Abstract:

Project-based learning of students is one of the most modern and promising pedagogical technologies in the paradigm of practice-oriented training of specialists for the digital economy and Industry 4.0. In this context, the organization of project learning in Russian universities is considered not as a distant prospect, but as an actual task of educational management.

The main task of the authors is to identify the features of models of the implementation of project learning in university educational practices. The empirical basis of the study is the results of a survey (2019) of students of technical training areas at three universities (N=378): Ural Federal University (Russia, Yekaterinburg) and University of Dunaujvaros (Hungary, Dunaujvaros), the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics (Belarus, Minsk), as well as the results of an expert survey of educational program managers, organizational documents, and projects for implementing project-based training at six Russian universities.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the project management methodology, institutional, marketing and competence approaches. The study was carried out using the methods of document analysis, sociological survey, comparative, reflexive and critical analysis, constructive compliance, benchmarking.

The results of the student survey revealed a high degree of demand and effectiveness of the project-based learning tools used in the educational process. The analysis and assessment of various university models of project learning recorded unequal starting conditions for their implementation: infrastructural (technical support of the classroom fund, the presence of modern research and production laboratories), personnel (the level of project training of all project learning stakeholders), regulatory (the existence of internal regulations). Differentiation of strategic values and target settings of developers determined the difference in methodological approaches to the formation of models of project learning. This, in turn, led to a technological variety of organizational mechanisms for their implementation. The fundamental limitation of the realization of project-based learning models in the university environment is the lack of incentives for the formation of a collaboration of universities with partner employers. The generalization of the best institutional practices shows that the model of project-based learning of the Ural Federal University is the most innovative, systemic and resource-secured.

Keywords:

Project-based learning, universities, models of implementation, comparative analysis.