Book
INTED2020 Proceedings. 14th International Technology, Education and Development Conference Valencia, Spain. 2-4 March, 2020.
ISBN: 978-84-09-17939-8
ISSN: 2340-1079
The transition of compulsory school education to models that foster 21-century learning outcomes such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration is a typical educational policy strategy among many leading countries. An increase in the competitiveness of Russian education is declared to be an important aim in Russian policy statements. Implementation of novel teaching methods that lead to students’ mastering of basic skills, increasing motivation and engagement are challenges that Russian society is facing nowadays. However, the implementation of constructivist forms of pedagogy has its own history in Russia. Attempts to institutionalize those innovative developments are usually associated with perestroika and the 1990s. Despite these attempts, there has always been a big gap between the mass school and this “avant-garde search”. Teaching practices in most schools remain to be conservative and desperate to students’ involvement and their cognitive development. Teachers’ beliefs, dispositions, mental models are said to be an important factor of resistance towards changes in school. They influence how teachers percept phenomena, make judgements and behave in the classroom. Beliefs are determined by personal knowledge, life and work experience. Being closely connected to the knowledge that teacher has (content knowledge, knowledge of child’s psychology, procedural knowledge of how to deliver a lesson), teachers’ beliefs nevertheless own a significant affective component. Thus, beliefs become a filter that helps teachers to interpret new phenomena. In this work, teachers' beliefs about barriers towards implementation of creativity-fostering teaching practices, such as cross-curricular learning, inquiry-based learning, assessment for learning, are examined. 15 focus groups with 144 teachers of primary and secondary school were conducted in 6 schools in the Moscow region. We used the guide developed together with our colleagues while working on the project “Key competencies and new literacy” of the Institute of Education HSE. Using the methodology of qualitative content analysis, we distinguished the main groups of barriers from the teachers’ perspective. The barriers teachers mention most frequently are: 1) unpreparedness of students, 2) lack of qualification, 3) overloaded curriculum and standardized testing, 4) rigid organization of lessons and school subjects, 5) inadequacy of existing learning materials, 6) absence of support from parents and principal. Most of these barriers are mentioned in research literature worldwide. However, two barriers are highlighted only by Russian teachers. Those are the perception of students as being not prepared for changes and belief that resources to foster creativity that already exist are inadequate.
This study examines territorial differences in Russian students' choice of educational trajectory after secondary school between 2000 – 2014, between regions in various socio-economic and cultural contexts. The Russian case might be interesting for the social and economic gap between Russian provinces, which is comparable to other countries differences: some regions, equal to Singapore or the Netherlands in GDP per capita, while others are similar to Honduras or Bolivia. These differences in economic development, among other things, are also associated with the gap in human capital, which is traditionally measured through the level of education of the population. In the Russian system of education, the actual choice of educational trajectory takes place at the end of secondary school, when children should choose between the academic track, which presumes admission to the high school and university after that, and the vocational track, which includes admission to vocational college. Since 2000th, the proportion of secondary school graduates, who chose the academic trajectory, has declined in most of the Russian regions, despite growing access to higher education, thanks to the raise in the number of universities between 2000-2008 with simultaneous demographic decline. With the dynamic time warping algorithm and time series cluster analysis, six different types of regional situations were identified, in the dynamics of the percentage of students who chose the academic track after secondary school. In general, in the most economically advantaged regions with a developed infrastructure of higher education, the popularity of the academic trajectory remains at the same high level. But also there were some decreases in 2009 and 2013, which could be a consequence of the world economic crises in those years. These crises became additional factors at the regional level, for the families in the more developed territories, to re-evaluate their children's chances for higher education and the associated costs. At the same time, the proportion of students on the academic track in more economically disadvantaged regions, with lower access to higher education, has gradually decreased since 2000. These students faced a “double penalty” because they had to plan their education strategy, taking into account higher competition for places in universities, or moving to other regions to enter educational institutions there, which was also associated with growing costs. In this situation, the vocational track becomes a more affordable alternative for students from regions with a lower level of economic and social development. As the result of the analysis, it is possible to determine short and long term prerequisites for further growth in the human capital gap between Russian regions and, consequently, the growing differences in economic development.
The system of postdoctoral fellowships in Russia is relatively new. The first postdoctoral programs started to appear only in 2013. Their development was accelerated by “5-100” Russian Academic Excellence Project initiated by Russian Ministry of Education and Science. Postdoctoral initiatives started to be implemented in over 10 Russian universities - project participants – as well as Lomonosov Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. Most programs were designed to follow the western model of postdoctoral fellowships (postdocs). Originally, the aim of such programs was to attract scholars with high scientific potential and various research backgrounds to carry out their independent research as well as extend the pool of a university research projects. The universities generally expect external candidates with PhD degree (or its Russian equivalent, stepen’ kandidata nauk/Candidate of Sciences degree), publications in high-ranked international academic journals and international experience. These young researchers are 30 years old in average , with advanced knowledge of English. Conducting research is the primary task of postdocs. They can also be involved in joint research work with students, fellow scientists, as well as in giving open lectures and holding seminars. As a rule, call for applications is opened both for foreign and Russian researchers. However, Russian universities focus their efforts on attracting international colleagues to a greater extent . The positioning of postdoctoral programs in Russia is still under development and reflection. For instance, Russian universities sometimes compare it with the well-known system of Doctorantura, education program for Candidate of Sciences who are willing to get the degree of Doctor of Sciences. As, for example, National Research Tomsk State University claims that “The Institute of Postdoctoral Studies at TSU replaced Doctorantura, familiar to all of us ” , National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University calls its postdoctoral program “Postdoc of TPU as an analogue of Doctorantura” . The second aim of the Russian universities is to use the postdoctoral Programs as a tool of international recruiting. These are the cases of Ural Federal University, Novosibirsk State University, Far Eastern Federal University e.t.c. So, Russian universities currently regard postdoctoral programs as a development tool of their staff.
The present paper summarizes a review of the best practices and models of academic development in foreign universities. It is argued that academic development as a domain of professional activity is developed as a response to the three interrelated processes: emergence of the new forms of public management, dissemination of 'entrepreneurial university' conception and life-long learning programs. Possible goals, professionalization problems and organizational models of academic development are elaborated in order to present heterogeneity of this phenomenon. We conclude by highlighting the most promising types of academic development programs which is possible to implement in Russian universities.
The system of postdoctoral fellowships in Russia is relatively new. The first postdoctoral programs started to appear only in 2013. Their development was accelerated by “5-100” Russian Academic Excellence Project initiated by Russian Ministry of Education and Science. Postdoctoral initiatives started to be implemented in over 10 Russian universities - project participants – as well as Lomonosov Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. Most programs were designed to follow the western model of postdoctoral fellowships (postdocs). Originally, the aim of such programs was to attract scholars with high scientific potential and various research backgrounds to carry out their independent research as well as extend the pool of a university research projects. The universities generally expect external candidates with PhD degree (or its Russian equivalent, stepen’ kandidata nauk/Candidate of Sciences degree), publications in high-ranked international academic journals and international experience. These young researchers are 30 years old in average , with advanced knowledge of English. Conducting research is the primary task of postdocs. They can also be involved in joint research work with students, fellow scientists, as well as in giving open lectures and holding seminars. As a rule, call for applications is opened both for foreign and Russian researchers. However, Russian universities focus their efforts on attracting international colleagues to a greater extent . The positioning of postdoctoral programs in Russia is still under development and reflection. For instance, Russian universities sometimes compare it with the well-known system of Doctorantura, education program for Candidate of Sciences who are willing to get the degree of Doctor of Sciences. As, for example, National Research Tomsk State University claims that “The Institute of Postdoctoral Studies at TSU replaced Doctorantura, familiar to all of us ” , National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University calls its postdoctoral program “Postdoc of TPU as an analogue of Doctorantura” . The second aim of the Russian universities is to use the postdoctoral Programs as a tool of international recruiting. These are the cases of Ural Federal University, Novosibirsk State University, Far Eastern Federal University e.t.c. So, Russian universities currently regard postdoctoral programs as a development tool of their staff.
The sixth edition of The Future of Education aims to promote transnational cooperation and share good practice in the field of innovation for Education. The Conference brings together teachers, researchers, practitioners and project managers from all over the world to share findings, expertise and experience about innovative teaching and learning methodologies.
Conference proceedings 2016 «The 4th INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL SCIENCES” July 28-29, 2016 – Barcelona, Spain. Organized by The International Institute For Academic Development
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.