Reflexive communication as a condition for the manifestation and development of educational agency of master students

The learning process at school and at a university usually allows students to remain a passive “material” of pedagogical influences; it both does not require any student initiative and prevents its manifestation. This paper describes the experience of creating conditions for students to take a more active position regarding the process of their professional training: to realize their interests and requests for the learning process, to reflect on personal results for a semester and academic year, to cooperate with teachers to improve the educational process. The authors describe three communicative formats (goal-setting session, analytical session, comprehensive semester exam) and the results of their use in the organization of the educational process. The main feature of these communication formats is the posing of questions by each of the participants (to themselves or to other participants in the interaction), the exchange of these questions, and their joint discussion highlighting the problems that need to be solved. The described experience shows that such an organization of interaction between students, both among themselves and with teachers, helps students to better understand their own educational needs and the possibilities of the postgraduate program, set realistic goals for the next semester, and think about how to make their professional training as effective as possible. As a result, some master students take part in the educational process improvement together with teachers. This allows suggesting that as a result of the interaction organized in this way, students acquire the educational agency experience.