Педагогические науки/Проблемы подготовки специалистов

Doctor of Phys. and Math. Sci. Reshetniak S.O.

National Technical University of Ukraine «Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute»

Ways of involving students in innovative projects

One of the weaknesses of the system of modern education in the countries of the former Soviet Union remains atavism of the lack of motivation of students in relation to active participation in the educational process. This is due (from the point of view of а student), first of all, by the absence of visible prospects for using the acquired knowledge to obtain some tangible practical results. The atmosphere of cramming and the pointless learning of teaching materials, as a rule, does not lead to the development of a creative approach to the use of acquired skills. Students, thanks to their young age, are most susceptible to the presence of factors that arouse interest in research and acutely (in a positive sense) react to any applied problems in which one can manifest oneself. If the educational process is built in such a way that at the end of the next module of training there is at least some practically meaningful project, interest in learning is increased many times.

One of the traditional ways in this sense is to conduct production, pedagogical and other practices, in which students develop appropriate skills. The only drawback of such events is, as a rule, their routine.

Students have to solve tasks that are more creative at the stage of the diploma work. Here, really, often you have to use your skills to solve new problems, often very difficult and interesting. I note that in the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute recently introduced a rule according to which graduate projects of students of engineering specialties must necessarily contain a startup-project. This is certainly a very motivating factor, which not only causes the student to go beyond the usual course of action, but also to show ingenuity to maximize the possible practical application of his project with the parallel development of a business plan. Of course, this adds unusual work when writing a thesis project, but at the same time significantly expands the set of tools for solving practical problems.

As for the possible directions for applying this approach, it is easiest to involve students in the engineering profile, in the curriculum structure of which a significant place is occupied by programming and computer technologies. Most of the modern objects of everyday life, inherited from us and still functioning, rarely have high functionality, but, nevertheless, in many cases have sufficient reliability. Precisely these systems can become the primary subjects of application of such an approach. Moreover, the area of relevant tasks that need to be solved is very broad – from the modernization of public transport and housing and communal enterprises to military-technical and space developments. "Intelligent" filling, of course, will give new life to familiar things, but most importantly – with each such thing we will get a trained specialist who is aimed at solving usual problems by unconventional methods with promising results. The scale of implementation of such developments will inevitably lead to the emergence of a whole class of new specialists and, ultimately, to the transition of our customary life to entirely new rails.

To strengthen the positive effect of such undertakings, it would be advisable to introduce not a fragmentary system of individual developments with individual teachers or heads of diploma projects, but to create fully functioning innovation groups on the basis of close coordination between higher educational institutions, institutes of the National Academy of Sciences, and enterprises of specialized departments, in whose interests these developments will be carried out. Such groups could become not only generators of new developments, which, of course, are necessary, but also "incubators" of specialists with a new approach to solving both traditional problems and new creative problems. It's no secret that personnel hunger has become one of the main problems at the enterprises of various spheres of the life activity of modern society. Moreover, every year this problem becomes more acute. This is due both to the distortions of public demands in different spheres of life, and to the growing need of workers in more civilized working conditions and the quality of life in general. Sooner or later, in all traditional spheres, there will be a corresponding crisis, if these problems are not paid attention as early as possible. A feature of the current stage is the availability of all the necessary tools that can be used to move to a more progressive development of a wide range of areas of science and industry. Only the economic component and stagnation of traditional approaches often hamper the use of these tools. The more necessary is the "cultivation" of people with a new pragmatic and progressive view of things, and all the more attention must be given to this process.

In conclusion, I note that the introduction of any new processes, as a rule, is rarely easy and smooth. The inertia and conservatism of traditional approaches in various fields compels to slip even the most progressive innovations, and obvious useful ideas find their embodiment, breaking through the most difficult obstacles. But progress is achieved precisely where all problems are overcome and where there is a desire to move to a fundamentally new quality. With desire and perseverance we can come to corresponding opportunities.