Some aspects of the organization of self-educational activities of university students in the study of mathematics

The article presents the methodology developed by the authors for organizing self-educational activities of university students in their study of mathematics, which is based on the model of multi-level cognitive activity. Analyzing the literature devoted to the issues of self-education, independent work and cognitive self-educational activities of students, the authors come to the need to increase the number of hours allocated for independent preparation of students, and, consequently, to the priority of the task of competent organization of such work. The authors describe four stages of students' cognitive activity at the reproductive and productive levels. Specific examples of activity at each of them are given; it is noted that achieving the third level of cognitive activity by students is already a good result. The application of the developed model in the preparation of students of the construction specialty at the Volga State Transport University is shown. As examples of tasks corresponding to the first three levels of cognitive activity, mathematical and applied problems from the sections «Analytical Geometry», «Mathematical Analysis» and «Mathematical Statistics» are given. The task of the fourth level is the work «Remarkable Curves and Their Practical Application». The article also presents the results of testing the developed model of cognitive activity. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is proven by a comparison of the exam results when training in the first year was conducted traditionally, and in the second — using the presented model. In particular, the grades «excellent» and «good» in the second semester were 19,3 % and 26,1 % of the total, respectively, in the fourth semester, these indicators significantly improved and amounted to 28,9 % and 35,1 %.