Abstract:

Integrating media literacy into the existing school curriculum is of profound importance to challenge students’ critical thinking skills, creativity, and functional literacy. This paper aims to explore the development of media literacy in Foreign Language classrooms by focusing on teachers’ media literacy perceptions and tensions. This research uses a qualitative approach by conducting semi-structured interviews with secondary school teachers in Kazakhstan.

Media literacy as a concept and a teaching purpose is therefore corresponding with the perception of education as a socialization process for active involvement in a democratic society (Tyner, 2014). Media-literate teachers will have enhanced capacities to empower students with their efforts in learning autonomously and pursuing lifelong learning. In the research about maximizing impact on teacher professional development, secondary school teachers are identified as the most significant factor in the learning context (Hattie, 2012). This is specifically the case for teachers of foreign languages, who have a particular interest in the international community (Korona,2020).

Existing studies suggest that media literacy is a very complex term because there is no evidence for a commonly shared meaning (Potter, 2022). Some of those meanings vary from one another in minor details and some vary in a broader sense. However, even small variations in meaning can cause problems when educators hold different perceptions of the same concepts. Therefore, before implementing larger-scale research in developing students’ media literacy, we must explore how teachers understand it. There are core issues in the formulation of the conceptual framework of media literacy education. We aim to identify the attempts of teachers to formulate the definition of the key concepts such as “media”, “literacy”, and “media literacy”. With a better understanding of how teachers perceive the key concepts of media literacy, it will be possible to identify existing issues and suggest further research areas. The research was driven by the following research questions:

How do EFL teachers of secondary schools in Kazakhstan perceive media literacy in education?

What are the possible challenges in implementing media literacy?

Thus, I determine the object of study from the point of view of a subjectivist epistemology, in which the researcher and the object of research are interactively bonded so that the results are created as the research proceeds (Guba & Lincoln, 1994). It aims to generate knowledge grounded in the EFL teachers’ contexts. Data were collected through naturalistic observations, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews.

Abstract:

Gamification is known to be a recognised method of managing business companies’ personnel performance and motivation. In modern Eurasian countries this practice is now gaining popularity in universities. Despite criticism from the advocates of traditional methods of education, the scale and variety of gamification methods and means introduced are slowly incorporated into the curriculum even as obligatory teaching practices.

This paper presents the set of results of the experiment of introducing gamification practices to teaching International Politics and International Relations in Armenia, Tajikistan and Russia in 2018 - 2023. Gamification was applied as an additional method of teaching and evaluating (including mid-semester tests and course exams at the end of it) to both graduate and undergraduate students, studying such subjects as History of International Relations (2d year of BA studies), International Security (3d year of BA studies) and Peace Research (2d year of MA studies).

In this paper, I introduce two blocs of methods and practices that were applied. First, I discuss how the semester exam in each of the three cases was divided into 3 stages with a choice for students to take a full- or partial exam using a “take-home exam” method that is still not widely recognized in Armenia, Tajikistan and Russia, and the results of this experiment. Second, the paper discusses the application of a role-play with an open-ended decision and some game theory practice that were applied for graduate students. Also, I highlight the major problems with student motivation, group performance successes and failures, and some psychological-cultural issues that were revealed as obstacles or accelerators during this study experiment across three universities in these countries.

Abstract:

Kazakhstan’s universities have undergone significant transformations in the content of the curriculum for the past three decades (Kerimkulova & Kuzhabekova, 2017). In particular, Kazakh education policymakers asked the teaching body to modernise the content of the curriculum and change the way in which faculty work by aligning it more closely with the Bologna process (Maudarbekova & Kashkinbayeva, 2014). The purpose of this study was to explore how faculty members of one foreign languages department were enacting changes in curriculum and teaching policy implemented in Kazakhstan’s public higher education system and their perspectives on changing their teaching and learning practices. The study was theoretically guided by the framework of policy enactment into practice (Ball et al., 2012). To contextualise the research, the current study drew on an ethnographic research design. During the period from February to May 2023, an in-depth data collection was conducted at a public university in Kazakhstan. Through data collection, including twenty-nine classroom observations, three document analysis, twenty semi-structured and twelve informal interviews, and field notes, this study aimed to address three key research questions: (1) Faculty perspectives on curriculum and teaching policy reform; (2) Faculty experiences of curriculum and teaching policy in practice; and (3) Factors that facilitate or impede the adoption of curriculum and teaching policy. The findings of the study unveiled that faculty had diverse opinions to curriculum reforms. Some participants showed openness and self-efficacy to probe new experiments aligning it to the idea of remaining competitive in the international arena while others criticised the existing curriculum stating that the content and topics of the curriculum needed revision as it had not been changed throughout ten-fifteen years as a result of the government oversight and low teacher autonomy. At the same time, faculty had different beliefs of what to teach that was shaped by their previous teaching backgrounds. Their teaching methods were categorised into teacher-centred approaches including memorisation, grammar-translation method as well as student-centred teaching such as collaborative learning, development of critical thinking skills and active engagement. Furthermore, a peer collaboration, peer observation, faculty self-development, peer networking, seminars, professional development, technology integration, and faculty creativity facilitated curriculum development and improvement in instructional approaches. However, insufficient funding, poor university equipment, technical challenges, lack of clear guidelines, and instructions hindered curriculum policy enactment. At the same time, university top-down environment, aligned with constant control, inspection, pressure, heavy workload further inhibited faculty to implement curriculum changes.

Abstract:

Abstract: This paper discusses issues of reforming the educational system, possible ways to change the supply of data in the learning process, the impact of changing technologies on human civilization, ways to form a future education system, leading trends, and the most predictable changes in society. The above facts allow us to conclude that the current state of the educational system does not correspond to the rapidly changing world, and must be taken to a new level.

There are a large number of educational technologies, but most of them do not take into account that education should be aimed at the future, it should teach to predict and stay ahead of modern achievements in science and technology. One such technology that allows one to create an image of the future during class discussions is “foresight”. This article analyzes the possibilities of using this technology in school and gives some recommendations for its use in teaching natural science subjects.

An era of radical change is dawning in the education sector. For a long time, this area could exist in a confined space and had maximum immunity to all kinds of social changes, so much so that it acquired a reputation as the most conservative area of human activity, but at the moment the situation is changing dramatically. There will be radical changes in the education system over the next couple of decades, most likely beginning with the creation of national education systems. Moreover, the main source of emerging changes will not be the educational system, but the related areas of technology and industries that come due to technological innovations.

The impact of the emerging sixth type of technology complex on society, the economy, and human life. Before we begin to discuss the prospects for the development of the educational system, we should indicate the significance of the emerging sixth type of technology complex (technological structure) on society, the economy, and human life. In the conditions of the formation of the sixth type, human capital plays a major role, since it is the dominant part of the economy of a new type because it will be based on knowledge.

Keywords: educational technology, group work, discussion, idea, concept, forecast, prediction, image of the future, invention, foresight.