The specific nature of the goals and methods of problem solving significantly changes the role of the teacher in the pedagogical process and causes the emergence of new requirements for the teacher. It is possible to single out the following main tasks, which poses the problem to the teacher: Informative support; Research direction; Change in the content and structure of the educational material; Encouraging cognitive activity of students. The informative support in this case is understood by the author, of course, not the provision of knowledge in the finished form. First, we are talking about posing problem situations, during which students are given the very minimum of information that is necessary for the emergence of a contradiction (or also, depending on the method of creating the problem situation, insignificant information designed to cover up methods suitable for solving the problem). Secondly, it is about the information required to successfully solve the problem, which at this stage goes beyond the zone of the student's immediate development. Search for all the rest of the information is carried out by the students themselves or with the help of a teacher, but still in the search, not assimilation. The next task — the direction of research — characterizes the position of the teacher in problem-based learning. The teacher ceases to be a source of knowledge, but becomes an assistant or leader in the search for this knowledge, depending on the specific method of instruction and the level of problematic situation for the students. The peculiarity of problem training is that the teacher simultaneously acts as a coordinator or partner (during each stage of training), and as a leader of training (if one considers training as a whole).
The teacher organizes the entire training process and, if necessary, joins it in order to maintain the process in the required channel. In addition, a separate aspect of this task of the teacher can be attributed to the organization and methodological support of the task in the team, a group of students, when such intervention is objectively necessary. The task of changing the content and structure of the educational material is not only for the specific teacher, however for the entire educational system. In comparison with the traditional concept of learning with the problem, for objective reasons, a smaller volume of concrete material can be studied, and it requires a significant change in the structure of educational material in order to make it a problem.
Due to the inertia of the education system and the small amount of practical development this task has to be solved by the teachers themselves: to create an organic system of problem situations and adapt it taking into account the individual rates of mastering the educational material by specific students. Finally, consider the task of encouraging cognitive activity of students. In the classification of didactic technologies in the main direction of modernization of the traditional system (in mono-technology, according to the main idea of the educational concept), the problem in education is referred to «pedagogical technologies on the basis of activation and intensification of students' activity», so we will dwell on this task in more detail. The need for student activity in the learning process was realized in pedagogy from the very beginning. It was achieved by various methods based on external motivation. Modern didactics recognizes the priority of intellectual activity, derived from the internal motivation of students, from the realized need for mastering knowledge and skills, which ensures greater effectiveness of the learning process. In the opinion of the author, the problem of intellectual activity is considered deeply and successfully. The article concern that «with careful analysis, the consciousness, independence and strength of mastering knowledge are reduced to the activity of the subject of learning, which acts as a universal human ability, which forms the starting point and the result of the entire learning process».
The most important indicators of intellectual activity are, their opinion, the cognitive level of student's practical activity, the quality and quantity of the object of objectification of his intellectual activity; Degree of correspondence of the student's thinking to the objective logic of real life; The ability to see and resolve real contradictions; Finally, verbal forms of objectification of activity. In this work, the authors also emphasize the close connection between the principles of subject activity of learning and the principles of mastering knowledge, the priority of students independent work on reproductive methods for a more solid assimilation of knowledge, individual skills and development as a whole. In essence, the authors, come close to the need to introduce into the educational process elements of problem-based learning that stimulates cognitive activity of students. Cognitive activity may be present even before the start of a specific learning process, but its level is not absolute: it can either rise or fall.
The task of educational technology at the same time is the upbringing, maintenance and enhancement of cognitive activity, which can be achieved through targeted pedagogical influences on students. With regard to problem-based learning, within its framework, the cognitive activity of students is transformed into one of the most important goals and into one of the necessary elements of the pedagogical process, without which the process of problem-based learning itself is inconceivable. With problem education, students 'thinking is activated by creating problematic situations, forming a permanent cognitive interest, mastering the students' skills of working with the unknown, problems and contradictions, which eventually forms the basis of personality with the right approach, is naturally fixed in its characteristics. Let's consider what requirements to the teacher can be distinguished proceeding from tasks of problem solving and specificity of a teacher role in such pedagogical process.
In order for student activities to remain independent, the teacher must organize the educational process in such a way that he solves the problems that arise with them, carries out a joint search that relies not on the separation of functions between teacher and student, but on the distribution of successive stages between them. The solution of the educational task is acquires the character of jointly-distributed activity. The degree and forms of participation in this case are determined by the student's actual capabilities, as the teacher expands, the teacher must transfer more and more extensive functions to the student. At the same time, in order to achieve the maximum effectiveness of the educational process, the educator shouldn’t focus on the actual results of the activities already performed by the student, but rather on the predictive assessment of his ability to determine the direction and content of the next stage of searches. In accordance with this prognostic assessment, the teacher reconstructs the conditions of the educational task at each next stage of its solution. Therefore, in the effective management of learning process the teacher must consistently implement the appropriate algorithms, correcting it taking into account the actual results of mastering, then the organization of problem training requires the teacher to be able to analyze the real course of the process. On this basis to build a forecast for its further deployment.
In such conditions, the teacher must have the capacity for reflection and operational thinking. In the process of solving the problem by the pupils, the teacher should promptly identify and eliminate the circumstances that impede the course of cogitative activity, without exerting a favorable impact on the development of students. There may be several such circumstances. This is also the fixation of the student on this or that method of action, when the student tries to apply one or several algorithms; he has well mastered to solve various problems. This is the inability of students to distinguish essential aspects in the problem task, abstracting from misleading details. On the other hand, the teacher should remember that such circumstances can not only be connected with the students, but also excessive interference and teacher's help to reduce the activity and independence of students. The greatest difficulty for a teacher, focused primarily on traditional teaching methods, can represent the upbringing of students' activity and the development of their creative abilities. This requires from him a subtle sensation of the psychology of students and it is for certain unknown whether this is pedagogical talent or there is the possibility of purposeful self-education of such qualities. Nevertheless, there are several signs of teacher approach, in which the impact on students will be most favorable.
So, in the process of solving a problem, the teacher should try to involve students in the problem and the process of her research, using the motives for self-realization, competition, creating maximum positive emotions (joy, surprise, sympathy, success). The teacher should be tolerant of the mistakes of the students admitted by them in their attempts to find their own solutions, as well as inability to formulate, substantiate and defend their position. Being a priori authoritative in the eyes of students, it can enhance their educational activity. If it cultivates and emphasizes their importance, builds confidence in themselves in students, confidence in oneself. To develop a creative approach, the teacher should not allow the formation of conformal thinking, that is, orientation to the opinion of the majority, to encourage risky behavior and the display of intuition by the student, to stimulate the desire for independent choice of goals, objectives and means for their solution, combined with responsibility for decisions. As a result, it can be noted that problematic training, aimed in large part at mobilizing the creative forces of students, requires the same availability of creative characteristics for the teacher himself. In such conditions, the teaching of teachers to problematic methods, apparently, should also be conducted within the framework of problematic training.
References:
- Friere, P. 1970. Pedagogy of Problem-Solving. New York: Continuum
- Finkle, S. L & Torp, L.L. (1995) Introductory Documents. Center for Problem-Based Learning, Illinois Math and Science Academy.
- Gorgiladze, G. (2005). Problem Approach to Teaching a Foreign Language in the Process of Professional Education (EFL). Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Ilia Chavchavadze Language and Culture University. Tbilisi. (In Georgian)
