The most innovative teachers from all around the world have been exchanging their experiences at the Worldwide Innovative Education Forum for six years already. This year the forum was held in Cape Town, South Africa. This time Ukrainians were also among the 200,000 participants of the forum. One of them was Yaroslav Bakhmatiuk, a high-school history teacher in Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, who won the 6th All-Ukrainian competition “Innovative Teacher.” Viktor Chernenko, an English language teacher at Sumy’s specialized school No.10 and participant of the European Forum of Innovative Teachers in 2008-2010, was part of the competition’s jury. A team from Kyiv’s Technological Lyceum was also present. Although the Ukrainians failed to win, their very participation was of paramount importance. For now that educators are required to apply the most up-to-date teaching methods based on computerized programs, getting acquainted with international experience and using it in Ukraine is a benefit for the whole nation.
The Day asked Viktor CHERNENKO, a Ukrainian juror at this international contest, to tell us what results and experience Ukraine gained at the forum.
Viktor, please tell us what innovations our teachers brought to the forum?
“Yaroslav Bakhmatiuk presented his project ‘Medieval Castles in Ukraine.’ He was ranked ninth in the Ukrainian competition of innovative teachers but, in spite of this, he was invited to take part in the European competition of innovative teachers, where he qualified for the semifinals and thus made his way to the Cape Town forum. Incidentally, out of the 40 East European schools that participated, our teachers were among the few who went to the forum. Yaroslav had an interesting project. It consisted of several parts, including a multimedia accompaniment to a lesson, which comprised presentation, an interactive game, and other digital-format aids. The project also called for other activities: for example, after hearing the presentation, children were given individual research assignments and were then asked to create their own presentations, based on the one given by the teacher. Their children presented various monuments, mostly the castles of western Ukraine — their history, present condition, etc. After the project’s didactic part was over, the children visited these castles as part of their summertime practice and, so to speak, saw with their own eyes to what extent the facts that they learned while preparing their own presentations, from books and the Internet, were true.
“The Technological Lyceum’s principal and vice-principal represented Ukraine in the Innovative Schools nomination. There is a program that grants mentor status to a school. These educational institutions, which are located in various parts of the world, have quite a rich experience of applying innovative technologies in teaching: in other words, it is the policy of the whole institution rather than an initiative of some enthusiast teachers. Mentor schools thus present and share their experience with pathfinder schools. The pathfinder status is granted to educational institutions that are also actively using this experience but still have to prove that their teaching methods deserve to be inducted into global teaching practice.”
What are the forum’s results? Which innovative approach did the jury like best?
“Unfortunately, Ukraine cannot boast of any prizes won. Winners were chosen in the nominations Innovation in Content, Innovation in Community, and Innovation in Collaboration. Yaroslav took part in the first nomination but failed to make it to the finals. As for innovative schools, there is no competition as such among them. Educational institutions present the available experience of using information and communication technologies. When the one-year term comes to an end, it is decided whether or not to grant them mentor status. Those who won in the Innovation in Content nomination were teachers from the US, Brazil, and South Africa. For example, the Brazilians came up with a project called ‘School on the Cloud.’ This refers to so-called cloud technologies, which are based on software downloaded from the Internet and various servers rather than installed on the computer. Our problem is the virtual absence of electronic teaching aids. The existing aids are either of low quality or they do not meet the school’s curricular requirements. Therefore, the teacher has to create these aids through his own effort in order to bring teaching into line with the requirements of modern education and times. What we are creating is already in the past because foreign countries are mostly focusing on pupils’ self-instructions. It is also considered a good idea when different educational institutions combine efforts, and competitions are held for pupils of many schools, and involve other professionals, for example, programmers.”
Although we won no main awards, how important do you think is it for Ukraine to take part in such forums?
“It is a very good opportunity to learn about foreign experience. The forum included different countries with their own cultural traditions and, accordingly, absolutely different pedagogical practices. All the innovative technologies presented at the forum can be applied here, but being acquainting with this experience also makes it possible to revise and improve our own practice of teaching.”
What do you think can we borrow from foreign educators to use in our teaching process?
“The main difference between our and foreign systems of education is that Western countries attach more importance to the child’s self-instruction, the so-called project activities. The use of multimedia aids fits this framework very well. In our country, more emphasis is put on what the teacher has created, for example, a textbook, an electronic test system, etc. The Western structure of education focuses more on how efficiently the teacher can organize the work of children by furnishing them with new multimedia and digital instruments. The experience the pupils have gained in the process of their work is of greater importance.”
In what way do these innovative techniques and practices affect the level of pupils’ knowledge?
“Naturally, there are some statistical data on the increased knowledge of schoolchildren, but the main point here is not a certain amount of knowledge but the readiness of a person to be successful and competitive in the 21st-century society, the so-called knowledge society. In this society there is a greater demand not for school-gained knowledge, but for the ability to create new meanings, enter into contact with people, exist in a certain community, and, naturally, make use of communication technologies to tackle these problems. Frankly speaking, every time I come back from such forums, I have to somewhat revise what I do in school. It is a good experience in the following respect: an individual must constantly learn something; it is a university of sorts.”
