Improvement of the Effectiveness of General Engineering Courses Using Trainers

This article runs about the principles of developing and using trainers to enhance students’ educational and learning activities while studying engineering. The authors analyzed modern works of the development, implementation, and improvement of the use of trainers. Based on a generalization of the experience of such developments, a methodological approach was provided, based on the properties and functions of actions when using trainers, principles of visual modeling, sign and symbolic activity. The algorithm for the development of trainers in higher educational establishments is also recommended. At the same time, the requirements for the development of trainers were considered, taking into account the primary and secondary characteristics of actions, such as the form of the action, the measure of its generality, as well as the awareness and reasonableness of the actions. In addition, the authors provide a scheme to improve the sign and symbolic activity during the development and use of trainers in the study of engineering disciplines. The given methodological approach to the design of trainers is the possibility of a scientifically-based solution to the problem of the formation of the most general principles of activity for students and the ability to independently develop the whole system of scientific knowledge based on them.