor, Dr.Hab.
Ural state university of physical culture, Chelyabinsk

Key words: independent work, students, practical training, professional qualifications.

Introduction. The current socio-economic conditions of social development make high demands to the quality of training of future bachelors and masters with higher education. In conditions of market economy, university graduates must quickly adapt to new working conditions and take their own decisions in many aspects of work. In particular, in elite sport the winners are those who find their innovative ways and methods, different from others. Independent work during university studies helps a lot to students to elaborate such decisions.

Students 'self-instruction has been actively studied as part of continuous and multi-level education (T.A. Voronova, I.L. Naumchenko); as a means of individualization of students' education (V.A. Bessonova, N.V. Kuz’mina, R.F. Zhukov, Yu.N. Parakhodov, L.B. Sosnovskaya) - the problem of control of self-instruction is being developed (N.F. Talyzina, A.A. Rean, A.M. Gasanov, E.V. Gapon).

The founders of the study of self-instruction of students in domestic didactics are B.P. Esipov, M.N. Skatkin, P.I. Pidkasisty.

The term "independent work" is used in the literature in various definitions:

• A way to customize training (V.A. Kurchatov, V.R. Rizaev, V. Glyavin, V.A. Ermakov);
• A specific form of organization of the educational process;
• A form of group work of students under the teacher’s guidance;
• Means and component of creative cognitive activity (V.P. Tarantey, V.M. Roginskiy), focused on the formation of skills and abilities of the intellectual labor, deeper professional knowledge, development of research methods (A.M. Doroshkevich, S.N. Zaytseva, E.A. Sheudzhen) that put a student in the conditions of substantive practice (L.M. Luzina).

Independent work facilitates formation of professional qualifications, ensures the process of development of methodological maturity, self-organizational and self-control skills.

Student’s independent work within practical training is assumed to be a type of student's educational activity intended for training of activity, conscious self-development and efficient, learning of new skills and qualities useful in professional, research and creative activities.

The transition to the two-level system of education presupposes considerable increase of the part of student’s independent work. It requires the introduction into practice of the curricula with an excess share of independent activity, new approaches to organization of various independent activities and introduction of unconventional teaching technologies.

We consider the organization of SIW during practical training as a system of measures to train activity and independence as personality traits, to acquire the skills to get useful information efficiently, to use it in work. All this enables us to consider independent work, on the one hand, as a type of activity, stimulating activity, independence, cognitive interest, on the other hand - as a basis for self-education, self-improvement, an impetus to further development of professional competences in conditions very close to professional work.

The objectives of the organization of SIW during practical training are:

• development of cognitive activity;
• formation of professional competences;
• formation of the stable interest in chosen profession;
• development of responsibility for decisions taken, development of creative attitude to work.

The basic principles of the organization of SIW within practical training are the principles of:

• prototype of the future professional activity;
• self-organization, individualization;
• reliance on basic knowledge, integration of theory with practice;
• advanced training, feedback;
• external control and self-assessment; scientific character;
• accessibility.

Let us consider two, in our opinion, most important principles.

The first principle - the principle of prototype of students' future work. He has a specific goal - development of the high level of skills of professional competences starting from the first phase of higher education. In our opinion, the system of university education should be subordinated to this fundamental principle. This creates an opportunity, and most importantly - the need for student’s productive thinking and creative activity, extends the dialogue form of communication between a methodologist and a student. The implementation of this principle is an optimally organized practical training, which is held in the actual professional practice.

The second principle – the principle of self-organization of students' educational and professional activities. The given model employee in the field of physical culture is a kind of student’s role. The effect of student and methodist's mutual compensatory activity is obtained by implementing this very principle in practice. Since self-organization as such does not accept once and for all set schemes, as the considered principle enables to quickly assess the extent of implementation of the set target and conduct a rapid adjustment of the goals and objectives of professional development of each student in accordance with his needs and certain level of professional competences.

The goal of student’s independent work (SIW) withib practical training is getting basic knowledge, professional competences, creative experience and research work.

Materials and methods. SIW within practical training promotes development of independence, cognitive activity, creative attitude to work, responsibility for taken decisions. Herewith, independent work requires general educational skills from students, providing the ability to plan this work, set accurately the system of objectives, allocate main ones out of them, skillfully choose the ways of the most rapid economical solutions of set tasks, analyze the results of work, make quick adjustments [1, P. 112]. It is no accident independent work during practical training is a specific pedagogical instrument of organization and management of students' independent work. It is accompanied by the implementation of different practical, research and creative tasks, ways of cognitive and professional activity, formation of skills and abilities of creative work and professional skills.

In respect to structure, we divide students’ independent work during practical training into two parts: work organized by a methodist within the implementation of the program of practice, and the work that goes beyond the development of this program - performance by students of creative and project tasks to participate in competitions and conferences organization of diverse forms of sports contests.

The first type includes practice and scientific-research, and the second - creative work. These types of SIW are interrelated and interdependent. Practical independent work is definitely in the core.

In practical independent work a student (Bachelor and Master) develops professional competences:

- in preparing and organizing PE lessons, ETC, lectures, practical exercises;

- in preparing methodological materials for the educational process;

- in conducting a pedagogical analysis of lessons, ETC, lectures, skill building sessions for fellow students and professionals of practice bases;

- in preparing of documents for staging events (schedule of preparation and staging of competitions, conditions, estimate, report);

- in preparing and organizing of physical culture and mass sports activities;

- in preparing and participating in educational work in a class, school, group, specialized children’s sport school;

- in the daily reflection of practical training in a trainee’s diary for the period of practice in general;

- in preparing and defending of practical results (report, presentation, public speaking) and participating in it.

In scientific-research independent work a student acquires competences:

- in work with special and scientific literature;

- in carrying out and designing materials of scientific experiment;

- in analyzing, estimating and interpreting results of experimental work;

- in writing an article for a scientific conference;

- in a public speech with the obligatory presentation on the research problem;

- in preparing a glossary on the developed scientific problem;

- in writing a review of a scientific paper on the problem of research.

Practical and scientific-research work are of mainly educational purpose and form professional competences of a future expert in physical culture.

In a creative independent work a student shows himself as an intellectual personality:

- participating in professional contests ("Pedagogical debut", "Step into profession", "Theory – to practice");

- participating in the competition for the best reporting documentation (contest held on 5th courses);

- participating in the contest "Promotion of healthy way of life, formation of anti-drug outlook among children and adolescents” (for 3-4 year students);

- participating in high school, regional and national theoretical-practical conferences (5 conferences a year, conducted by the department of practical training);

- developing and implementing creative projects "Healthy lifestyle - the national security of the country", "Sport starts with a game", "Sports summer" and together with a group "Start" - "Come out to play", "Run after me".

During practical training a methodist holds weekly methodical classes to perform specific tasks, evaluation criteria of quality of work, deadlines and forms of control of independent work.

34 to 60 % of senior students practice in the place of their future work, up to 30% - are trained on individual schedules. 20% extramural students can be attributed to this category. With such students independent work is organized in the interactive form, providing in weekly blocks of practical tasks. The tasks are checked online using special means of online communication between a methodist or course supervisor and a student undergoing practical training, or by email.

During practice we conducted a questionnaire of 3 138 4 -year students specializing in "Physical culture". They answered the question "How many hours a day do you spend on independent work during practice?". And here are the answers (Tab. 1).

Table 1. Students’ time spent on independent work during practical training (per day)

Students	SIW a day in hours
	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Number of students	18	43	43	0	15	11	8
Number of students, %	13	31,2	31,2	0	10,9	7,9	5,8

On the basis of the analysis of the data of Table 1, we can note that 62,4% of students spend 3-4 hours on IW, 24,6% - from 6-8 hours and 13 % - 2 hours a day. Thus, the overwhelming number of respondents spent on CP 18-24 hours a week. As stated by FSES, the time spend on SIW should be at least 18 hours a week. Only 13 % of students did not fully comply with this standard - 12 hours versus 18 hours. The rest 24,6% of students, initiative and active, exceed the required standard of the time spend on independent work.

For efficient organization of SIW a series of pedagogical conditions is performed.

The first condition is methodically effective organization of work. It is important to gradually change the relationship between a student and a methodist. If during practical training in the 2nd and 3rd courses the methodist has an active constructive position and a student undergoing practical training is more often driven, in the 4th course and during the master’s course this sequence is deformed in the direction of student's independent work and strive for self-education [2, P. 135-136].

The second condition for effective students' independent work is the development of methodists’ professional qualifications. It is important to note that the students 'independent work is mediated by methodists' qualifications [2, P. 125]. Therefore, speaking of high qualification of graduates one needs to meet the challenges of professional self-improvement of methodists:

• constantly comprehend and master the professional language of communication with students;
• accumulate and generalize individual experience to guide independent work of students undergoing practical training;
• to conduct methodological work with students;
• to engage in research and teaching self-education;
• to use the path of cooperation with students, taking into account their needs and creating the conditions for independent work.

The participation in the "Methodist School", which seeks to address urgent problems in the methodist professional activity promotes the development of professional competency of methodists.

The third condition is to provide necessary teaching materials for students. In conditions of practical training the practical program is essential, which is the main mechanism of its particular type, determining the content of education, practical training, organization, regulation of students' load and providing methodological support. Students can use the university library of the department of practical training and methodics department of the base organization that have a lot of specialized, educational and methodological literature. When preparing for different types of practical training the educational laboratories: "Laboratory of pedagogical design", "Laboratory of design of professional activity", "Educational Workshop "Orlenka”" are functioning, providing students with teaching aids necessary for work.

During practice distance consulting and methodical support is organized, which includes 4-6-10 methodical consultations (according to the number of weeks of practice) on the content of practice, the requirements for its organization and passing, registration of results in professional, scientific and creative activities, preparation for public defense of practical work.

It is to be marked that students can get an online personal consultation of the course leader using Skype, online-resources of Yandex.ru, mail.ru. This form is particularly relevant for extramural students, those studying within an individual schedule and practicing in the place of future work.

The fourth condition of effective CDS under practical training is to control the quality of CDS during professional development.

The monitoring of results of CDS of trainees is performed during practical training in accordance with its program, section № 2 "The structure and content of practical training" in the score-rating system [3, P. 12-18]. It is held in conjunction with the current control and implementing the final control in practical training.

The evaluation criteria of the results of independent work of a student undergoing practical training are:

1)     the level of professional competences;

2)    the level of development of constructive, prognostic, reflective skills;

3)    the quality of execution of records in accordance with the requirements;

4)    proficiency in computer technologies;

5)    the manifestation of the creative approach to independent work;

6)    the level of responsibility for their independent work, self-organization of independent cognitive activity.

Monitoring helps a student to master the theoretical material methodically correctly, within minimal time, to learn professional skills to solve specific practical tasks, to be creative and responsible to his actions.

Results and discussion. By the results of the practical training we got the following data (Tab. 2).

Table 2. Estimation of results of SIW

Skill levels	Indices by criteria of SIW
	1	2	3	4	5	6
Optimal	62,8	76,7	44,45	72,0	83,7	27,2
Acceptable	32,2	20,9	44,45	28,0	13,9	56,6
Critical	5,5	2,4	11,1	-	2,4	16,2
Unacceptable	-	-	-	-	-	-

2,4 to 16,2% of students out of 138, who performed IW during practical training, showed the critical level in the allocated criteria. The rest 83,8% had an optimal and acceptable levels, which proves the efficiency of organization of SIW within practical training and the quality of qualification of future workers of the sphere of physical culture and sport.

Conclusion. The increase of the share of student’s independent work in the course of practical training is specific for all universities and is a steady trend. In the course of independent work knowledge are being acquired, competences in professional and research and creative activities are being formed, along with sustained interest in the chosen profession, clear self-image and personal competences in the future activity, without which training of a competent bachelor or master of physical education is impossible.

References

1. Anisimova, V.A. Formation in students of university of physical culture of readiness for self-education: Ph.D. thesis / V.A. Anisimova: UralSAPC. – Chelyabinsk, 2003. – 178 P. (In Russian)
2. Kulikova, L.M. Vocational training of students of university of physical culture: monograph / L.M. Kulikova. – Chelyabinsk: UralSUPC, 2012. – 269 P. (In Russian)
3. Kulikova, L.M. Vocationally focused bachelor’s practice on the specialization “Physical culture” in specialized children’s sport school / L.M. Kulikova. – Chelyabinsk: Ural Academy, 2011. – 48 P. (In Russian)

Author's contacts: natali74l@mail.ru