Active teaching methods as a component of innovation in geography teaching

Abstract

Introduction. In times of rapid informatization of society and change of technology, the main task of the modern educational process should be to expanse and deepen intellectual abilities of an individual, to motivate and prepare a person for independent work with information fl ows, to develop critical thinking and creative skills. The usage of active teaching methods helps to achieve such goals. The methods of active teaching and learning have attracted the interest of teachers and other professionals in the fi eld of education. A large number of literary sources demonstrate the benefi ts of an active approach that engages students in the learning process and requires from them action more than observations; provides a deeper and more complete understanding of the subject. The purpose of this article is to analyze the usage of active teaching methods as a component of innovation in the educational process of geography teaching in general educational institutions. The main material. One of the fi rst commonly used and detailed methods of active teaching was the method of business games. Mary Birshtein was the author of the world’s fi rst business game. Active methods of teaching are ways to enhance the educational and cognitive activity of pupils, which encourage them to actively engage into intellectual and practical activity in the process of mastering the subject. Not only the teacher is active, but pupils are active as well. There are such special features of active teaching: – a purposeful activation of schoolchildren’s thinking; – enough time to engage pupils into the learning process, their activity must be sustainable and long-lasting; – an independent creative decision-making process, high degree of motivation and emotionality of schoolchildren; – a constant interaction of subjects of educational activity with the help of direct and feedback links, free exchange of thoughts on the ways of solving some problem. There are different approaches to the classification of active teaching methods. A. Smolkin conducted a classification based on the nature of educational and cognitive and gaming activities, due to which methods of active teaching are divided into imitation and non-imitation. There are also group and individual methods. There are various methods and forms of active teaching organization: – lectures (problem lectures, lectures-visualizations, lectures with pre-planned mistakes, lectures in form of press conferences, lectures-conversation, lectures-discussion, lectures with the analysis of specific situations); – different techniques of group work organization (training that targets students to the exchange of information such as brain attack); – different methods (discussion, game simulation, etc.). In the new educational process functions and roles of teachers and pupils during classes are changing. Many researchers distinguish the following roles of a teacher: the head; the facilitator; the mentor; the adviser; the organizer; the full participant of the cognitive process. Roles of a pupil are: the researcher; the pupil who is actively involved in the cognitive process along with the teacher. With the development of modern technology, it becomes easier for teachers of geography to diversify the teaching process through various computer programs that develop spatial thinking, the ability to analyze and compare. Internet technology makes it possible to get information from almost anywhere in the world. Active teaching methods help to learn the management of the current information flow, its analysis and effective communication with each other, which is important in the modern world. There are plenty of active teaching methods, and creation of the new ones is regulated only by the imagination of teachers. In this article have been proposed some active teaching methods to be used in school, namely, 22 methods. Their classification due to the usage at some stage of the lesson (actualization of knowledge, study of the new material, discussion, generalization and repetition) has been suggested. Conclusions. There is a broad methodological base, a lot of recommendations and tips for conducting lessons using active teaching methods. In general, the literature review has shown that the issues of activation of education are relevant nowadays and more and more teachers become interested in it. Therefore it is possible to assume that in future the usage of active teaching methods will turn from modern tendencies and innovations to the obligatory condition for the educational process. The schemes of possible interactions of selected active teaching methods in the lesson of geography, at different stages of the lesson have been proposed. The two presented schemes allow teachers to devote more time and attention to the discussion during the lesson, which is a great approach for senior schoolchildren, since in high school students are most often focused on active and demonstrative language activities. And the following two schemes are focused on studying a new topic in the class. Such a set and such a sequence of methods provide a comfortable and interesting lesson for pupils of general education institutions.