PROJECT-BASED RESEARCH IN THE PRACTICE OF INTRODUCING INNOVATIVE TEACHING METHODS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

PROJECT-BASED RESEARCH IN THE PRACTICE OF INTRODUCING INNOVATIVE TEACHING METHODS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Victoria Kungurtseva

PhD in Economics, associate Professor of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Samara State Social Pedagogical University,

Russia, Samara

Stanislav Trashcheev

Post graduate student, teaching Assistant of the Department of Information and Communication Technologies in Education, Samara State Social Pedagogical University,

 Russia, Samara

The processes of informatization and globalization impose significant changes on all spheres of a modern person’s life. The present time is called the age of digital technologies and knowledge. As Mynbayeva and ect. state, these tendencies “...change our way of life, ways of communication, way of thinking, feelings, channels of influence on other people, social skills, and social behavior” (Mynbayeva, A., Sadvakassova, Z., & Bakhytkul Akshalova, 2017) [1]. In this situation, there is a need to introduce innovative teaching methods (ITM) in higher education, which can become the basis for the successful preparation of students for their further professional activities in an ever-changing environment.

However, what are innovative teaching methods? Which of them are the most effective? How can a teacher choose the best ones?

In Global education monitoring report 2022, UNESCO states that “teaching methods have to be acceptable, relevant, culturally appropriate and of good quality; and education has to be flexible and adaptable to changing societal and community needs” (UNESCO; 2022) [2]. In other words, modern teaching methods should not only make students more literate, but also contribute to the formation of their creative thinking, awareness and motivation for self-learning. It is noteworthy that there is no generally accepted definition of this pedagogical category in the world scientific literature nowadays. In the context of this article, we understand the innovative teaching methods as a combination of these three groups:

• Multi-media and digital tools (including social media, digital educational resources and integrated multi-touch interactive applications) (Damodharan, V. S.; Rengarajan, V., 2008) [3];

• Interactive classes, which means interactive presentation of educational material by the teacher and students (including the usage of mnemonics, storytelling, humor, feedback and the other elements of active communication with the audience (Sachou, M.E.,2013)[4];

• Creative pedagogy, including methods of playful learning, problem-based and project-based learning, flipped classroom, ect. (Ott, M., Jonkkari, T., Kiili, K., Kiili, C., 2012) [5].

At the same time, the implementation of innovative teaching methods lies not only in the use of new technologies and educational methods, but also in the orientation of the teacher to the real needs of students. We agree with Tran that the main ITM’s aim at encouraging students to join proactively and interact with their classmates and the teacher (Tran, E., 2022) [6].

One can also identify obvious advantage of innovation teaching methods in comparison with traditional teaching. This is an opportunity for the teacher to monitor constantly how much the student really took out of the lesson, since the student is an actively involved participant in such a lesson.

Since innovative teaching methods focus on improving the effectiveness of the educational result for students, we consider it useful to study the opinion of students about the complex effect of introducing ITM. To do this, we conducted a project-based research on the collection of opinions from 3 groups of students with a specialization in pedagogy, journalism and marketing. The aim of the study was to introduce students to various types of innovative learning technologies and to identify the most effective ones. Bloom's taxonomy method (Bloom, B. S.,1956) [7] was used to evaluate the learning outcomes obtained with ITM during the study. This method describes three areas of student achievement: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor areas. The cognitive area includes the acquisition of knowledge and mental skills (tested using a thematic test). The affective area includes attitudes, emotions and feelings of students towards educational activity (checked by collecting students' opinions). The psychomotor area includes mostly physical skills like coordination of brain and muscle activity of students (tested by thematic training tasks on the reproduction of professional activities by students).

The study included 6 stages, which were sequentially performed by students from each of the three groups. At the first stage, students were asked to brainstorm using their own devices to formulate the problem of our research. As a basis for this activity, we took a template for creating a problem statement developed by Ellis and Levy (Ellis, T. & Levy, Y., 2008) [8]. At the second stage, students were introduced to the composition of ITM and how to implement them. Familiarization was carried out in the form of an interactive presentation with elements of a flipped class. At the next stage, the participants were asked to divide into 9 groups and choose innovative teaching methods with which they will bring thematic information to the attention of classmates. Participants could use more than one ITM, but the main task for them was to demonstrate the chosen method with the transfer of thematic information in the most accurate, memorable way and to form the skills of the audience to reproduce this information during the subsequent training test. During the fourth stage of the study, students presented their team's work, and their peers rated each presentation on the three Bloom metrics on a scale of 10 and wrote down their notes for further discussion. At the final stage of the study, the students summed up the results of the study by brainstorming, shared their impressions and calculated the average score assigned to each of the demonstrated methods.

At the second stage, students were introduced to the composition of ITM and how to implement them. Familiarization was carried out by us in the form of an electronic presentation with elements of a flipped class.

Research results

For the convenience of visualizing the results of the study obtained during the work of the expert groups, we created Table 1. This table summarizes the 9 most commonly used ITMs, ranked into 3 main groups: multi-media and digital tools, interactive classes, creative pedagogy.

Table 1.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of ITM

It is noteworthy that the tools we tested from the group “Multimedia and digital tools” turned out to be the most effective in terms of the cognitive sphere. If you cook about affective area, the greatest positive emotions of students were used when using the methods included in the group of Interactive lessons. The means of creative pedagogy received the highest scores in terms of their impact on students’ psychomotor area.

During the discussion, students noted that with active multimedia support of the report, part of the attention may be lost on the design of the speaker's thoughts, which significantly reduces the assimilation of information (cognitive area). One of the most effective ITMs in the course of the study was training with elements of imitation of professional activity, since with the help of this method it was possible to obtain the maximum scores for all three metrics studied. All study participants agreed on the importance of receiving feedback and discussing the activities of other students. since during the experiment we noticed a synergistic effect that allows students to consolidate their knowledge and skills and share best practices.

However, what innovative teaching method has worked best?

Before answering this question, we can state that one of the most effective ITMs in the course of the study was Training with elements of imitation of professional activity, since with the help of this method it was possible to obtain the maximum scores for all three metrics studied. However, during the discussion in all three groups, students expressed an opinion about the benefits of a combination of these methods, taking into account the subject, the equipment of the class with information and communication technologies, the characteristics of the group and other factors that the teacher needs to take into account.

References:

1. Mynbayeva, A., Sadvakassova, Z., & Bakhytkul Akshalova, B. Pedagogy of the Twenty-First Century: Innovative Teaching Methods. In O. B. Cavero, & N. Llevot-Calvet (Eds.), New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century - Contributions of Research in Education; 2017. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72341 [Accessed: 2022-05-20]
2. Global education monitoring report 2022: gender report, deepening the debate on those still left behind [Internet]. UNESCO; 2022. Available from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381329 [Accessed: 2022-06-10]
3. Damodharan, V. S. & Rengarajan, V., Innovative Methods of Teaching. Available from: http://math.arizona.edu/~atp-mena/ conference/proceedings/Damodharan_Innovative_Methods.pdf  [Accessed: 2022-06-10]
4.  Sachou, M.E. Innovative Methods of Teaching School Available from: https://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/conferences/foe2013/common/ download/ Paper_pdf/083-ITL13-FP-Sachou-FOE2013.pdf [Accessed: 2022-06-10]
5.  Ott, M., Jonkkari, T., Kiili, K., Kiili, C. Towards Creative Pedagogy: empowering Students to Develop Games. Available from:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257139144_Towards_Creative_Pedagogy_empowering_Students_to_Develop_Games [Accessed: 2022-06-10]
6. Tran, E. 15 Innovative Teaching Methods with Guide and Examples. Available from: https://ahaslides.com/blog/15-innovative-teaching-methods/ [Accessed: 2022-06-10]
7. Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., and Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York, NY: David McKay, Available from:https://www.scirp.org/(S(lz5mqp453edsnp55rrgjct55))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=1316641 [Accessed: 2022-07-17]
8. Ellis, Timothy & Levy, Yair. (2008). Framework of Problem-Based Research: A Guide for Novice Researchers on the Development of a Research-Worthy Problem. Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline. Available from: https://www.inform.nu/Articles/Vol11/ISJv11p017-033Ellis486.pdf. [Accessed: 2022-05-20]