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Introduction
Changes in the higher education system also demand that the renewed version of the Federal State Educational Standards includes competencies providing for the construction and design activities of future teachers (Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, 2015, 2016).
The problem of preparing teachers for construction and design work is especially acute today, as the level of mastery of this aspect of professional work affects the teacher’s future overall career success (Belous et al., 2021; Shishiv et al., 2022). Practice shows that many university graduates have difficulties with such construction and design activities as defining goals and objectives, designing and developing educational materials, modeling pedagogical situations, structuring the content of the process of music education, selecting musical material in accordance with the age and individual characteristics of children, preparing multimedia support for lessons or classes, etc (Gladilina et al., 2022).
These difficulties are caused primarily by the lack of conditions conducive to the formation of appropriate competencies within the methodological space of higher education institutions that train teaching staff for educational institutions.
Materials and methods
Having defined the concept of construction and design activities of a music teacher along with its essence and specifics, we should proceed to examine the methods and ways to optimize the process of training for this type of work. Further to that point, in modern conditions of higher education development, professional pedagogical training issues require constant updating and improvement.
What can be considered as the main tool allowing one to optimize the training of future music teachers for construction and design activities is the content-technological model we have developed. The structure of the proposed model includes the goals, objectives, content, pedagogical conditions, stages, technology, and components.
Let us examine each of the above in detail.
The personal-motivational component of the model is conducive to the development of students’ motivation and interest in acquiring knowledge in the specified field, as well as the need for the formation of construction and design skills and functions as part of musical education. This component promotes the orientation of future music teachers with high results in their music teaching work.
The logical content component is grounded in the formation of a conscious attitude of students to the studied material concerning the construction and design activities of a music teacher. In addition, this component relies on the mastery of knowledge, both in the general didactic sense and with respect to the pedagogical principles of music education.
The artistic activity component facilitates the transformation of the obtained knowledge into practical action. With that in place, the future music educator begins to learn new functions associated with the conduct of construction and design work defined by the artistic and creative peculiarities of the profession of a music teacher.
The reflective assessment component is closely intertwined with the principles of feedback and aims at forming the skills of reflecting on one’s music teaching activity overall and its construction and design component in particular.
Within the framework of the described content-technological model, a special course "Fundamentals of Construction and Designing Activities of the Music Teacher" was developed and introduced in the educational process as one of the methods of training together with a workshop aimed to form construction and design skills and abilities. The volume of the special course was 30 academic hours with 15 hours of lectures and 15 hours of practical lessons. The theoretical material of the special course was designed so as to be usable by students in pedagogical practice.
It is also worth noting that all the materials studied as part of the special course, in our view, are very influential on the professiogram of a future music teacher. The content of the course covers information on the essence and particular aspects of construction and design work, the stages of its implementation, the specifics of the profession of a music teacher, and the peculiarities of activities on the development and application of multimedia technologies in the process of music education. Furthermore, the course promotes the formation of construction and design skills and abilities.
The lectures in the course were of a non-traditional nature and were held in the format of problem-based lectures, discussion lectures, conversation lectures, visualization lectures, and so on. Training as part of the course utilized both traditional and innovative methods and techniques, such as heuristic, search, problem-developing, pedagogical situation modeling methods, art and pedagogical business games, etc.
The special course also sought to develop students’ practical skills and abilities in designing, constructing, and developing multimedia products, which in today’s world is one of the significant competencies in the professiogram of a music teacher.
As an example, we can cite the following types of tasks:
creating multimedia presentations on a given topic;
developing didactic multimedia products;
supporting musical practice activities with computer technology, etc.
The preparation of future music teachers for construction and design activities is a complicated and lengthy process that includes several stages: setting, activity, and evaluation.
The setting stage was aimed at recognizing the importance of construction and design work as an aspect of the professional practice of a music teacher and laying down the fundamental knowledge of these types of activities.
The activity stage was the main phase in training future teachers for construction and design. This stage presupposed the formation of competencies necessary for the implementation of construction and design actions. At this stage, students were transforming their theoretical training into practical action, gaining the skills of developing and constructing teaching materials, selecting musical materials for lessons in accordance with the age and individual characteristics of students, etc. The activity stage also involved the development of the important skill of developing multimedia didactic teaching tools and implementing them in the educational process.
The concluding reflective stage aimed at the formation of competencies in controlling and correcting one’s own construction and design work. As part of this phase, students were acquiring the skills of finding and fixing their own mistakes and shortcomings.
Results and discussion
Analysis of psychological and pedagogical research suggests that the concept of construction and design activities is borrowed from the technical sphere and relates to the professions of an engineer, artist, architect, and designer. With time, such terms as modeling, design, and construction became increasingly common in the sphere of humanities, including pedagogical work (Ermilova et al., 2022). The respective actions, including prospective and current planning of the educational process, development and composition of educational material, setting goals and objectives, design and simulation of teaching situations, development of multimedia products, etc., became the basis of the construction and design aspect of the professional activities of teachers.
Initially, this adoption of the concept was associated with the work of such prominent teachers and scholars as A.S. Makarenko, S.T. Shatskii, and V.A. Sukhomlinskii and later V.V. Kraevskii, V.P. Bespalko, and others. Among the foreign researchers, the issues of construction and design activities of teachers were considered by J. Dewey, W. Kilpatrick, D. Snezden, V. Monde, and D. Catterick.
However, we can note a lack of specialized research into the construction and design activities of music teachers. The conducted analysis of psychological and pedagogical sources demonstrates that particular aspects of the problem have been addressed in the works of such researchers and teachers as E.B. Abdullin, IU.B. Aliev, O.A. Apraksina, O.F. Asatrian, L.A. Bezborodova, L.G. Dmitrieva, D.B. Kabalevskii, L.S. Maikovskaia, E.V. Nikolaeva, B.S. Rachina, N.M. Chernoivanenko, L.V. Shkoliar, and others.
One of the distinguishing features of construction and design activities is an interaction of the technological and musical dimensions. At the core of the technological direction lie the general didactic principles and approaches that are common between the work of music teachers and teachers of other subjects. The artistic direction, in turn, relies on the principles inherent in the work of teachers of the arts. Both the technological and artistic orientations are significant elements of the professiogram of a music teacher. As argued by Kabalevskii (2007), these elements need to be driven by the very nature of music, closely interacting with the emotional and spiritual spheres of the child.
In this respect, some researchers reason about the need to introduce the technology of integration of artistic and didactic components in the process of professional training of future music teachers. The artistic components could include the musicological, culturological, musical-psychological, and musical activity components. The didactic components could be the study of Federal State Educational Standards and compliance with their requirements in providing music education; development of working programs; preparation of didactic tools, visual aids, multimedia support, etc.
In our study of the professional work of music teachers, we cannot but note another aspect that is most fully revealed in the implementation of the construction and design component - the overriding role of creativity. Dmitrieva & Chernoivanenko (2000), assert that the creative approach is a critical factor in planning the process of musical education, which includes the objectives of the perspective definition of educational, developmental, and upbringing tasks, seeing the end goals and results of each lesson or class, the ability to model and construct pedagogical situations, choosing the optimal solutions to pedagogical problems and difficult situations, etc.
Another peculiarity of the construction and design work of music teachers is the prevalence of the aesthetic component, which lies at the core of music education and is grounded in the principles of art (Anufrieva et al., 2021). By virtue of the aesthetic component in the professional practice of a music teacher, students develop elevated feelings and emotions, which they learn to express in the process of music education; develop spiritual and moral principles; enrich their inner world, etc.
Considering the multifaceted nature of music teachers’ construction and design work, we must also note the predominance of the upbringing component in its structure. The presence of this component in the structure of the studied activity created favorable conditions for the formation of a harmonious personality of a child by means of musical art (Wagner et al., 2021).
Today, construction and design activity is of major importance in the context of preparing multimedia products as part of providing musical education. This factor owes to the need of modern society for a teacher who is fluent in multimedia technology and becomes especially vital when the need arises to organize a distance learning mode with the use of multimedia communication.
Mastery of competencies in the application of multimedia technologies opens a range of opportunities for the music teacher. These include the search and formation of musical materials for the process of music education; the use of various ways to play the materials; selection and development of the artistic range for music lessons and classes; opportunities to store voluminous musical and informational resources; the use of a variety of multimedia products as didactic materials and aids in the implementation of music teaching activities, etc.
Thus, our examination of the characteristics inherent in the studied type of activities of a music teacher suggests that the construction and design work of a music teacher is a set of logically structured design and construction activities, including planning, organization, and implementation of education and upbringing process in the field of music teaching that is marked by a predominance of the artistic, technological, creative, and aesthetic components and relies on the general didactic and artistic principles (Mavrodina, 2021).
Conclusions
Discussing the specificity of the construction and design activity of the music teacher within the framework of this article, we, first of all, note the universality of the music pedagogy sphere. However, the diversity of aspects of this concept should be considered and the features characteristic of such professional areas as the teacher-choirmaster, teacher-vocalist, teacher-pianist, teacher-flutist, etc., should be identified.
First, there is the component of selecting musical material for performance. This choice also has to account for the technical level of the student, their age and physiological characteristics, the mastery of performance skills, the motivational component, etc.
Second, there is the element of the choice of teaching methods and techniques, both the general didactic and specific for the particular professional area. While the general didactic methods are universal for all music teachers, when it comes to the varieties of the professional music teaching sphere, a teacher-choirmaster uses the methods and techniques typical of their professional field, a teacher-instrumentalist uses the methodological apparatus that their practice requires, and so on.
Third, the forms of organization of the educational process are selected with regard to the specifics of the given professional area. For instance, a teacher-instrumentalist uses individual or small group forms of work, while a teacher-choirmaster works only in the collective (group) form.
To our regret, the scope of the article does not allow for a more detailed consideration of other features characteristic of various areas of the professional sphere of music pedagogy. This problem may serve as a theme of a separate study. To conclude, we would like to note that in today's dynamically developing society, the labor market has a high demand for teachers who are mobile and able to constantly develop and improve. In this regard, high-level mastery of construction and design activities may be one of the indicators of the pedagogical level of music teachers.
