Whatever training methods be applied for the professional education efficiency upgrading it is important to create such psychological-pedagogical conditions, in which the student can occupy an active personal position and manifest himself as an academic activity subject to the full extent. The didactical principle of personal activity in training and professional self-determination conditions the system of requirements for the student´s academic activity and the teacher´s educational work in the integrated learning process. Internal and external factors, needs and motives are involved into the system. The correlation of these characteristics determines the choice of the education content, concrete forms and methods of training, conditions of organization of the entire process of active creative personality formation. There are no universally effective or ineffective methods.
All training methods have their own strong and weak sides, and that is why, depending on purposes, conditions, time available, it is necessary to combine them in the optimal way. The quality of education is made of training quality and quality of upbringing. The training quality can be achieved only as the result of the efficiency of every training stage. I.e. the whole process of training is built on the scheme: to conceive - to understand - to remember - to use - to control. To gain the training quality it is necessary to get through all these stages of cognitive activity consistently. The use of various forms and methods in the process of training guarantees the training quality upgrading.
The main forms and methods of training acting to raise the training quality are: role-playing games, business games, conferences, forums, dialogues, problem training, solitary work, abstract defence, individual performances, creative compositions, reports, messages; tasting, programmed control, research work, etc. All the numerated training technologies promote the training quality problems solution.
At a higher educational institution at verbal presentment of training material on jurisprudence branches wordly training methods are generally used. Among them an important place is occupied by a lecture. The lecture acts as a leading part of the whole training program and represents a means of extensional theoretical material presentment, providing the integrity and completeness of the students´ perception of it. The lecture must give systematized foundations of scientific knowledge on a discipline; disclose the state and development prospects of the correspondent domain of science and technology; concentrate the learners´ attention on the most complex, topical points; stimulate their active cognitive work and promote the formation of creative thinking. However, a traditional lecture has a series of disadvantages, which are conditioned by the following:
- The lecture teaches to conceive other opinions passively, restrains learners´ independent thinking.
- The lecture spoils the wish to work independently.
- Lectures are needed, when there are no textbooks or there are few of them.
- Some students have time to comprehend the material, others - manage only to write the lecturer´s words down mechanically. It goes against the principle of the training individualization.
However, the higher school experience testifies that lecture refusal decreases the scientific level of learners´ training, breaks the consistency and uniformity of their work during a term. That is why the lecture still remains both guiding jurisprudence branches training method and guiding form of the academic process organization at a higher educational institution. The specified disadvantages can be largely overcome with the help of correct methods and rational composition of the material studied.
To some extent the acuteness of the contradictions named dismisses the opportunity to use non-conventional kinds of delivering lectures in the academic process. The present-day methodology numbers over 250 various methods. These methods result in the change of the teacher´s role, new instruments of learners´ achievements estimation.
One of the effective training methods, especially in jurisprudence branches teaching, is the method of problem solving (problem training), as long as the apprehension of a large scale normative legal material is required just for the solution of one or another practical case. Instead of "translating" facts and their interrelation for students one may offer them to analyse the situation (problem) and make a legal analysis and search for its solution.
In a traditional lecture such means as the explanation, illustration, description, giving examples, and in a problem one - the all-around analysis of events, scientific search for truth are mainly used. The problem lecture rests on the logic of consistently simulated problem situations by means of putting problem questions and setting problem tasks. The problem situation - is a complex contradictory atmosphere created at the lectures by putting problem issues (introductories), requiring active cognitive activity from learners, for its correct estimation and solution. The problem issue contains a dialectical contradiction and requires not a reproduction of the knowledge got, but a speculation, comparison, search, acquirement of new knowledge or application of the earlier got one. The problem task unlike the problem issue contains some additional introductory information and, if necessary, some orienting search points for its solution. The notions "problem issue" and "problem task" are divided only nominally as problem issues can grow into tasks and tasks - be divided into issues and sub-issues.
The complexity level and problems´ character depend on the learners´ preparedness, the studied subject and other circumstances.
The problem tasks solution and answers to problem issues are performed by the teacher (sometimes falling back to listeners´ help, organizing dialogues). The teacher should not only adjust differences, but also show the logic and methods, demonstrate techniques for brainwork coming from the dialectical method of complex events cognition. It requires considerable time, that is why a preliminary work on the training material selection and lecture "scenario" preparation are required from the teacher.
The skill to solve problems is the most important key competence necessary for a human in any sphere of his activity and everyday life. If learners possess the skills to solve problems, their worth for the organizations, where they will work, will increase manifold; besides, they will acquire the competence, which will be useful for them as long as their life endures.
In the course of the problem´s evaluation learners: deepen their knowledge on specific issues, develop their abilities to solve problems using principles and procedures (theory); develop social and communicative skills. Thus, at the lecture of problem character students are in a constant process of "co-thinking" with the lecturer, and finally become the co-authors in problem tasks solution. All this does much good, because, first, the knowledge acquired in such a way becomes the property of students, i.e. to some extent knowledge-opinions; second, acquired actively, they are remembered more deeply and easily become actual (training effect), are more flexible and possess the property of transferring into other situations (the effect of creative thinking development); third, the problem tasks solution appears as a peculiar simulator in the development of intellect (the developing effect); fourth, a such-like lecture promotes interest to the content and enhances professional training (the effect of psychological preparation for the future activity).
The work was submitted to III international scientific conference "Problems of International Integration of National Educational Standards", scientific 23-27, April, 2008, Czechia (Prague) - Luxemburg - France (Paris), came to the editorial office 08.02.2008.