Design of learning tasks in a digital university for developing students professional competencies

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to overcome the key contradiction of mass online education between information transmission technologies and the pedagogical task of developing professional competencies that require critical thinking and the ability to work in non-standard situations. Based on an examination of traditional and activity-design approaches, it is argued that the strategic goal of higher education in training specialists to work under conditions of uncertainty can only be achieved through the deliberate design of an interactive educational environment. Such an environment should stimulate intellectual inquiry, critical discussion, the resolution of professionally-oriented cases, and reflection. The aim of the study was the development and experimental testing of a set of learning tasks that implement the competence construction model in the digital environment of an online university, using the discipline “Fundamentals of Family Law” as an example. The conducted pedagogical experiment was based on the method of expert evaluation of completed works and statistical data processing using Student’s t-test to determine the significance of differences. The main results confirmed that in the experimental group, which performed tasks on creating mind maps and collaborative digital guides, a significant qualitative growth was revealed, especially in the ability to create a complete intellectual product (transition from an average to a high level, p<0.001). The dynamics in the control group, which studied under the traditional model, were less pronounced. The conclusions indicate that the purposeful design of educational activities, where the digital environment acts as a space for creating, not consuming content, is a key condition for the formation of professional competence. The prospects of the research are related to the adaptation of the proposed model of tasks for other practice-oriented disciplines in the system of online higher education.

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