Abstract:

The strategy of lifelong learning is based on the idea of a constantly ongoing process of personal development. The Don State Technical University, Russia, has a unique experience of lifelong learning as it provides education to the students of all ages. The university has developed a wide range of educational programs for secondary schooling, higher education and post graduate programs, educational programs for elderly people and many others. Lifelong learning comprises both studying at the educational institutions of different levels and self-learning. The success of this process is impossible without some personal qualities such as self-control, responsibility, autonomy. The authors consider fostering these qualities to be an important task of education at different levels among the students of different ages.

The objective of the paper is to present the techniques and methods of self-control formation among students which were developed and successfully applied at the Don State Technical University. The theoretical basis of our research is a psychological theory of personality. The technique of self-control formation is based on step by step replacement of teachers’ control over the learners’ progress by mutual learners’ – teachers’ control and later by learners’ self-control over the progress in the learning process which the authors would like to share.

Control takes the form of mutual control in a situation of communication and interpersonal interaction of learners and teachers. Self-control is a measure of responsibility of each participant of educational process. One of the necessary conditions of the lifelong education is the involvement of students in the evaluation of their educational activities on the basis of cognitive and behavioral self-control. The pedagogical conditions necessary to foster students’ self-control are: the teacher involvement in the process; formation of students’ self-assessment skills; students’ involvement in various forms of mutual assessment; the formation of students’ evaluative abilities; training and methodological support of the process of learning self-control.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, self-control, techniques, higher education area.