The context of pedagogical education

Abstract

Although there exists a considerable number of research works on the semiotic nature of education, they do not provide a comprehensive idea of the semiotic context of pedagogical education. The article considers the issues of hierarchization of sign systems and the part they play in pedagogical students’ development as professional teachers. To characterize the semiotic context of pedagogical education, the author of the article addresses A. B. Solomonik’s pyramid of sign systems. In connection with this classification, he distinguishes two goals of pedagogical education. The first one is connected with the use of sign systems for the determination and application of the content of a school subject pedagogical students learn in order to transfer it to schoolchildren. In this context, the relevance of semiotic research and its development has three aspects: semiotics of school subject content visualization; semiotics of educational process visualization based on the modern capabilities of technical educational aids, information and communication technologies; semiotics of pedagogical communication. The second goal is associated with the application of the semiotic pyramid for systematization and transmission of the general professional culture to student teachers. However, pedagogy as a science does not have formalized sign systems of the first and second orders of the considered classification. In this study, stereotypes (representations, images, forms of behavior) that determine the dynamics of the student teacher’s professional development act as units of sign systems. The development of pedagogical culture stereotypes in students determines their further professional and personal progress. The description of sign systems of four stages is given. (1) Natural sign systems. These are elementary ideas about relationships, characteristic of interaction between the student and the teacher, which reflect life experience obtained by the student prior to their professional education. (2) Image systems. These include stereotypes that characterize pedagogical university applicants’ ideas of the system of lessons and its attributes thus forming the image of the traditionally existing school. Stereotypes may have both positive and negative properties. (3) Language systems. These are verbal texts containing theoretical information about a specific field of professional culture which suggests its individual assimilation by each student (lecture material, traditional educational tasks, etc.). A semiotic teaching model emerges. The professor introduces educational paradigms (metastereotypes of pedagogical ideas and forms of behavior) to the student in theory through language systems. (4) Notation systems. These include written texts (documents) reflecting pedagogical systems and technologies, educational programs and standards. A certain role in the development of stereotypes in student teachers belongs to lists of competencies and labor functions set by educational and professional standards. The article considers student teachers’ personal and professional development approach to pedagogical education which implies a practice-oriented system of education through the continuous solution of profession-oriented educational tasks. In this sense, teachers’ training is to reflect professional activities in terms of the emergence of a synergistic effect.