Project Studies as A Transborder Didactic Tool in Higher Education (The Case of The German-Russian Study Project)

Abstract

Project studies can become the most important innovative component of education programs in modern society. They allow one to not only improve the professional skills of students, but also develop competencies in the fields of project management and team building. The greatest didactic value is possessed by interdisciplinary and international projects. In the framework of their implementation, a synergistic effect occurs from a combination of methods of different sciences, as well as communications between representatives of different national scientific and educational schools. The success of a project study depends on student motivation. Their participation in setting common goals and developing methods for their achievement is the basis of high motivation. Along with this, the work of teacher-curators, oriented to help in solving emerging problems of a substantial and methodological order, acquires a fundamental role. The lack of project studies is largely due to the high requirements for the teachers involved in it. The tasks of teachers during project training are fundamentally different from those that they perform using other educational methods. This is one of the most temporarily costly and time-consuming forms of training. The study deals with the structural, managerial and didactic features of project study in higher education using as an example scientific and educational projects on labour market studies, which, since 2017, have been jointly carried out by the Moscow State University (MSU) and the University of Applied Labour Studies (UALS), Mannheim.