Features of perception of educational information by modern students: potential of visual conceptualisation

The article reveals the specifics of perception of modern educational information by students. Perceptual difficulties of this process are explained through the prism of the theory of generations (N. Howe, William Strauss, Yu. A. Levada, T. Shanin, E. M. Shamis et al.). Teachers and students are seen as representatives of different generations (respectively, X and Y), which is due to differences in their mental codes. They were formed in different IT environments that need to be considered in the process of modernisation of higher education. For the generation Y, and following him-generation Z fundamental characteristic is nonlinearity perception of the world, the dominance of the visual channel of information, so the best strategy for the creation and use of educational texts is in visual conceptualisation, based on visual thinking tool (R. Arnheim). The authors substantiate the effectiveness of visual conceptualisation as a basic strategy for the creation and use of educational texts in the modern university. Using a topical theme "Time Management in the structure of students' research work: principles, methods, results" in the course "Basics of research work of students" the paper presents basic didactic principles of visual conceptualisation of the educational text: its division into semantic units in order to structure nuclear information; stratification of the information space of the text with pinpointing a special layer, motivating pupils to decode the encoded information; modeling the situation when the knowledge obtained is directly used in practice; designing visual supports for assimilation of verbal information.