The Scientific Council of Armenian State Pedagogical University (ASPU) has convened the first sitting of the new academic year. Maintaining the good tradition of the University, the
Chairman of the Scientific Council, ASPU Rector Rouben Mirzakhanyan first congratulated all those who have celebrated their birth anniversary this month, and then conferred a degree of Professor and six degrees of Associate Professors to the nominated candidates.
Hasmik Petrosyan, Secretary of the Scientific Council, presented a draft work plan for the academic year 2013-2014, which was adopted unanimously.
Srbouhi Gevorgyan, Vice-Rector for Educational and Scientific Affairs, referred to the execution of the decision on MA-level programs which was taken during the May 15 sitting of the Scientific Council. She assured the participants that at the threshold of the new academic year consistent work had been carried out in organizational, planning and content, subject, professorial and research directions.
“After reviewing the packages of subjects taught under the MA program in all specialties and including new courses, we decided to invite leading specialists from Armenia and abroad [working in higher education and scientific institutions], including Doctors of Science, Professors and corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences to teach at the MA course,” said Srbouhi Gevorgyan.
She assured the presentees that MA studies are in the center of attention of the University’s administration; the learning process will be regularly updated, the packages of subjects and programs will be amended and continuous monitoring will be carried out to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the process and neutralize the hindrances.
The findings and the results will be regularly reported to the members of the Scientific Council.
Vice-Rector Mher Melik-Bakhshyan, Laura Asatryan, Acting Head of the Chair of History and Theory of Pedagogy, Hayk Petrosyan, Acting Head of the Chair of Professional Education and Applied Pedagogy, Vahe Sargsyan, Head of Internship Department, and Heghine Khachatryan, Dean of the Faculty of Primary Education, spoke about the execution of the decision on teaching of Pedagogy as a subject which was taken during the June 25 sitting of the Scientific Council.
Laura Asatryan stressed that by a decision of the Scientific Council, the list of subjects and elective courses taught at the BA course had been reviewed and amended in terms of content and programs and new elective courses had been added. “Lecturers of Chairs have actively participated in the drafting of subjects for the main courses. Seventeen programs have been developed and didactic materials prepared which fully meet the requirements of internship and professions of all faculties.”
For his part, Hayk Petrosyan underlined that the contents of subjects taught in the Chair of Applied Pedagogy and Professional Education had been specified. The list of core and elective subjects, their descriptions, plans and teaching materials are also available.
In his report, Head of Internship Department Vahan Sargsyan once again reminded the attendees about the content of the tasks they are faced with. He assured everyone that the
content and requirements of the internship and theoretical and practical courses had been complied with each other. Also, they clarified pedagogical competencies and final results and defined the functions of head teachers of internship.
“Taking into account the characteristics of Master's degree programs, independent research orientation of Master’s degree courses, the features of scientific-pedagogical practices it was recommended to organize scientific-pedagogical practices under Master’s degree programs in primary, secondary and higher education institutions, using maximally the resources and opportunities of the University. The internship will be organized during the 2nd and 3rd semesters, leaving three credit loads on each phase,” said Vahan Sargsyan.
For further improvement of practices, he suggested that training manuals, new internship guidelines and booklets be developed for students. Also, he suggested doing everything for the right assessment of educational resources, their effectiveness and accessibility, self-assessment of professorial teaching staff and introduction of projects for expert evaluation procedures, and organizing short-term training courses for practice educators, methodists and psychologists.
Summing up the reports of her colleagues, Heghine Khachatryan, Dean of the Faculty of Primary Education, detailed the course of reforms in teaching Pedagogy as a subject under Baccalaureate/Master's degree programs (BA/MA programs), laying a special accent on such important notions as concept, cooperation, testing and monitoring.
During the meeting, Professor Aelita Dolukhanyan, PhD in Philology, a corresponding member of the RA National Academy of Sciences, was reelected as Head of the Chair of Ancient and Medieval Armenian Literature and its Teaching Methods by secret ballot. By a decision of the Scientific Council and with the view of ensuring an adequate level of educational quality in the specialty of Informatics, as well as strengthening supervision over the execution of curricula, the Chair of Informatics and its Teaching Methods was again included in the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics.
ASPU Rector Rouben Mirzakhanyan instructed to set up a commission in order to devise and submit the syllabus for Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs in Informatics and draw up subject programs for freshmen.
The Scientific Council also approved three of the five Ph.D. theses submitted for approval. Several training manuals received approval for publication.
