The concept of educational activity includes. The concept of "educational activity", structure

When characterizing the concept of "educational activity", most authors usually complain about its often excessively broad interpretation. In everyday speech, and often in special psychological and pedagogical publications, educational activity is interpreted very broadly and is considered a synonym for learning, teaching and even learning. In addition, the term "educational activity" is customary to denote the main normative activity in educational institutions. From the point of view of the activity approach, this is not true. Learning activity, from the standpoint of the activity approach, is considered as "a special form of personality activity aimed at assimilating (appropriating) the social experience of cognition and transformation of the world, which includes the mastery of cultural methods of external, objective and mental actions" (V. V. Davydov).

It is usually emphasized that educational activity should not be identified with the processes of learning and assimilation included in different types of activity (play, communication, sports, labor, etc.). According to V.V.Davydov, educational activity involves the assimilation of theoretical knowledge through discussions carried out by students with the help of teachers. Educational activity, according to V. V. Davydov, is implemented in those educational institutions (schools, institutes, universities) that are able to provide their graduates with a fairly comprehensive education and are aimed at developing their abilities that allow them to navigate in various spheres of social consciousness " At the same time, the author notes that educational activity is still poorly represented in many Russian educational institutions.

D. B. Elkonin writes that "educational activity is an activity that has as its content the mastery of generalized methods of action in the sphere of scientific concepts." Such activity, in his opinion, should be motivated by adequate motives. They can be motives for acquiring generalized methods of action, or, more simply, motives for their own growth, their own improvement. If it is possible to form such motives in students, says D. B. Elkonin, "then this will support, filling with new content, those general motives of activity that are associated with the position of the student, with the existence of socially significant and socially evaluated activity."

Learning activity, therefore, can be viewed as a specific type of activity. It is focused on the learner as a subject. As a result of educational activities, there is an improvement, development, and the formation of him as a person due to the conscious, purposeful assignment of sociocultural experience to them in various types and forms of socially useful, cognitive, theoretical and practical activities (I.A.Zimnyaya).

The main characteristics of educational activities

I.I. Ilyasov identified three characteristics that distinguish educational activity from other forms of learning:

1. It is specifically aimed at mastering educational material and solving educational problems.
2. It masters general methods of action and scientific concepts (in comparison with everyday ones, learned before school).
3. General modes of action precede problem solving.

For comparison, the latter can be compared with teaching by the method of "trial and error", when there is no preliminary general method, there is no program of action, then teaching is not an activity.

To these three characteristics I.A.Zimnyaya proposes to add two more:

1. Learning activity leads to changes in the subject itself.
2. Changing the mental properties and behavior of the student "depending on the results of their own actions" (I. Lingart).

Assessing these five characteristics of learning activity, I.A.Zimnyaya quite rightly suggests considering the fourth as the main one.

In characterizing educational activity, most authors emphasize its social character. It is determined in the most essential way by cultural traditions and social and semantic orientations of society. A significant part of educational activity proceeds in the mode of interaction with others, but D. B. Elkonin especially noted that often, being collective in form, educational activity is always individual in result.

Like any other type of activity, learning activity can be described from different points of view, such as: subjectivity, activity, objectivity, purposefulness, awareness, as well as in terms of its structure and content. Educational activity, according to the developers of this theory, has the following general structure: need - task - motives - actions - operations (V.V.Davydov, D. B. Elkonin, etc.).

The subject of educational activity, from the point of view of psychology, is what it is aimed at. In this regard, the following are distinguished: the assimilation of knowledge, the mastery of generalized methods of action, the development of techniques and methods of action, their algorithms and programs, in the process of which the development of the "subject of activity" - the student, takes place. At the same time, D. B. Elkonin especially emphasized the fundamental thesis that educational activity should not be equated with assimilation. Despite the fact that it (assimilation) is its main content and is itself determined by the structure and level of its development. The main feature of the subject of educational activity is that it is aimed at changing the subject himself, these changes (in the intellectual and personal plans) are mediated by the nature of assimilation.

Inclusion in educational activity involves the use of its special means and methods. Specialists in the field of the activity-based approach to learning distinguish three groups of them:

1. The means underlying the cognitive and research functions of educational activity, intellectual actions (analysis, synthesis, generalization, classification, etc.).
2. Sign, linguistic, verbal means, in the form of which knowledge is assimilated, individual experience is reflected and reproduced.
3. Background knowledge, through the inclusion of new knowledge, the individual experience, the student's thesaurus is structured (IA Zimnyaya, SL Rubinstein, etc.).

The methods of educational activity can be different and are usually classified according to very different reasons. For example: reproductive, problem-search, research-cognitive (V.V.Davydov, V.V. Rubtsov, etc.). This issue is being developed especially intensively in pedagogy, where many classifications of methods, methods, techniques of teaching have been created.

The problem of the product of educational activity deserves special attention. The product of educational activity should be considered personal mental neoplasms formed and developed under the influence of educational activity. When specifying this provision, the following components are noted:

1. Structured and updated knowledge underlying the ability to solve problems in various fields of science and practice.
2. Internal neoplasms of the psyche and activity in the motivational, value, conceptual plans (IA Zimnyaya and others).

The life position of a person, the success of any of his activities, and his socialization largely depend on the structure, consistency, degrees of strength and depth of experience gained in educational activities.

External structure of educational activities

Learning activity is traditionally viewed as predominantly intellectual activity. In the intellectual act, the following stages are traditionally distinguished: motive, plan (intention, program of action), execution and control (Y. Galanter, J. Miller, A. N. Leontiev, K. Pribram, etc.). The presented phasing can be considered as a structural diagram, but one cannot fail to notice that educational activity is not identical with a simple intellectual act. Its external structure looks somewhat different.

Describing the composition of the external structure of educational activity, I.A.Zimnyaya identifies the following components:

- motivation;
- educational tasks in certain situations in various forms of assignments;
- educational activities;
- control turning into self-control;
- assessment, turning into self-assessment.

During the period of active development of the activity approach in psychology, educational activity was considered primarily the lot of children and adolescents and was assessed as the main form of their inclusion in social life. In modern concepts, the time stage of the existence of educational activity in the life of an individual has significantly expanded, covering all ages. The civilization functions of educational activity have now qualitatively changed. In order to survive in the modern dynamic world, a person is forced to study continuously, from a large number of "good wishes" this situation has passed into the category of basic vital needs. Learning activity takes an increasing place in a number of human activities, and this phenomenon should be considered as a stable trend.

in the theory of developmental education, one of the activities of schoolchildren aimed at assimilating through dialogues and discussions theoretical knowledge and related skills and abilities in such spheres of public consciousness as science, art, morality, law and religion.

In other pedagogical systems, U. - a special form of personality activity aimed at assimilating the social experience of cognition and mastering the cultural methods of mental and objective actions.

Educational activities

one of the main (along with work and play) types of human activity, specifically aimed at mastering the methods of objective and cognitive actions, generalized theoretical knowledge. Assimilation (learning) is an essential characteristic of educational methods, nevertheless, these are different phenomena: assimilation is a process that takes place in any activity, educational movements are a type of activity, a special form of social activity of a person. U. d. Performs a double social function. As a form of an individual's activity, it is a condition and means of his mental development, providing him with the assimilation of theoretical knowledge and thereby the development of those specific abilities that are crystallized in this knowledge. At a certain stage of mental development (at primary school age), UD plays a leading role in the formation of personality. As a form of socially normalized cooperation between a child and adults, educational institutions are one of the main means of including the younger generations in the system of social relations, in openly collective activity, during which the values \u200b\u200band norms that underlie any collective activity are assimilated. Like play, UD is a derivative, historically separated from labor, a type of activity. Its allocation is due to the emergence of theoretical knowledge, the content of which is only partially manifested in individual practical actions and which, therefore, cannot be fully assimilated in the process of mastering these actions. The development of human knowledge (from the empirical to the theoretical level) inevitably causes the development and restructuring of the system of education. The real scale of this restructuring is determined by the socio-economic conditions of society, its needs for equipping the younger generations with knowledge of the theoretical and empirical level. In the most developed forms, the UD appears for the first time in the era of the scientific and technological revolution. The essence of educational problems lies in solving educational problems, the main difference of which is that their goal and result are in changing the acting subject itself, which consists in mastering certain methods of action, and not in changing the objects with which the subject acts. The solution of a separate educational problem determines the integral act of educational attainment, i.e. that its simplest "unit" within which the structure of this type of activity as a whole is manifested. The implementation of such an act presupposes the actualization of the specific motive of U. determination of the ultimate educational goal; preliminary definition of a system of intermediate goals and ways to achieve them; implementation of the system of actual training actions; execution of control actions; assessment of the results of W. e. Like any other human activity, UD is polymotivated. A special place in the system of motives of motivation belongs to cognitive interest, which is directly related to its content and is a specific, internal motive of motives of motivation, without which the assimilation of knowledge from the final goal ("motive-goal") could turn into a condition for achieving other purposes, i.e. the subject's activity does not acquire an educational character (or loses it). Opportunities and conditions for the actualization of cognitive interest in educational activities are determined by its orientation (towards results or methods of cognition) and the level of development (whether it is situational or stable, personal). On the basis of the actualized motive of UD, its final and intermediate goals are determined. Although goal-setting in UD acts most often as a "acceptance" by the subject of goals set from the outside, it is not a one-time act, but a process of realizing the objective content of the goals set, their correlation with actual motives, and "redefinition." The well-known facts of "redefinition" of educational goals testify to the complexity of this process. Simultaneously with the definition of goals, a preliminary analysis of the conditions and ways of achieving them is carried out, as a result of which an act scheme is formed that guides the subject in the process of its implementation. The realization of educational goals is provided by a system of educational actions, the composition and structure of which can vary significantly depending on the object of assimilation (theoretical or empirical knowledge), the method of its presentation, the required level of assimilation, etc. The described structure is characteristic of the developed forms of UD, which are the result of its formation in the conditions of school education. The process of the formation of UD has not been studied enough. On the basis of experimental data, it can be divided into three main stages. The first of them is characterized by the development of individual educational actions; on this basis, a situational interest in the methods of action arises and mechanisms of "acceptance" of private educational goals are formed; the implementation of UD is possible only through direct interaction with the teacher, who sets goals, organizes actions, monitors and evaluates them. At the second stage, educational actions are combined into integral acts of activity, subordinate to the achievement of a more distant final goal; as such acts are formed, the cognitive interest acquires a stable character, starting to perform the function of a sense-forming motive for U. d .; connected with this is the further development of goal-setting mechanisms that ensure not only the acceptance of the final goal set from the outside, but also its independent concretization; on this basis, monitoring and evaluation actions are intensively formed. The third stage is characterized by the unification of individual acts of management into integral systems; cognitive interest is characterized by generalization, stability and selectivity, beginning to increasingly perform the function of an incentive for activity; in the system of educational actions, one of the central places is occupied by actions with various sources of educational information (textbook, reference book, map, etc.). The chronological framework of these stages is relative and is determined primarily by the conditions of training. Under unfavorable conditions, the development of U. d. May stop at the first stage; under optimal conditions, as experimental data show, already at the 6th-7th year of study, the educational institution enters the highest stage of its formation. V.V.Davydov

TRAINING ACTIVITIES

one of the leading activities, consisting in the assimilation of knowledge, in the acquisition of skills and abilities of independent learning and the application of the knowledge gained in everyday practice. A necessary component of educational activity is psychomotor actions as a means of ensuring the success of mastering the necessary educational skills and abilities (see also Educational activity)

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

one of the leading types of activity, mainly preceding work, consisting in the assimilation of a certain range of knowledge, in the acquisition of skills and abilities of independent learning and the application of the knowledge gained in practice. Along with mastering the basics of knowledge, UD also provides directed formation of various motor skills and abilities by means of physical education in physical education classes (see also Physical education of abnormal children, Physical education in special children's institutions)

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

english learning activity)

1. In wide use, UD is a rather ambiguous concept. Sometimes UD is regarded as syn. "learning", "teaching", "learning". As the main normative activity in educational institutions (and as a leading activity in primary school age), educational activities are a special form of personality activity aimed at assimilation (appropriation) of social experience of cognition and transformation of the world, which includes the mastery of cultural methods of external objective and mental actions ...

2. In the theoretical concept of developmental education (at the Elkonin-Davydov school. - Ed.) U. d. Is one of the activities of schoolchildren and students, aimed at assimilating them through dialogues (polylogues) and discussions of theoretical knowledge and related skills and skills in such spheres of social consciousness as science, art, morality, law and religion. The systematic implementation of UD contributes to the intensive development of theoretical thinking in its subjects, the main components of which are meaningful abstractions, generalizations, analysis, planning, and reflection.

U. d. Cannot be identified with those processes of learning and assimilation that are included in any kind of activity (in communicative, play, work, sports, etc.). UD presupposes the assimilation of theoretical knowledge through discussions carried out by students with the help of teachers and lecturers. U. D. is implemented in those educational institutions (schools, institutes, high fur boots) that are able to provide their graduates with a sufficiently complete education and are aimed at developing their abilities that allow them to navigate in various spheres of social consciousness (until now, U. is poorly represented in many Russian educational institutions).

U. d. Has a trace. general structure: need-task-motives-actions-operations. The need of U.D. is the desire of the student to assimilate theoretical knowledge from a particular subject area (this knowledge reflects the laws of the origin, formation and development of objects in the corresponding area; empirical-utilitarian knowledge, in contrast to theoretical, fixes only signs of objects that have already become ). The specificity of the educational problem is that when solving it, students master the general method for solving a whole class of homogeneous particular problems. In the motives of educational actions, the need for educational actions is concretized, when the general aspiration of students to assimilate theoretical knowledge is aimed at mastering a completely definite general way of solving a certain class of particular problems.

The structure of educational activities includes: 1) acceptance or independent statement of the educational problem; 2) transformation of the conditions of the educational task in order to discover some general relation of the studied subject; 3) modeling the selected relationship (see Modeling in teaching); 4) transformation of the model of this relation to study its properties in a "pure form"; 5) building a system of particular problems solved in a general way; 6) control over the implementation of previous actions; 7) assessment of mastering the general method as a result of solving an educational problem. The training operations included in the actions correspond to the specific conditions for solving individual training problems.

The structure of U.f. is formed in children of primary school age (in preschoolers there are only its preconditions, one of which is cognitive interest). At this age, UD is the main and leading among other types of activity (artistic, game, sports, etc.). The systematic implementation by primary schoolchildren of education determines the emergence and development of psychological neoformations of a given age (the subject of this activity, the foundations of theoretical thinking, the arbitrariness of educational and cognitive actions).

The primary form of management is its collectively distributed implementation by the entire class or its individual groups. In the process of interiorization, an individual UD is formed, the indicator of which is the ability of its subject to proactively and independently distinguish between known and unknown theoretical knowledge in the subject being mastered, to ask meaningful questions to peers and teachers, the ability not only to constantly participate in discussions, but also to be their initiator and organizer.

Psychological and pedagogical research shows that education at the end of the primary education existing in Russia (i.e., by the age of 10 years of a child's life) has not yet acquired a truly individual form. The problem arises of prolonging it for 1-2 years, so that at the end of primary school age the child develops a desire and ability to learn, that is, the need for learning and the possibility of its individual implementation.

In subsequent ages, which correspond to certain levels of education (adolescence - basic school; early adolescence - senior classes of school; adolescence - higher school), education undergoes qualitative changes in the content of theoretical knowledge assimilated by students, in the nature of its implementation study, according to the methods of organization by teachers and teachers, according to the role in the formation of psychological new formations inherent in each age. Thus, in adolescence, educational theory loses its leading character, but retains its essential importance in the development of theoretical thinking of students, which occurs in the process of assimilating the most diverse academic subjects of the humanitarian, natural, and mathematical profile. Adolescents have an individual form of education and, acting as its full-fledged subjects, they can independently set educational tasks for themselves when mastering complex material, and when carrying out educational actions, perform different types of control (anticipatory, reflexive, etc.), taking at this, along with the teachers, a certain participation in the organization of UD of their peers.

At the senior school age, the U.D. again becomes the leading one, but with a professional bias, which allows high school students to carry out vocational guidance and chart their life path. As a student, U. f. Acquires a research character. The assimilation of already accumulated theoretical knowledge is woven into the process of their independent formulation of the results of individual or collective research, design and construction, produced in accordance with the requirements of various forms of cognition, which leads students to clarify scientific concepts, improve artistic images, deepen moral values, etc. P.D. becomes the basis for the development of predictive and research theoretical thinking in young men.

The possibilities and level of theoretical thinking in learning are an essential characteristic of their personality, therefore, the development of this type of thinking in the process of realizing U.D. also testifies to the development of important personal qualities in them. See Learning and Development, Self-Education, Doctrine Consciousness. (V.V.Davydov.)

In the general theory of learning, the foundations of which were laid by Ya.A. Komensky, I.G. Pestalozzi, A. Distverweg, in our country - K. D. Ushinsky, P.F. Kapterev, S.T. Shatsky, P.P. Nechaev, M. Ya. Basov, P.P. Blonsky, L.S. Vygotsky, as well as the largest representatives of domestic and foreign educational psychology of the middle of the 20th century - D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov, I. Lingart, I. Lompscher and other scientists, the psychological theory of educational activity itself was formed, the priority in the scientific development of which belongs to Russia. Its developers - D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov, A.K. Markov, P. Ya. Galperin, N.F. Talyzin and others.

"Learning activity" (LE) is a rather ambiguous concept. There are three main interpretations of this concept, adopted both in psychology and in pedagogy.

1. Sometimes UD is seen as synonymous with learning, teaching, learning.
2. In "classical" Soviet psychology and pedagogy, UD is defined as the leading type of activity in primary school age. It is understood as a special form of social activity, which manifests itself through objective and cognitive actions.
3. In the interpretation of the direction of D.B. Elkonin - V.V. Davydov's educational activity is one of the activities of schoolchildren and students aimed at assimilating through dialogues (polylogues) and discussions of theoretical knowledge and related skills and abilities in such spheres of social consciousness as science, art, morality, law and religion.

The interpretation of educational activities according to Elkonin - Davydov is considered below.

The essence of educational activity

The concept of educational activity in psychology is one of the approaches to the learning process that implements the position on the socio-historical conditioning of mental development (Vygotsky L.S., 1996; abstract). It developed on the basis of the fundamental dialectical-materialistic principle of psychology - the principle of the unity of the psyche and activity (Rubinstein S.L. 1999; abstract; Leontiev A.N., 2001; abstract) in the context of psychological activity (A.N. Leont'ev) and in close connection with the theory of the gradual formation of mental activity and types of learning (P.Ya. Galperin, N.F. Talyzina).

How should training be organized, which solves two main tasks:
o providing knowledge;
o providing mental development?

This problem once faced L.S. Vygotsky, who defined it as "the ratio of learning and development." However, the scientist only outlined the ways to solve it. This problem is most fully developed in the concept of educational activities by D.B. Elkonin, V.V. Davydov (Davydov V.V., 1986; annotation; Elkonin D.B., 2001) (see Chrest. 5.2; 5.3). Remaining within the framework of the cognitive paradigm, the authors of this concept developed the concept of the reference UD as cognitive, built on a theoretical type. Its implementation is achieved through the formation of students' theoretical thinking through a special construction of the academic subject, a special organization of UD.

· According to this concept, a student as a subject of knowledge should be able to:
o master scientific concepts, organized by theoretical type;
o reproduce in their own activities the logic of scientific knowledge;
o carry out the ascent from the abstract to the concrete.

In other words, the subjectivity of the student is manifested in his ability to reproduce the content, path, method of theoretical (scientific) cognition. The concept of UD (in contrast to didactic concepts) contains the prerequisites for understanding the student as a subject of cognition. The educational process itself is interpreted not as the translation of scientific knowledge, their assimilation, reproduction, but as the development of cognitive abilities, the main mental neoplasms. It develops not knowledge itself, but its special construction, which simulates the content of the scientific field, the methods of its cognition.

The academic subject not only contains a system of knowledge, but in a special way (through the construction of subject content) organizes the child's cognition of genetically original, theoretically essential properties and relations of objects, the conditions of their origin and transformations. The student's subjective activity (its orientation, the nature of manifestation) is set by the way of organizing cognitive activity, as it were from the outside. The main source of the formation and development of cognitive activity is not the student himself, but organized learning. The student is assigned the role of knowing the world in conditions specially organized for this. The better the learning conditions are created, the better the student will develop. Recognizing the student's right to be a subject of cognition, the authors of this concept transfer the implementation of this right to the organizers of education, who determine all forms of cognitive activity.

Organization of training, built on a theoretical type, in the opinion. VV Davydov and his followers, is most favorable for the mental development of the child, therefore, the authors call such training developmental (Davydov V.V., 1986; abstract). The source of this development lies outside the child himself - in teaching, and specially designed for these purposes.

Indicators that characterize theoretical thinking are taken as the standard of development:
o reflexivity, goal setting, planning;
o ability to act internally;
o the ability to exchange the products of Brushlinsky's knowledge "On the development of VV Davydov's theory of mental development").

In the concept of V.V. Davydov's goal of education is presented more broadly, and most importantly, more psychologically. This is not just knowledge of the surrounding world, which exists according to its own objective laws, but the student's appropriation of the socio-historical experience accumulated by previous generations of people, the reproduction of educational culture, which includes not only knowledge, but also socially developed values, standards, socially significant guidelines.

The formation of the basic concepts of the subject in the process of educational activity in students is constructed as a spiral movement from the center to the periphery, where in the center there is an abstract general idea of \u200b\u200bthe concept being formed, and at the periphery this general idea is concretized, enriched with private ideas and thereby turns into a genuine one. scientific and theoretical concept. This structuring of educational material is fundamentally different from the usually used linear method (inductive), when learning proceeds from consideration of particular facts and phenomena to their subsequent empirical generalization at the final stage of studying a particular concept. This general idea, which arises at the final stage, does not guide and does not help him in the study of particular ideas and concepts, and, moreover, it cannot be developed and enriched, since it appears at the end of the study process.

The learning process takes place differently with the help of learning activities. Introduced at the initial stage of the study of a fundamental concept, the abstract-general idea of \u200b\u200bthis concept in further education is enriched and concretized by particular facts and knowledge, serves as a guide for students throughout the process of studying this concept and helps to comprehend all the particular concepts introduced in the future from the point of view of available general idea.

The essence of UD lies in the fact that its result is a change in the student himself, and the content of UD is in mastering generalized methods of action in the field of scientific concepts. This theory was further developed as a result of many years of experimental research carried out under the leadership of D.B. Elkonin and V.V. Davydov, who proved that the capabilities of younger students in the assimilation of scientific and theoretical knowledge were underestimated, that such knowledge is quite accessible to them. Therefore, the main content of education should be scientific, not empirical knowledge; training should be aimed at developing students' theoretical thinking.

The systematic implementation of educational activity contributes to the intensive development of theoretical thinking in its subjects, the main components of which are meaningful abstractions, generalizations, analysis, planning and reflection. Learning activity cannot be equated with those processes of learning and assimilation that are included in any other types of activity (play, work, sports, etc.). Learning activity involves the assimilation of theoretical knowledge through discussions carried out by schoolchildren and students with the help of teachers and teachers. UD is implemented in those educational institutions (schools, institutes, universities) that are able to provide their graduates with a fairly complete education and that are aimed at developing their abilities that allow them to navigate in various spheres of public consciousness (UD is still poorly represented in many Russian educational institutions); see the centers of developmental education of the International non-governmental organization - Association "Developmental Education").

In recent works, questions are considered related to the origin of educational activity, its structure, features of development in the historical and ontogenetic plans, etc.
It is known that learning activities arises as one of the forms of the division of labor at a certain stage of development of the productive forces of society. As a special type of activity, educational activity stands out in the period when, due to the complication and differentiation of labor, it turns out to be impossible to master the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for labor activity in the process of this activity itself.
The allocation of educational activity as a special type of activity was due to these two interrelated processes. As labor becomes more complex, mental labor is separated from physical labor, the importance of theoretical knowledge as a condition for mastering specific methods of practical action increases, educational activity becomes isolated from labor, and becomes an independent type of activity. S.L. Rubinstein notes: “... in order to prepare for further work proper, it became necessary to single out as a special type of activity teaching, educational work on mastering the generalized results of the previous work of other people. Humanity has allocated for this a special period in the life of a growing person and created for him such special forms of existence in which learning is the main activity. " Moreover, as society develops, the amount of time specially allotted for preparation for the upcoming labor activity is constantly increasing, and now training accompanies a person's labor activity throughout his life.
The increasing complexity of labor is primarily due to the fact that labor activity is increasingly based on scientific knowledge, which acts as a general prerequisite for the construction of methods that ensure the performance of labor actions. The emergence of scientific knowledge is the most important dialectical condition for separating educational activity from work.
Thus, more and more complex work necessitates the allocation of special time and the development of such methods of constructing training, the use of which makes it possible to quite effectively master the accumulated social experience, i.e. from the very beginning it is necessary to build educational activity as a certain model of labor, highlighting in the latter such essential features, the mastering of which in the process of educational activity can ensure the successful inclusion of the young generation in work.
The second process - the differentiation of labor activity, the emergence of various specialties - requires the allocation of invariant features that must be taught, preparing for various types of labor activity. Learning in unity to invariant and special features of different types of activity also involves the transformation of labor activity and the construction of its model.
The accumulation of social experience is ensured, first of all, by the development of economic and social structures of human society. The preservation of this experience is expressed not only in the materialized product of activity, but also in the emergence and development of special forms, methods of transferring this experience.
It is indisputable that with the development of productive forces and production relations, the complication of labor, educational activity also changes and improves.
The change in the nature of educational activity was influenced and is influenced by at least four circumstances:
... firstly, the direction and features of the development of educational activities were determined and determined by the level of informatization of society, the development of production, technology, science (it is quite clear that a higher level of science and technology, a greater amount of scientific and technical knowledge that mankind has, expanding access to information requires more advanced educational activities);
... secondly, the ever-increasing needs of society in the transfer of scientific, and not empirical knowledge to young people, since the possession of scientific, generalized and systematized knowledge ensures the successful inclusion of the younger generation in labor activity;
... third, the material capabilities of a given specific society, which determine what level of education and what part of the younger generation can be provided;
... fourth, the level of development of psychological and pedagogical science, designed to develop the content, principles, methods, organizational forms of education, creating conditions for a certain human development in accordance with the socio-historical order.
The analysis of the development of educational activity from its inception to the present day, carried out in the works of V.V. Davydov and V.V. Repkin, shows that educational activity in its most developed form appears when theoretical knowledge becomes an immediate productive force and when society is objectively interested in its fullest transfer to the younger generations.
Therefore, it is natural that educational activity has become the subject of close attention of teachers and psychologists only in recent decades. The interest in this problem was caused by the fact that as the pace of social development grew, the realization of the shortcomings of the existing education system to ensure the independent activity of the individual in rapidly changing conditions began to emerge new learning goals that could not be exhausted by the assimilation of knowledge by students, the formation of their skills as it has been for centuries. It should be noted that the leading teachers of the past (this is most clearly seen in the teachings of A. Disterweg abroad, KD Ushinsky - in Russia) already in the 19th century. realized the need to expand the goals of learning, believing that the development of mind, speech, independence, and creative abilities should be considered as a special task.
At present, didactics recognizes the need for such an approach to the learning process, which allows one to solve the tasks of teaching, upbringing and development of students in unity, ensures the holistic formation of the personality, its readiness and desire for constant self-improvement, the ability to actively work for the benefit of society. The successful solution of such tasks is due to the extent to which it is possible to manage educational activity, since it is in the activity that certain mental processes and personality traits can be formed.
Learning activity is usually considered as a form of social activity, as one of the types of human activity, specifically aimed at acquiring social experience. So, D.B. Elkonin writes: “Learning activity is a directed activity that has as its content the mastery of generalized methods of action in the field of scientific concepts. ... This is an activity of self-change, its product is the changes that have occurred in the course of its implementation in the subject itself. This is its main feature ”.
Paying tribute to the importance of this definition, some clarifications should be made regarding the product of educational activity, revealing what changes should occur in the acting subject itself. The product of educational activity is the change, increment, transformation of the experience of students through their appropriation of elements of social experience, the assimilation of socially developed abilities that allow them to carry out the required activities.
Giving a definition to the concept of "educational activity", one must not lose sight of the fact that the main forms of human activity that determine his development from the very beginning of personality formation are cognition and communication. “Both play and teaching perform,” notes B.G. Ananyev, - by the effects of the interconnections of communication and cognition, and at the same time important means of further evolution of each of these basic forms, corresponding to the fundamental processes of social development. "
In order for the definition of the concept of "learning activity" to be more complete, it is necessary to emphasize one more feature: the learning activity itself, which arises on the basis of the activities of teaching and learning, is not reducible to any of them taken separately. In this regard, the essence of educational activity is expressed in the relationship of interaction between the activities of teaching and learning, the meaning of this interaction is the possibility of transition from what the child already knows how to what he does not yet know how (L.S. Vygotsky).
Of course, the structure of educational activity, the patterns of its formation, the changes occurring in the student, are largely determined by the characteristics of the educational activity, in the process of which educational activity is carried out and functions. Undoubtedly, this idea is very important, since always, at all times, the peculiarities of educational activities were directly dependent on the characteristics of the teaching activities of the teacher. The history of the development of the school is a vivid evidence of this.
In modern conditions, when the school is faced with the task of educating each student as a diversified and socially mature person who is able to actively engage in social activities, productive work, and successfully adapt to changing conditions, it has become a generally recognized position that the "teacher-student" system operates in the best way and reaches its maximum indicators only when the teaching efforts of the teacher coincide with the student's own efforts and his activity. In other words, the achievement of the learning goals set by society significantly depends on the activity of students, which can be provided by the purposeful organization of educational activities on the part of the teacher, although, of course, at higher stages of learning, students should be active in educational activities on their own, without the teacher's incentives.
To characterize the process of mastering the experience accumulated by mankind, two close, but not synonymous concepts are used: "learning" and "learning activity". The first of them is broader, since the mastery of knowledge, abilities and skills, cultural achievements can be carried out in a wide variety of activities (manipulative, subject, game, labor, etc., including educational). However, only in educational activity, the mastery of knowledge, skills and abilities acts as a direct goal, only in educational activity is teaching an independent activity, and not a process carried out as a component and result of another activity in which it is included. “In other activities, assimilation. - notes V.V. Davydov, - acts as a by-product. So, in play, the child seeks to better fulfill this or that assumed role. At the same time, the assimilation of norms of behavior only accompanies the satisfaction of the basic aspiration. The main purpose of labor is the production of matter. Skill enrichment is an important but by-product of the work. And only in educational activity the assimilation of scientific knowledge and the corresponding skills acts as the main goal and result of the activity. "
Considering all of the above, it is possible to give a definition of educational activity, while it is necessary to highlight its purpose, characteristic features and the result that should be achieved in its process.
Educational activity is activity aimed at transforming the student's experience in the process of active, deliberate, conscious assignment of social experience to them in direct or indirect interaction with the teacher in order to form the student as a subject of this activity.
In the above definition, firstly, it is emphasized that educational activity has as its goal such a transformation of the experience of students (in the broadest sense of the word), which leads to the formation of them as subjects of this activity; secondly, special attention is paid to the need for purposeful and active self-activity of students, in the process of which they, gaining social experience, transform their own; thirdly, it is indicated that learning activity takes place in interaction with a teacher, which can be both direct and indirect.
Since social experience is a set of historically accumulated activities, one of which is educational activity, in the learning process, schoolchildren must master both a variety of specific activities (linguistic, mathematical, visual, sports, etc.) and educational activities.
In this regard, especially emphasizing the need and the possibility, when the student is active in the course of acquiring social experience, to transform his own experience, it is important to note that such a transformation should also be associated with the opportunity to learn how to master social experience in the process of learning.
Mastering any activity, according to I.Ya. Lerner, assumes "knowledge of the goals, means, method and result of activity, the ability to implement the method of activity, the willingness to modify the method in case of difficulties and adapt it to new conditions, and finally, the need, the motive in relation to this activity." In other words, in the process of learning activities, students must master the content, operational and motivational components of various activities that make up the content of social experience, including learning activities.
Thus, educational activity, on the one hand, is aimed at mastering social experience, on the other hand, it is part of this experience. Therefore, to form educational activity means to teach how to independently master social experience in order to transform one's own experience, i.e. to form the student as a subject of educational activity. A person becomes a subject of this or that activity “only in that case,” A.I. Raev, - if he acquires such personality traits that allow him to independently set socially and personally significant goals of the activity, predict its results, determine the ways and means of achieving these goals, actively and successfully carry out real activities, be sufficiently aware of the changes occurring with the subject of activity and with him, to critically assess the degree of compliance of these changes with the goals set, to make the necessary adjustments to the activities being performed. "
When shaping educational activity, it is important to take into account that it can exist, actually manifest itself as a side of a specific educational activity, which at the same time has an independent meaning. It is also necessary to bear in mind that, not existing outside of real concrete activity, educational activity can be formed and developed only in its process. Therefore, the improvement of educational activities aimed at mastering specific activities, to one degree or another, contributes to its development. However, in modern conditions, this is not enough, since the educational activity formed in this case does not ensure the preparation of students for active inclusion in the continuous education system.
This provision requires a certain clarification. It seems appropriate to talk about educational activity in a subject and universal meaning. Learning activity in the subject sense is an activity aimed at mastering a completely definite concrete content due to a particular subject area, within the educational activity carried out in this case, educational activity in its universal meaning acts as a very important side of it. The universal significance of educational activity manifests itself as a person realizes the need, importance, and significance of such appropriation of social experience, in the process of which his own experience would change, i.e. the formation of educational activity in its universal meaning will take place only if the student strives to understand what and how he learns, regardless of the specific content.
Considering that educational activity in its universal meaning can be formed only in the process of concrete, subject educational activity, the beginning of its formation should be associated with the beginning of school education. This requirement will reflect the duration of the process of the formation of educational activity, and be based on the available research, which testifies to its special role in primary school age.
Indeed, the problem of the formation of educational activity is currently relevant for the entire school, for all stages of lifelong education. However, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of such a formation in the teaching of primary schoolchildren, since it is obvious that a child who crosses the threshold of school and is included in systematic education does not own educational activities. The formation of educational activity at primary school age also acquires special significance because it is at this age that it determines the main changes in the mental processes and psychological characteristics of the child's personality.
Educational activity acts as the leading one, dominant for primary school students, since, firstly, its formation begins to take place precisely at primary school age, and secondly, within educational activity, psychological neoplasms of a given age appear, on the level of formation of which the success of teaching younger students depends. in the middle classes of the school, thirdly, it determines the nature of other types of activity during this period. The task of primary general education is to help a child become a subject of educational activity, i.e. to form in him the need for self-change and the ability to satisfy it through teaching. In other words, the younger student must want, love and be able to learn.
Based on the importance of educational activity in primary school age, it is necessary to use it for the development of children in this period, for the formation of the qualities and abilities of the individual, necessary for further education in secondary school, for the normal transition to adolescence. This requires attention to the formation of educational activity in its universal meaning, to such an organization in which the development, the formation of a younger student as a subject of educational activity is successfully carried out.

Educational activities - one of the main (along with work and play) types of human activity, specifically aimed at mastering the methods of objective and cognitive actions, generalized theoretical knowledge. Assimilation (learning) is an essential characteristic of educational movements; nevertheless, these are different phenomena: assimilation is a process that takes place in any activity, educational movements are a type of activity, a special form of social activity of an individual.

U. d. Performs a double social function. As a form of an individual's activity, it is a condition and means of his mental development, providing him with the assimilation of theoretical knowledge and thereby the development of those specific abilities that are crystallized in this knowledge. At a certain stage of mental development (at primary school age), U. f. Plays a leading role in the formation of personality. As a form of socially standardized cooperation between a child and adults, educational institutions are one of the main means of including the younger generations in the system of social relations, in openly collective activity, in the course of which the values \u200b\u200band norms underlying any collective activity are assimilated.

Like play, UD is a derivative, historically separated from labor, a type of activity. Its allocation is due to the emergence of theoretical knowledge, the content of which is only partially manifested in individual practical actions and which, therefore, cannot be fully assimilated in the process of mastering these actions. The development of human knowledge (from the empirical to the theoretical level) inevitably causes the development and restructuring of the system of education. The real scale of this restructuring is determined by the socio-economic conditions of society, its needs for equipping the younger generations with knowledge of the theoretical and empirical level. In the most developed forms, the UD appears for the first time in the era of the scientific and technological revolution.

The essence of educational problems lies in solving educational problems, the main difference of which is that their goal and result are in changing the acting subject itself, which consists in mastering certain methods of action, and not in changing the objects with which the subject acts. The solution of an individual educational problem determines the integral act of educational activity, that is, that of its simplest "unit", within which the structure of this type of activity as a whole is manifested. The implementation of such an act presupposes the actualization of a specific motive of educational activities - determination of the final educational goal; preliminary determination of a system of intermediate goals and ways to achieve them; implementation of the system of educational actions itself; performance of control actions; assessment of educational outcomes.

Like any other human activity, UD is polymotivated. A special place in the system of motives of motivation belongs to the cognitive interest, which is directly related to its content and is a specific, internal motive of motives of motivation, without which the assimilation of knowledge from the final goal ("motive-goal") can turn into a condition for achieving others goals, that is, the activity of the subject does not acquire an educational character (or loses it). Opportunities and conditions for the actualization of cognitive interest in educational activities are determined by its orientation (towards results or methods of cognition) and the level of development (whether it is situational or stable, personal).

On the basis of the actualized motive of UD, its final and intermediate goals are determined. Although goal-setting in UD acts most often as the subject's "acceptance" of goals set from the outside, it is not an instantaneous act, but a process of realizing the objective content of the goals set, correlating them with actual motives, and "redefining." The well-known facts of "redefinition" of educational goals testify to the complexity of this process. Simultaneously with the definition of goals, a preliminary analysis of the conditions and ways of achieving them is carried out, as a result of which an act scheme is formed that guides the subject in the process of its implementation. The realization of educational goals is provided by a system of educational actions, the composition and structure of which can vary significantly depending on the object of assimilation (theoretical or empirical knowledge), the method of its presentation, the required level of assimilation, etc.

The described structure is characteristic of the developed forms of UD, which are the result of its formation in the conditions of school education. The process of the formation of UD has not been studied enough. On the basis of experimental data, it can be divided into three main stages. The first of them is characterized by the development of individual educational actions - on this basis, a situational interest in the methods of action arises and the mechanisms of "acceptance" of private educational goals are formed - the implementation of educational goals is possible only with direct interaction with the teacher, who sets goals, organizes actions, carries out them control and evaluation. At the second stage, educational actions are combined into integral acts of activity, subordinate to the achievement of a more distant final goal - as such acts are formed, cognitive interest acquires a stable character, starting to perform the function of a sense-forming motive of U. - this is associated with the further development of goal-setting mechanisms that provide acceptance of the final goal set from the outside, but also its independent concretization - on this basis, the actions of control and evaluation are intensively formed. The third stage is characterized by the unification of individual acts of educational activities into integral systems - cognitive interest is characterized by generalization, stability and selectivity, beginning to increasingly perform the function of an incentive for activity - in the system of educational actions, one of the central places is occupied by actions with various sources of educational information ( textbook, reference book, map, etc.). The chronological framework of these stages is relative and is determined primarily by the conditions of training. Under unfavorable conditions, the development of educational institutions can stop at the first stage; in optimal conditions, as the experimental data show, as early as in the 6-7th year of education, educational institutions enter the highest stage of their formation.

V.V. Davydov

Definitions, meanings of a word in other dictionaries:

Psychological Dictionary

The leading activity is of primary school age, within which there is a controlled appropriation of the foundations of social experience, primarily in the form of basic intellectual operations - and theoretical concepts -.