Press I.A., Dzhevaga N.V. Education Resources for Self-study and Training: Сhemical Test-Simulators

Abstract: The authors of the article emphasize the need for creating teaching and learning aids of the new generation, the aids that would take into account the transfer of the system of education from the subject-knowledge model to the practice-oriented (competence) model of the educational process which involves more independent work or students, interactive educational proccess and individualization of learning. The subject of the research is the psychological and pedagogical aspects of the pedagogical design of educational resources for self-learning and training. The authors set a goal to design didactically based and technically verified test-simulators presented as DVD-Video that would satisfy the federal educational standards of the latest generation. Based on the system approach to designing educational resources for academic disciplines, the authors have proved the need to create test-stimulators for independent work of students. The authors describe particular didactic targets based on the analysis of the conceptual framework of Chemistry as an academic discipline. Didactic justification of the choice of technological solutions is the following: teaching function of testing technologies and pedagogical significance of educational videos providing high visual expression and emotional perception of the educational information. Audio comments from the teacher allow a student to analyze his mistakes and promptly monitor the success of his progress with each topic.  The article presents the results of the development and creation of test-simulators on the topics of the discipline "Chemistry" for 1st year students of a Technical University. Test-simulators allow a stsudent to independently work on his curriculum topics, see the results of his work, adequately assess the succcess of his proceeding with the topic and receive teacher's audio guidelines. Using test-simulators, each student has a possibility to work whenever he can and choose the best level of intensity of work for himself. The advantages of this kind of teaching and learning aids include active work of a student during watching a video (in particular, independent planning of an experiment, measuring the length of chemical reaction, and further calculation of the time of chemical reaction, building a graph, etc.). Test-simulators are presented in DVD-Video and can be placed in the software environment MOODLE which allows them to organize a direct connection with the theoretical training material via hyperlinks. Test-simulators allow the teacher to really manage the independent work of students and allow students to quickly control their educational achievement through testing. The student is able to independently learn the discipline actually operating in a mode of training program. The conducted pedagogical experiments in groups of the 1st year students have shown high efficiency of test-simulators in the learning process. The presented test-simulators can be recommended for use in the educational process of technical universities.

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