Teaching for development and creativity while working at reading skills

Выступление на международной научно-практической конференции «Югра, Сибирь, Россия: политические, экономические социокультурные аспекты прошлого и настоящего»

Нижневартовский государственный университет, октябрь, 2013

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change”, Victor Hugo

With the introduction of Federal government educational standards (ФГОС II), Russian education is now facing the biggest challenge it has ever faced. The priority goal of our society and education system is to develop young people’s abilities basing on their mastering the ways of mental activities. And the result of education is “measured” by the students’ experience in acquiring the ways of gaining knowledge. So the task for the teachers is to turn the process of learning into the process of acquiring the ways of discovering knowledge, only this way we can teach our students think differently and be innovative.

The question is: “How to make teaching developing and creative? What technology can be useful?”

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What is development? It is “the act or process of growing or causing something to grow or become larger or more advanced”. (6) We can teach students self-developing, self-improving by means of conscious and active acquisition of new social experience.

To start with, due to Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy, technology of developing critical thinking, we, at least, have knowledge and a tool of how to make the teaching process developing. As for creativity, it still remains a bit vague. We have some technics but still no technology. So what is creativity, and what to observe when organizing a creative process? Is there a joining these two aspects point?

What is creativity? Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation, and human resources, defines creativity as “The process of having original ideas that have values”. (5) So it is a process, not an event, originalideas imply imagination and inspiration, valued means useful. So creativity is what we plan, make it happen, putting our imagination to work.

According to, wiki’s definition “creativity is an intellectual process of human activity that creates a new product.” (6) “To be creative means finding a special look at ordinary things and everyday tasks”. (5) So, we see that the joining point of teaching for development and creativity is the process concept.

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