Istorijos mokytojų rengimas pereiti nuo mokinių mokymo prie mokymosi

Abstract

Today most history teachers employ traditional, accustomed teaching methods, i.e, they present knowledge and control pupils’ learning activities. Little or no attention is paid to teaching pupils how they should learn history. In evaluating a pupil’s knowledge, the most important thing for the teacher remains how closely the pupil reproducts facts and interpretation of events, processes and personalities presented in the textbook or by the teacher. The pupil’s creativity and originality of his/'her answers and conclusions are left out of account. In most case students acquire knowledge during their classes in a passive way. They hardly use their intellectual powers and self-teaching skills. To facilitate transfer from teaching to self-teaching, we first of all analysed the reasons why out-of-date teaching methods are so obstinately favoured by teachers. Applying various methods, we established the following reasons: present teachers use the same teaching methods as were used by their own teachers; the period of the Soviet system with its own pedagogics and methodology’, when self-dependent thoughts and alternative interpretations were prevented. Stumbling stones to the new approach are also newly published, but poorly methodologically prepared teaching aids. First practical steps towards self-teaching were made with a group of the fifth-year history’ students who later used their experience working with their own pupils. Our activities can be divided into five stages. Stage 1. The students analysed the teaching aid „Making One World. Activity Sheets” and the methodological recommendations which had been presented at a seminar for history’, geography and biology teachers. The seminar (January 1993) had been organized by the Ministry of Culture and Education of Lithuania, and conducted by educators from Ireland (Brenan), the Netherlands (Lommerse), and Great Britain (Harri). As a history didactics teacher. I had prepared the material for analysis and organized the work. We discussed all the questions together, not forcing our personal views on each other. Stage 2. The students gave analogous tasks to their own pupils in the classroom. Stage 3. During our classes of methodology we analysed the pupils’ answers, compared them with the teachers’ answers at the seminar, tried to find out why the pupils had given namely such answers. In such a way we analysed almost all the topics of the international seminar. Stage 4. The students, who at that time were already post-graduates doing their M.A., had an opportunity to take part in a seminar conducted by the above mentioned educators from abroad. Stage 5. The post-graduates themselves prepared teaching aids for their pupils and used them in the classroom. Activities with these aids helps them to go from teaching to self-teaching, to develop the pupils’ efficiency and curiosity. Encouraged by high efficiency of their pupils and by great demand for their teaching aids, the post-graduates developed them and prepared them for publication. During numerous courses and seminars, history teachers from all over Lithuania were assessing the history self-teaching aids which had been prepared by the author of the present report. Moreover, the above-mentioned post-graduate students experimented with these aids. Encouraged by the good teachers’ assessments and the positive results of the experiment, the author of the report prepared two special self-teaching aids: „Document in History Classes“ and „Revealing of the Activities of Historical Personalities“. These aids were positively evaluated and recommended for publication by the Expert Commission for Teaching History. Practising teacher’s; are expected to get the aids at the beginning of the school-year of 1994—1995. These are the first leaching aids in Lithuania which can help teachers to go over from teaching to self-teaching, and which can help pupils to express diverse views and opinions.