Consider the main types of education. Formal, informal, informal - these are options for innovative methods of continuing education. A teacher who finds himself in a modern sociocultural situation must cope with an endless stream of information. The teacher should solve the problem of obsolescence of the knowledge that was acquired during training at the university (academy).
Significance and relevance
Informal education of teachers allows us to solve the problem of professional burnout, self-determination, self-realization. The teacher gets a chance to choose attitudes and values, search for ways to achieve personal success.
Formal, non-formal and informal education fully satisfies the teacher’s need for career and professional growth, and allows him to develop professional competencies. In addition, it is often used not only for personal growth in career terms.
Practice shows that modern man tries to comprehend spiritual values. On his own, he creates life attitudes without using formal, non-formal and informal education. To become a competent specialist, a person needs not only to perfectly master professional qualities, but also to be developed psychologically, morally, culturally, to accept himself as a full-fledged personality, a member of the family, and society.
Nowadays, informal education helps to achieve such results. A person must himself monitor his cultivation not only in professional, but also in spiritual life. This is directly related to teachers, because it is the representatives of this profession that influence the worldview, the formation of the personality of other people.
Modern realities
Practice shows that informal education allows children to go beyond the standards. Formal and informal development does not fully satisfy the needs of a modern person, therefore it has lost its relevance. In the last decade, scientists and psychologists in the field of education agree that informal education is a chance for success and self-realization for children and adults. The very concept of "education" in the age of computer technology is perceived as a complex and broad concept.
Types of education
In 2008, the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation made an analytical report on the national educational model by 2020. Its authors noted that informal education is a factor in the competitiveness of our country, an important element of the modern education system. The phenomenon is of interest to researchers who currently distinguish three types of education.
The formal version involves an organized and hierarchically structured context, which ends with the issuance of a certificate or state diploma. Such education requires a certain time period, is based on state training programs, is organized in officially registered organizations.
Non-formal education is carried out outside a clear educational space that has specific goals, objectives, methods, results. It can be carried out in public organizations and educational institutions, circles and clubs, during individual lessons with a coach or tutor. This form includes various trainings, courses, small programs offered at all stages of training or work. Such training does not imply the issuance of a document of an established form.
Informal education is in pedagogy an independent cognitive activity that accompanies everyday life. It does not imply mandatory purposeful character, can be considered as spontaneous.
Informal education is realized thanks to the personal activity of individuals in the cultural and educational environment. For example, during reading, communication, when visiting houses of culture, when getting acquainted with articles of newspapers and magazines. An adult uses the educational potential of modern society for his own development and improvement.
Motives for Informal Education
A similar desire is generated by three main factors:
- the presence of personal desire and interest in certain knowledge, skills;
- the emergence of a situation that prompts the search for answers;
- resolution of the situation through training.
The role of the media in informal adult education is also high. It is from newspapers, magazines, television programs that people receive an incentive to develop interest in an event, a phenomenon.
Psychologists note that if the role of the media in adult informal education is most often positive, the information offered encourages people to search for answers, gain skills and abilities, then this can be a serious danger for adolescents. In order to avoid such problems, children should have mentors to help them develop individual educational trajectories, to select reliable and verified facts from a huge stream of information.
Non-formal and informal education are forms of learning that allow a person to develop and improve.
Society influence
The non-institutional form of obtaining knowledge is related to the influence of the environment. M. Tight interprets informal education as a form of training that is not part of the usual options for obtaining knowledge, that is, connects it with the method of exclusion. A similar process can take place under various educational influences of society: at home, friends, family, media.
P. Jarvis connects this term with a form of education in which people receive knowledge from their environment, that is, they connect science with real events.
How are informal and informal education related? The research methods used to analyze these forms have shown that the first option for obtaining knowledge can be considered self-development. With the informal option of acquiring skills and abilities, a person often acts unconsciously, spontaneously, which positively affects the final result of the process. Psychologists continue to analyze the characteristics of personality development in the context of this process.
Non-formal and informal education in a technical school is an excellent way to motivate the younger generation to obtain informed theoretical knowledge and practical skills in the studied discipline.
Interesting Facts
Integration of formal, non-formal and informal education allows you to get the best result - to educate a creative, vibrant personality. She is able to adapt without any special problems in society.
In our country, the problem of informal education is poorly developed, but this does not deny the urgency of the problem. Teachers and psychologists discuss issues of organization, management, control, look for ways to move from basic research to practice.
The development of non-formal and informal education has become especially relevant after the transformations that are observed in the domestic educational system. The second form of obtaining knowledge and skills allows teachers to fully comply with the requirements of the new educational standards of the second generation. Informal education should become the lifestyle of a child, striving for the maximum disclosure of their capabilities, their practical application. A similar form is relevant for teachers themselves. At present, informal education has become the basis for fulfilling the requirements of the professional standard of a teacher approved in the country.
Professional competency
All types of education: formal, non-formal, informal in the aggregate allow teachers to comprehend information, update it to increase their professional competence.
N.V. Kuzmina identifies five of its constituent elements:
- special and professional competence of the taught subject matter;
- methodological competence in the field of the formation of skills, abilities, knowledge of pupils;
- socio-psychological competence in communication;
- autopsychological competence in the field of shortcomings and advantages of their activity, personality;
- differential psychological competence in the motivation of activity.
At present, formal and non-formal education cannot fully satisfy the components of pedagogical competence, which is why the informal form of acquiring skills and abilities is so important and relevant.
With its help, it is possible to significantly enrich the personal and professional development of the teacher himself, to increase his professional competencies. In the process of everyday communication, the teacher learns to solve difficult life situations, which positively affects his professionalism. He analyzes random information, uses for his spiritual enrichment.
Thanks to informal education, a person gets the opportunity to bring professional knowledge to universal competence, to fully realize the teacher’s need for a variety of impressions, personal growth, which leads to self-improvement of the person.
Profession specifics
The personality of the teacher is an important condition for successful professional activity. Informal education can be considered a condition for the implementation of four main areas of the pedagogical personality:
- the personal aspect involves the development of intuition, individual qualities;
- axiological sphere concerns the formation of a value system;
- the cognitive aspect is aimed at acquiring new information about culture, a person;
- activity-creative component, involving self-realization.
Analysis of the level of development of this problem, as well as systematic observations of the state and behavior of teachers in crisis situations, the study of professional competence made it possible to identify the following serious contradictions:
- between the requirements of the new socio-economic realities that have developed in the country and the lack of the required training system for teachers in specialized institutes of formal and non-formal education;
- between the need for teachers to increase professional competence, personal and professional development, the expanding practice of increasing it in the course of informal education and the complete absence of a theoretical and methodological basis for ensuring such a process.
Timeliness of the study of the problem
The relevance of such a problem is explained by the importance of applying and using informal education not only for the individual, but also for the professional development of the modern teacher. Psychologists are convinced that the issue of self-development and self-realization of Russian teachers is relevant and timely, it involves serious theoretical and practical actions. Firstly, it is necessary to comprehend the professional and personal development of the teacher in the course of informal education in our country. Secondly, the time has come to develop common requirements for the profession, given the current realities, needs and requirements of society. Thirdly, the issue is relevant in connection with the lack of fundamental scientific research in the field of informal education.
Summarizing
In our country, such forms of the educational process as non-formal and informal education appeared due to borrowing from the European system; they assumed the continuous acquisition of new knowledge and skills.
The implementation of these forms was seriously influenced by the expert opinions that were made by the Public Chamber and the Research Institute in 2007. Based on the results of this study, the significance and timeliness of using such forms of work in the Russian education system was formulated. Informal education was called the main factor in the competitiveness of our state, the most important element of the modern educational structure.
Representatives of world scientific research laboratories involved in the study of the functioning of higher education institutions came to the conclusion that students can only receive quality knowledge through their personal experience. In such a system, the teacher performs the function of a tutor, that is, he directs the process of acquiring students of certain qualities in the right direction, helps to build the most effective system for self-development and self-improvement by his wards. Researchers were able to prove the effectiveness of such an educational system, the possibility of its implementation in colleges, technical schools, comprehensive schools.
The establishment of partnerships between all participants in the educational process is the key to maximum motivation for learning, a factor for successful social and professional implementation.
The terms “non-formal” and “informal” education were introduced into pedagogical practice in the second half of the last century. It was at this time that large-scale international disputes were going on regarding the necessity and possibility of reforming school and higher education.
They tried to convey to the pedagogical community the importance and timeliness of education and quality training acquired outside the walls of official educational institutions.
The terms were also introduced in order to consider the specifics of the educational situation that developed in the analyzed period in developing countries.
The emergence of informal and informal learning was a direct result of the emergence of innovative communication and information technologies, which provided instant access to any kind of information, broadened the idea of the reality of everyday existence. After the emergence of the virtual world, the possibility of communication via the Internet, teachers and schoolchildren have a real opportunity to independently acquire knowledge, study specific academic disciplines, and obtain the necessary professional skills.
Non-formal education is often carried out in addition to a special educational space that has clearly defined methods, goals, objectives, results. It does not imply a student’s classes in an educational institution, it may well be carried out during individual lessons with a tutor, work in a circle, section.
Such a process does not imply the issuance of a state-standard document, which is a prerequisite for the classical school system. This form is mainly systematic and focused.
Non-formal education can be obtained absolutely anywhere, having access to information resources.
Such an educational system can include any activity that is not necessarily related to learning at school, college, university. For example, it can be an online conference of educators, in which they consider important issues.