Carrying on the campaign for educational reforms guides scientific and civil society towards European integration, harmonization of quality standards, also universalization of the requirements for the content of bachelaureate education and intensification of the output results. This fact determines the relevance of scientific research throughout the identification of competence approach patterns, didactic conditions for the integral component of the holistic educational process in a university.
The current studies add the definition of wholeness to almost all the characteristics of educational reality. But usually both common and scientific meanings are considered [14, p. 12]. According to V.V. Serikov, the concept of wholeness is based on completeness, comprehensiveness, indivisibility and inseparability of one educational phenomenon from the other, combinability and coexistence of elements.
Academic understanding of “wholeness” reflects the integrity of philosophical, scientific grounds and categories. “Wholeness” is traditionally defined as the highest form of organization, coherence and alignment. It is regarded throughout the qualitative autonomy and self-sufficiency of the subject, the measure of integration within the internal and external conditions as well as the ability of an object for self-movement and self-development [15].
The educational process in a university (education in the humanities) is based on the best traditions of teaching and training practices of baccalaureate students. It also includes modern achievements of fundamental and applied Pedagogy. It is necessary to carefully maintain, preserve and actively use the traditional procedure of building trusting relationship between the subjects of the educational process. It may be fulfilled throughout the effective and creative usage of gained experience, the change of existing reality and its transformation into pedagogical reality of tomorrow [8, 11].
The correlation of traditions and innovations carried out in the period of large-scale transformations and changes acquires a special significance. The transition to a new qualitative state is mediated with the help of different mechanisms of natural selecting or choosing the optimal problem solutions. In this respect, the pedagogical traditions accumulated by the history of education are regarded as the guarantor of formation and development of the innovative university educational process. At the same time they should be considered as some conditions for obtaining the expected results in the optimal ratio of quantity and quality [6].
Competence approach initiates the search for new patterns of educational process. It discloses the specifics of its organization from the standpoint of an active subject interaction of participants. The interaction is accompanied by the content development of baccalaureate educational programmes, personal acknowledgement of valuable educational importance, acquisition of educational subjective meaning, development of communication skills and abilities to apply the knowledge in solving learning practical-oriented tasks in an atmosphere of trust and mutual support and responsibility for the outcome [10].
Quantitative and qualitative changes in education are always associated with the requirements to improve the educational means and to change the level of technical and technological equipment of a lesson. They inevitably lead to the realization of the actual need for correcting the educational process with the help of some new approaches modeled to determine the nature and content of pedagogical interaction.
Quality as a characteristic is determined according to the fundamental understanding of “feature” concept. Feature is a way to express the essence of a system in relation to the other systems with which they interact. Quality shows signs of external and internal certainty. It is regarded as the totality of objective characteristics, if the units lose this totality, they cease to be what they are [15, p. 160].
Subjective interaction within the holistic educational process may get completely new qualitative characteristics. V.V. Serikov draws our attention to the fact that the latter are: internal determination of functioning and developing the wholeness, its own ability to self-develop (under the influence of some internal contradictions); representation of the “wholeness” as some existence of contradictions caused by “self-movement” of the holistic system; irreducibility of the wholeness to the unity of its own features or its constituent features. Wholeness almost always acts as a product of genesis or evolution manifested in the growth of its internal organization, anti-entropy and independence from the environment [14].
There are different levels of “wholeness” manifestation: structural, systemic, functional, informational, symbolic etc. The highest form of “wholeness” is the ideal spiritual content organization, which possesses its being in the phenomenon of an individual [15].
The holistic educational process is traditionally provided with the didactic conditions which should be regarded within the technological content of implementing the requirements for pedagogical support [10]. It is necessary to consider the following requirements:
● setting goals and determining didactic objectives and means of obtaining the results;
● finding the optimal combination of traditional and innovative approaches and methods;
● varying the different forms of conducting classes;
● using the practice oriented diagnostic techniques, organizing control, assessing educational achievements of students, evaluating subjective levels and indicators of their civility;
● matching result characteristics and quality indicators.
Pedagogical support is regarded as a way to organize and maintain a modern educational process in a university (education in the humanities). Pedagogical maintenance of goals and objectives of an individual educational process includes checking students’ emotional spirit, monitoring different pedagogical situations and complying technological procedural requirements. Emotional spirit is provided while introducing various educational methods, implementing different means of pedagogical support and maintenance of students’ creativity or constructing relations (peer, group or collective) [10].
In case of a holistic educational process the educational results should not be viewed as the amount of the acquired knowledge but as a diverse set of students’ abilities to apply the knowledge in practice. It is also necessary to consider a fundamentally different quality of achievements that has an interdisciplinary generalizing character. The latter is determined by the specificity of educational and learning activities of the subjects of the educational process, and also throughout the personal growth and enlarging the range of personal characteristics [9]. Qualitatively new results cannot be achieved without specially organized process support. In a joint venture it reveals internal students’ reserves including means and methods of implementing the potential [7, p. 9].
Thus, the transition from mass education to the practice of organizing electoral education (educational services targeted at the consumer) must be and will be accompanied by the corresponding changes of level and content of pedagogical support within this process [9, p. 125].
Education should contribute to development and self-development of students by means of comfortable educational environment and modern educational programmes and methods [2, p. 57]. Traditional educational approaches do not provide students with the abilities to master creative thinking, to look for and find original solutions in a variety of difficult situations. Subject techniques and methods do not guarantee acquisition of continuing education skills by schoolchildren and students, perception of different skills and obtaining the desire to learn throughout life, knowledge of new skills and adaptation to the changing life and working conditions [13, p. 55].
Therefore, the main fundamental characteristics of secondary schools leavers or college and university graduates are the competences (kompetentnost). They cannot be successfully developed if you do not use efficient educational technologies in each educational area and for each academic subject.
Technology used to form the activity-related components and the components of personal competencies (kompetentnost) includes private sub-technologies such as target value and target orientations providing and forming the experience of a reflective activity that help to ensure and implement competence approach [13, p. 60]. However, the problem of categorical uncertainty of the nature and content of competencies (kompetencia, kompetentnost) escalates and continues to hamper the development of the theory and practice of higher education, including higher pedagogical education.
The main indicators of the problem are [9]:
● insufficiently developed theoretical foundations of competence approach in their relation to the goals, objectives and content of subjective educational activities;
● lack of practice oriented mechanisms of substitution, transformation and adaptation of knowledge and skills fixed in a new educational content in the framework of competence approach;
● necessity to choose criteria and indicators for evaluating educational competencies (kompetencia), components and structural elements of personal professional competence (kompetentnost);
● implicit, indifferent requirements of federal state educational standard for the results of students’ educational activities.
Technification of university educational process implies various options for its further improvement, including non-traditional means of Pedagogy based on “edutainment” [3, 4]. Edutainment is a modern educational innovation based on visual, narrative, play, interactive educational techniques, as well as modern information and communication technologies, more informative and less didactic methods of work. It aims at maximizing the shield of comfortable atmosphere during the working process and after it, liaising with the object of learning, attracting his attention, passion for studies, satisfying his interests, taking into account the psychological needs both intentional and unintentional [1, p. 184].
The most significant for the modern education are the latest innovative technologies of interaction, based on the use of non-traditional learning tools, techniques and game [3, 4]. Proprietary methodology and the newest technological solutions are traditionally related to the diagnostic and evaluation of educational achievements. They are defined by the competence (kompetentnost) formation objectives and provided with the help of practice-oriented mechanisms of substitution, transformation and adaptation of knowledge and skills provided by descriptors and competencies (kompetencia) [12, p. 116–117]. The choice adequacy of the diagnostic tools of professional competence (kompetentnost) formation and the successful identification of university students’ educational achievements suggest: level indicators; diagnostic procedures for assessing the dynamics of changes in personal characteristics and parameters of activity or communication; comparative methods of evaluation, ranging, classification etc. [12].
In conclusion, it should be noted that the technology of competence formation including personal and activity components allows tracking the process of students’ promotion in forming a predetermined level during each lesson or period. It should be regarded within the acquisition of relevant experience in different procedures, operations, actions specifically included in the integrated educational, occupational, social, communicative, reflexive, self-educational and other activities [5, 13].
The study was funded by Russian State Scientific Fund and the Ulyanovsk region in the framework of a research project № 15-16-73003/15.