Senior Lecturer K.Krasnolutsky

National Academy of Managerial Staff of Culture and Arts, Ukraine

Critical Thinking in the Context of Unconventional Teaching Methods as a Solution to an Executive Development Preparation Issue

Under current conditions of the system of higher education development, the occupational guidance of learning in the institutions of higher education as well as reciprocal liaison of content based learning and professional requirements is becoming increasingly pressing and from our prospective it requires an increase in the integrative nature courses share. It is they that contribute to forming interdisciplinary and interindustry links and highly qualified expert training process.

Consequently, there arises an urgent need for a qualitative change in the educational process, upgrading a current model of education that no longer meets present-day challenges. The structure of education in Ukraine comprises the following levels: pre-school education, secondary education, non-formal education, vocational education, higher education, postgraduate education, doctoral education and self-education.

Global disadvantages of higher education in Ukraine are as follows :

- insufficient funding of institutions of higher education ;

- significant teaching staff underpayment, salaries being much lower than those of industrial workers;

- it logically causes yet another problem, the problem of understaffing in the institutions of higher learning (e.g. 80% of male postgraduate students leave science, migration of professors abroad, 7.3% annual retired staff employment increase etc.);

- the problem of shortage of modern textbooks and visual aids, as well as a low level of computerization thus causing a problem of insufficient use of modern methods and forms of student training. In many cases, the quality of education does not meet national and international standards;

- a discrepancy between the acquired knowledge, abilities, skills and the real-life requirements of the employer;

- training of students in the institutions of higher education irrespective of prospective needs of the national economy and in unspecialized institutions of higher education. For instance, the training of economists in the universities of cultural, technical and legal domains thus negatively affecting the quality of education received by students.

Individualization of the learning process and the development of critical thinking might become the driving force that would bring education in the institutions of higher education to a new level. Critical thinking integration in the curriculum might bring additional value to the training process thus enabling the system of higher education to produce a new dimension specialist who would be able to not only solve urgent issues but predict their emergence and ways to avoid them. The problem of developmental education was raised by many Greek philosophers. Further development of these ideas can be traced in the works by Moore, Descartes, Newton, V.Belinsky, L.Vyhotsky, K.Ushynsky. Levcipus and Democritus were the first to introduce their definitions of the term "individualization". The relevance of this idea was confirmed by the works of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and others. This issue was substantially tackled by Russian humanists V.Byelinsky, A.Herzen, L.Tolstoy, F.Dostoyevsky. Such Ukrainian educators as G.Skovoroda, O.Duhnovich, M.Dragomanov,T.Shevchenko,Yu.Fedkovich illuminated the nature of the problem. Individual psychological characteristics such as interest and mental state alongside with a cognitive processes activity affect the academic achievement of each student. The positive effect of individualization is directly related to its rational implementation. An immediate appeal to the internal individual's needs has a powerful emotional and psychological impact on students. Realizing a contemporary society's reformatting , the emergence of new realities and threats, the emergence of new technologies greatly increase the level of his or her motivation and the need for a deeper understanding of both local and global levels, which in itself is only possible under the condition of mastering the techniques of effective thinking. Critical thinking alters the very essence of a knowledge, skill and habit forming process . Specialists-in-training themselves must feel the need to use new technologies and techniques, and thus it can be inferred that the developmental and audiovisual culture introductory programs should be developed and introduced in colleges and universities at a large scale. This situation actualizes the need for research and development of technologies, guides and recommendations for educators  at the present stage of educational development. The process of a specialist-in-training professional development is lagging behind the requirements established by society towards a professional, capable of : using new models of thinking; making independent and creative decisions, pursuing one's own self-improvement and capability, ability, skill self-development, adequate assessment of their actions in a professional process. From our prospective , the execution of the following pedagogical preconditions may bring about a specialist-in-training quality improvement:

1. Formation of productive critical thinking skills while teaching social sciences and humanities;

2. Application of innovative pedagogical techniques (the project method, psychological and vocational training) while teaching general educational subjects;

3. Individualization of a would-be specialist professional training by means of information and communication technologies (ICT).