14 March 2016
Vice-Rector Dmitry Tayursky: 'Transforming Education is one of Our Priorities Now'

Kazan University implements the 4T model of pedagogical education. Vice-Rector for  Education Dmitry Tayursky spoke about this strategy in detail.

 «Education is a complex process, it comprises four main components: a student, a teacher, the system of general education and the system of pedagogical education. During the establishment of Kazan Federal University two pedagogical universities were merged into it, and we have had a unique opportunity to try different models of teacher education», -  said the Vice-Rector.

There are several models. The first one is the classic model – when a particular institution or a particular department concentrates only on teacher education. Such is the example of the Elabuga Institute of Kazan Federal University. The second one is the distributed model where teachers of specific subjects are educated at the respective institutes, such as the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Chemistry, etc. And finally, there are integrative master programs that were launched last year. The Institute of Psychology and Education is in charge of those master programs.

 «Speaking about the 4T concept, it's important to clarify the following points. First, we have a student who is transforming, he or she is different from those who were taught 10 – 15 years ago. He is in a different world of information, in a different culture that includes immigrants with their cultures and languages. Second, we have the transforming education; in the eight or nine centuries of pedagogical education little has changed, even today we still see mostly the transfer of knowledge and not the transfer of specific competences. We have to search for different forms of teaching because we have to create competences in students. The third ‘T’ is the transforming pedagogue – many academics nowadays just use what they were taught and don’t follow the latest trends. The task is to teach pedagogues that can be always ready for the challenges of their time. And the fourth ‘T’ is the transformation of pedagogical education – we have to find out how to graduate creative teachers», - explained Dr. Tayursky.

The goal of this educational transformation can be achieved through creating a comprehensive system of pedagogical education at Kazan University. There are several models of education currently in use, there are “test grounds” represented by the Lobachevsky Lyceum, the IT Lyceum, the Childrens’ University.  Furthermore, Kazan University is the center for advanced training of teaching professionals of the whole Volga Region. And finally, we have the Russian Academy of Education Lab that studies the processes in modern teacher education.

We can call this reorganization process the quadrature of transformation of pedagogical education. As its mathematical counterpart, this task cannot be solved by any of the existing conventional methods.

«Transformation of school education is one of the priorities for the Russian government now, and that means we are in sync with the zeitgeist», - concluded Dr. Tayursky.

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