Contextual learning in the practical training of bachelors of social work

Abstract

Modernizing the content of technologies for training a modern specialist in higher school requires updating them to meet the expectations of the labour market in Ukraine and abroad, the requirements of the future applicants’ professional activities, its challenges, demands and risks. At the same time, while students are still studying at a higher education institution, their early professionalization should be fully implemented, and they should purposefully form an individual style of professional activity, their own “portfolio” of professional tools and technologies, etc. For this purpose the author of the article proposes to actively use the potential of the contextual learning paradigm, which focuses professional training on taking into account a number of contexts (institutional, teaching, technological, pedagogical, educational, personal). Contextual learning is of particular importance in the process of practical training of students at all stages - educational, quasi-professional and educational-professional. The author considers innovative forms and methods of work: gamification, design, professional portfolio, etc. to be a powerful component of optimizing the students’ practical training on the basis of contextual learning (ensuring consistency and interdisciplinarity; creating a scenario plan for the applicants’ practical activities; familiarization with future job functions and responsibilities; professional roles, taking into account the future specialists’ professional and personal interests, the spatial and temporal context, etc.). The publication outlines the general features of a reflective and contextual educational environment, which involves the analysis and correlation of students’ needs and the capabilities of the educational and practical environment, eliminates contradictions between them, becomes a means of overcoming the crisis of personal professionalization; ensuring a stable position of a future social work specialist, etc.