Creative activity at higher education institutions: Ukrainian pedagogical overview

Professional training in Ukrainian higher education institutions is primarily focused on strengthening the creative potential of future educators, as it promotes their professional and personal growth, as well as the comprehensive outcome of students’ creative abilities. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to outline the Ukrainian pedagogical experience in enlarging the creative process in higher education institutions. Another aim is to ascertain the concepts of “creative process”, “creativity”, “creative skills” in the up-to-date Ukrainian pedagogical discourse. It is a point of discussion that in Ukrainian pedagogical literature the term “kreatyvnist” (“creativity”) dominates over “tvorchist” (“creative process”). Creative abilities are interpreted as a combination of inner human traits that emerge in the process of activity resulting in innovation. Creative activity integrates the mechanism of generating something new via education and cognition, while the ability reveals itself in responding to new non-standard situations when future-to-be teacher’s creative skills emerge. Ukrainian pedagogical discourse presents an urgent teacher’s need to be a manager of the inner self-improvement based on their cognitive activity. Moreover, two aspects tend to be crucial for the implementation of pedagogical work in higher education institutions in Ukraine. Firstly, the promotion of students’ creative self-development; secondly, the stimulation of students’ unique techniques for managing similar activities within the future professional framework.