POLAR EXPRESS THROUGH THE WORLD OF COMPETENCES

This year in camps "Green cape" and "Beryozka" children had fun and developed useful skills under the guidance of representatives of the Tomsk State Pedagogical University. Expert of Department of patriotic education of the TSPU Gleb Balabaev was the head of the educational group in "Green cape".

The ten-day training "Wonder Train" was aimed at the development of 6 competencies: creativity, collaboration, communication, critical thinking, functional and financial literacy. The organizers of the shift expanded the existing concept of 4 competencies, which include critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration, based on the challenges of modern society.

"Among the competencies necessary for a modern person, we selected these six, because now they are the most relevant to the current level of the economy and education. Everyone should be creative in their daily tasks, be able to negotiate and unite with people, and use their knowledge to solve any problems and difficulties", — says Gleb.

At first, the guys faced different tasks, which were then solved at the workshops. In the process, children worked through one of six competencies.

At an educational meeting aimed at developing the skill of collaboration, children created a train with all its components: wheels, railroad, doors, etc. from improvised means. Also, children had to present it at the end of the training. The train with the most votes became the best one.

The workshop on functional literacy involved children solving a number of tasks: to come up with a fairy tale about their team, and in the course of the narrative to solve the difficulties encountered. As soon as the tale was ready, it was transformed into a comic strip and the whole story was depicted on watt paper.

The development of communication skills was associated with a sense of empathy. The children were divided into teams and each player, in turn, showed emotions: disgust, affection, fear, anxiety, embarrassment, anger, determination. The group tried to guess what the emotion was by reasoning with their teammates without using words.

To develop critical thinking, the counselors and organizers came up with an unusual task: each child was randomly assigned different objects that children use in everyday life and had to think up an unusual application. So an ordinary grater could become a pencil holder.

"The most important question that plagued our kids from the first day of the shift was who is the driver of this train. So the kids actively visited the new 'cars,' looked for clues, completed tasks and traveled to find the answer to that question by the end of the trip. Of course, they guessed that our train was driven by the author of this fascinating story", — says Elmira Askerova, camp counselor of "Berezka" camp.

Amazing ten days in the camps were fun and productive for the children thanks to the efforts of the counselors and training supervisors, who made the days of the start of the new year useful for the children.