Dr.Hab., Associate Professor V.A. Anisimova
PhD, Associate professor L.A. Dragovoz
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: actualization, educational initiative, physical education specialists, components.

Introduction. In the modern context, education as a social institution is gaining undeniable significance: it is obvious that the prospects of state development depend largely on the scope, efficiency and quality of education. For this reason, the world society is actively reconsidering the stance on all types and standards of education. According to the Federal law “On Education”, legislative acts and other legal documents of the Russian Federation, the primary objective of professional education is training of a qualified, competent and responsible employee who suits the required standard, has excellent professional skills, is able to meet competition being conversant with the related fields of professional activities; besides, the future employee should be capable of and motivated for constant career advancement and willing to cover personal needs for receiving appropriate education. Certified specialists not only have skills in working with large quantities of information, but also are able to extract and attain new ideas and experience from it as well as to build complex cognitive processes independently. Professional self-determination of students should result in psychological readiness for vocational activities and capacity for self-development. Professional and social success of a specialist is built on the creative initiative development progress, which forms the research competency in the field of future vocational activities; such competency is the overall aim of all modern educational programs [1, 6].

The issues and objectives listed above fully relate to higher physical education too. Two groups of factors influence the efficiency of education: external and internal. External factors include: development of sport science, level of science-practice integration, experience level of teaching personnel, availability of high-quality gear and equipment, substantial material and technical resources. Internal factors comprise the future specialist’s intention of receiving thorough professional education and professional growth; focus on educational values motivating for self-discipline and self-education. Thus, increasing the students’ activity and creative potential is the issue of great significance.

We use the concepts “actualization” and “initiative” as the reference points in our study. In the national psychological tradition, the concept “actualization” is closely related to the concept “actualization of relation”, stands for implementation of untapped knowledge, skills, abilities, various behavior patterns, emotional states and specific mental processes (ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc.) that an individual (a person or animal) technically has and transition of these qualities and characteristics from the dormant, i.e. potential, state to the real action [4: p. 22]. In pedagogics, actualization is an act of retrieving the acquired information from long- or short-term memory for the further implementation after recognition, recall and reproduction of this information [8: p.7]. The concept “actualization” is closely associated with “self-actualization”, which consists in consideration of certain aspects of a person’s self-development. Content analysis of the concept “personal initiative” provides an opportunity to deduce the common points of the concepts “actualization” and “personal initiative”. “Personal initiative” stands for creative activity, volition, communication and is therefore construed as a proactive attitude towards the world, the ability of a person to bring about socially significant changes in material and spiritual cultures on the basis of social and historical experience and practice of mankind. As a mechanism of personal development, actualization means the transition of a specialist’s potential resources to practical capabilities and consists of two components [4, 8]:

1) the Content component determines specific personal characteristics, which are considered to be potential if not recognized by an individual and not implemented in any type of activity; 

2) the Procedural component indicates the actions revealing and actualizing these characteristics. 

The concept “initiative” conveys two meanings: a) impulse, inner incentive towards new types of activities; b) entrepreneurial spirit, ability to take self-sufficient vigorous actions. “Pedagogical initiative” is creative activities (that are not part of the official job description) of the teaching personnel, which are aimed at establishment of new educational practice. Pedagogical initiative and pedagogical innovation involve various types and levels of educational experiment [7: p. 247].

Objective of the study was to identify the problems of actualization of teaching initiative among physical education specialists.

Methods and structure of the study. Analysis and overview of scientific and methodological sources allows for consideration of actualization of the teaching initiative among physical education specialists in context of actualization as a process reflecting internal and external frameworks of regulation. On the one hand, such an approach is determined by a constant and ongoing process of transition from “potential” to “actual” (internal development); on the other hand, this is due to interaction between a person and the surrounding world as a scene of vocational education. The internal process reflected in a person’s social performance acts as the external process; thus, actualization is always intentional, which suggests that it can be considered in the context of various interrelationships between an individual and the outside world, including the person’s attitude towards professional pedagogical activities and the objectives of understanding these activities as an exploratory process [5].

Actualization of the specialist’s teaching activities in the field of physical education is determined by the framework of these activities. For this purpose, the study examines not only the theoretical background of actualization, but also its technical aspects. Moreover, functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization were considered on the basis of processual parameters set by the concept-based psychological and pedagogical approach [1, 3, 5].  

Results and discussion. In broad terms, our study represents the subject matter of functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization as three principal substructures based on structural-functional invariant of pedagogical activities (SFI PA) developed by L.M. Kustov [2]:

1) objective of actualization – study components: a) initial status of the initiative activities of teaching personnel (subject of activity); b) target status of the initiative activities of teaching personnel (outcome of activity); c) transition from the initial to the target statuses as a complex of intermediate pedagogical goals gradually achieved through implementation of the framework of the teaching initiative actualization within the system of higher physical education; 

2) means of actualization – study components: a) complex of approved instruments of influence; b) complex of approved diagnostic instruments; c) complex of methods corresponding to the chosen instruments;  

3) conditions of actualization – study components: a) forms of organization of activities aimed at constructing and reconstructing pedagogical objects under the professional education program completion (or advanced vocational training) by PE specialists; b) forms of diagnostics for achieving the target actualization status degree under professional education program completion. 

The listed structural-functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization are included into the frameworks of internal and external regulation (see Table 1 below): internal regulation – components: cognitive (representations), personal experience (knowledge), intentional (motivation, goals), operational (strategies, mental action plans), internal conditions (abilities), internal standards (needs); external regulation – components: subjects, processes, outcomes, means, methods, external conditions, external standards (evaluation). 

Table 1. Functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization

By summarizing the functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization, we have confirmed the assumption about the need for standardization of psychological and pedagogical training programs for PE specialists aimed at developing teaching initiative activities: a) based on the specifics of processual actualization and the concept of pedagogical initiative; b) based on the framework of educational and professional standards; c) based on the balanced acquirement and arrangement of pedagogical initiative activities in the course of professional education program (or advanced vocational training).

In the context of criteria choice for the teaching initiative actualization, on the one hand, these principles should be focused on professional education system development, and, on the other hand, on self-actualization of the PE specialists: adoption of professional actualization values; supporting the freedom of personal values (“internality”); time competency; d) capacity for systematic perspective and projection of a pedagogical scenario; e) capacity to adopt modern pedagogical techniques; f) creativity in professional practice. 

Conclusion. Variety of approaches to the “actualization” term definition reveals that it is the process determined by the effectiveness of potential teaching initiative transition to the real-life initiative teaching activities based on social and cultural mechanisms of constructing and reconstructing pedagogical objects, which, in turn, result in self-actualization of PE teachers and more effective development of their professional skills and abilities. “Pedagogical initiative” denotes teaching activity built upon voluntary decision and targeted towards improvement and development of the current educational practice. The listed functional components of the PE specialist’s teaching initiative actualization are the constituent elements of personal and professional development system.

References

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Corresponding author: dissovet-2006@rambler.ru

Abstract

Objective of the paper was to consider the issue of actualization of the PE specialists’ teaching initiative.

Basic theoretical positions on the issue of the PE specialists’ teaching initiative actualization are defended in the paper; initiative pedagogical activities of the PE specialists are represented as a factor of their professional development. The concepts “actualization” and “initiative” are analyzed within the framework of national and foreign pedagogics. Structural and functional components of the PE specialists’ teaching initiative actualization are deduced; these components are included in the frameworks of internal and external regulation. Three principal substructures based on the structural-functional invariant of pedagogical activities are given in the paper.