Svetlana Shtympf

One of the most relevant professional skills today is the ability to work in a team. It should be recognized that the high effectiveness of this work, common incentives, motivations do not arise spontaneously. These are manifestations of the personal potential of its members, a complex of qualities, abilities and skills belonging to individual team members. The aim of the article is to study the personal quality of “initiative” among students of the pedagogical university who are engaged in team activities. The authors studied semantic and substantive essential characteristics of initiative, its structure, specific features. Considerable attention is paid to the analysis of various theories of the teamwork organization, both by foreign and domestic researchers, which cover a wide range of team building issues. Particular attention is paid to revealing social, socio-psychological, pedagogical, administrative and organizational, rational-organizational, administrative-organizational and virtual aspects of teamwork. The authors described a number of specific features of this type of activity: qualitative nature of interpersonal interactions in a group; duality, contradiction of wishes; distinctive national character of the group, manifested in a common, collective team spirit. Based on the analysis of “initiative” concept, its constituent components are identified: motivational-volitional, procedural-activity, and reflexive-evaluative ones. As a result of the study, the authors found out that acquiring effective teamwork skills contribute to the positive socialization of participants and to the formation of universal competences “Teamwork and leadership” according to FSES HE 44.03.01 Pedagogical Education and 44.03.05 Pedagogical Education (with two areas of training). Case technology and project technology in their harmonious combination were those to evaluate the level of initiative establishment. The presentation of theoretical material at the lessons in the case form and the public defense of its project decision allowed all team members to take initiative in varying degrees, which revealed the abilities and needs of the participant’s personality and the level of the team formation in general. The article may be interesting for teachers, specialists in the field of team building, those who work in the field of additional education, curators of student groups, class tutors.