Olga D. Fedotova

The article discusses the problem of using methodological approaches to the organization of situational-problem learning as a prerequisite for the formation of professional and critical thinking of future specialists. This issue is relevant at the present stage of development of the system of professional training of teachers. Historically and retrospectively, the author analyzes the Soviet and post-Soviet practices of using the capabilities of the case method. On its basis, a system of professional knowledge was formed, which in Soviet times was presented as a technology for solving specially compiled “pedagogical problems”, to which there are the only correct, pedagogically verified answers. It is shown that increased attention to the problem of using educational cases in the modern educational process is reflected in dissertation research at the beginning of the twentieth century. These studies were focused on solving specific problems at different stages of vocational education. The author proposes a new approach to constructing the content of an educational case as an attribute of a game-free method of active situational problem learning. The approach is based on the idea of an independent search for a solution to the problem on the basis of specially selected case materials, compiled according to the principle of “case in court”. Using the example of the educational case “Istanbul in the life and work of Martiros Saryan”, it is shown that universal information materials reflect documented segments of historical reality and have a cultural orientation. They can be used in teaching various academic disciplines of the humanities (history, psychology, cultural studies, pedagogy, etc.) and the natural science cycle (geography). It is noted that the use of training cases has a number of limitations associated with the expenditure of significant efforts to find interesting cases from practice and documents fixing them, which could become the actual basis of a training case