-The article discusses the innovative process of preparing curricula within enlarged groups of specialties (areas of training) with the integration of general disciplines into a stream. This method provides a reduction in the total load, as well as simplification of the automation processes for the preparation of the curriculum.
The modern educational process in most universities is characterised by a significant set of specialities, areas of training, and profiles of areas of training for future graduates. This can be explained by the diversity of desires of applicants and their parents in choosing a future profession, as well as the need of the national economy for a wide range of highly specialised graduates. Therefore, in almost every university there is a need for a significant number of groups of up to 15 students. Since the curriculum is compiled separately for each speciality, field of study or profile of training, then in the whole university this leads to a significant increase in the study load.
On the 15th January 2020, President of Russia V.V. Putin
gave the Address to the Federal Assembly, wherein he set
the task “to enable second-year students to choose a new
direction or study programme, including related professions”
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One of the solutions to this problem for enlarged groups of training areas may be the digital organisation of the educational process proposed by the authors, which ensures the integration of small groups into streams in the first two courses.
The problem of increasing the workload is observed not only separately in each area of training, but also within the enlarged groups of areas of training. A large number of small groups of students for whom one has to give lectures and conduct practical exercises in all subjects of the curriculum throughout the learning process leads to low profitability of the university as a whole. In this context, the task arises of optimising the costs of implementing educational programmes and organising the educational process at a university.
The existing problem of small groups and small flows that reduce the cost-effectiveness of training students, both with budget funding and with paid tuition, prompt universities to look for alternative ways to solve it. Attempts to reduce the diversity of specialities, areas or profiles of student training lead to a decrease in the attractiveness of the university in the eyes of applicants and their parents, nor does alternating the recruitment of applicants for different areas of training by year have the desired effect.
According to the authors, one alternative that has a significant prospect for solving the existing problem of small groups (streams), is to change the organisation of the educational process for those enlarged groups of specialities, where all specialities, areas of training and training profiles combined into enlarged groups are concentrated in one faculty (institute) of a specific university.
In this context, taking into account the opportunities provided by the higher education institutions of the last generation, the authors propose changing the process of developing curricula for preparing students within large groups of specialities, where possible. Of course, in each case, the decision on the possibility of using the proposed method remains with the developers of the curriculum.
The authors' experience in the period from 1998 to the present shows that the proposed change in the organisation of the educational process is quite possible.
As an illustration, to consider the proposed changes, we consider the block diagrams of the generally accepted curriculum development for an enlarged group and that proposed by the authors (Fig. 1).
For each enlarged group of specialities/areas of training, you can draw up curricula that will differ only in the disciplines of the main cycle necessary for this speciality (field of study or profile of training).
For example, for the specialities “Publishing and Editing” and “Book Distribution”, you can teach the disciplines of auxiliary cycles in one stream and for separate students only when studying disciplines of the main cycle.
To test the proposed curriculum compilation scheme, the authors developed standard curricula in the form of network graphs for the specialities of “Publishing and Editing” and “Book Distribution”, which provide for the passage of all general educational disciplines for all students of this enlarged group of specialities in one stream. The division of students into groups occurs only when studying special disciplines, and thus, a significant reduction in the total load in an enlarged group of specialities is achieved. An illustration of integrative graphs of professional competence is presented in Fig. 2.
An analysis of the curricula developed in the form of network graphs shows that, in this case, not only is a reduction in the overall load achieved, but there is also the possibility of significantly simplifying the automation processes for scheduling semesters. А Fig. 1. Curriculum development schemes (A – generally accepted; B – proposed). B
The graphs of the educational process are developed for the entire period of study and are directed from one semester to another, which makes it possible to create time-oriented procedures for scheduling for a semester, academic year, and even for the entire training period.
The graphs not only take into account the actual process of conducting classes but also allow you to determine the time (start and end of work) for the timely preparation of the necessary teaching materials for a quality training process, starting from work programmes, term papers, practical and laboratory work and documentation for them, practices, and the preparation and protection of final qualifying work.
From the illustration of the network graphs of the curricula of the specialties “Publishing and Editing” and “Book Distribution” belonging to one enlarged group, it can be seen that in the first semester of the 7 disciplines taught in this enlarged group, in six disciplines, students can be combined into one flow, in the second semester - 6, in the third - 8, etc. These data are shown in table 1.
From the illustration of the network graphs of the curricula of the specialities “Publishing and Editing” and “Book Distribution” belonging to one enlarged group, it can be seen that in the first semester of the seven disciplines taught in this enlarged group, in six disciplines, students can be combined into one flow, six in the second semester, eight in the third, etc. These data are shown in Table 1.
An analysis of the Federal State Educational Standards of
Higher Education (3 ++) in the areas of undergraduate
“Media and Information and Library Science” [
Having examined the plans existing for 2019-2020 at Samara University, we see that in the compulsory disciplines “Philosophy” and “History (Russian history, general history)” the number of hours provided for the study of these disciplines coincides and equals 108 hours (Table 2) Consequently, we can safely talk about combining these The number of hours provided for the study of the discipline 108 108 Semester
I II III IV V VI VII VII
IX disciplines into a stream and reading each of them in one stream.
In the discipline “Life Safety” the number of hours for this discipline does not coincide in all areas of training. To be able to teach this discipline also in one thread, it is necessary to equalise the number of hours for this discipline.
Subject
Philosophy
The same can be done for disciplines that are compulsory in these areas of training and are included in the block of compulsory disciplines, for example, the disciplines “Modern Russian Language” and “Russian Language in Professional Activities” (Table 3).
For this, the authors propose the following algorithm (Fig.3).
Let there be i main directions of training i ϵ (1, n) with j ϵ (1, m) identical disciplines. To draw up a digitalised curriculum for the entire course of study, we divide the work by year and for each academic year, we teg all academic disciplines with an indication of their volume (load) by year of study.
1. Choose the j-th discipline the same for all i-th areas of training.
2. We have the i-th direction of training as the hours of load in the selected j-th discipline increase.
The number of hours provided for the study of the discipline The number of hours provided for the study of the discipline 180 108 108 108 108 108 108 108 108 72 72 108 72 180 216 0 72 72 0 72
3. We determine the i-th direction of training with the selected j-th discipline having the maximum load Sijmax.
4. We determine the difference in loads for the selected jth discipline in the listed i areas of training:
Sijmax– Sij = Δij 5. Equalise the load of each ij-th discipline by the value of its difference Δij to the value of Sijmax by reducing the load of optional disciplines of the same curriculum.
6. We approve the received volumes of loads on the recalculated mandatory j-th disciplines of each i-th direction of preparation of this enlarged group.
7. We approve the received loads of optional disciplines of this enlarged group
The modern labour market is changing dynamically, presenting more and more challenges to higher education. New professions are constantly appearing and requirements for existing ones are becoming more complicated; therefore, higher education must respond flexibly and quickly to these questions.
The authors proposed a way to digitalise the educational process; in particular, computer optimisation of curricula in all areas of preparation of an enlarged group provides students with basic training for two years for them to choose the actual course of study from the third year. Digitalisation will simplify the development and release of semester curricula for students and teachers, and offer it online on demand.