The concept of form is connected with structure, it organizes, structures; to formalize means to give a form, to define a type, a structure, to construct. The process of education as a joint activity of students and educator takes place in certain organizational forms. Forms of education are more studied than forms of upbringing, educational extracurricular work with children, the latter are more numerous and various.
Various types of forms of educational work by the number of participants are distinguished:
- individual, – conversations, activities of an educator with one child;
- group – several participants (circle, temporary group, class) are in direct contact;
- mass, – several classes, school, the area, the whole country carry out holidays, conferences, meetings, marches and similar events.
Forms of work on types of activity are also allocated: forms of cognitive activity, labor, socially useful, aesthetic, physical training and health-improving, value-oriented.
At one time identified forms of educational work depending on the method of educational impact:
- verbal, – meetings, assemblies, rulers, lectures, conferences, meetings, oral newspapers, radio magazines;
- Practical – camping trips, excursions, fields days, Olympiads, competitions, subbotniks, timurovskaya work, etc;
- visual – museums, exhibitions, showcases, stands, wall newspapers, and more.
Modern researcher proposes to divide the forms of extracurricular educational work in school according to the educational task and identifies three groups:
- forms of management and self-government of school life – meetings, rulers, rallies, hours of class teachers, meetings of self-government bodies, etc.
- educational forms – excursions, hikes, festivals, oral magazines, handwritten school newspapers, theme nights, studios, sections, exhibitions, etc.
- entertainment forms – matinees and evenings, “kapustniks”, games, etc.
Summarizing the results of scientific and methodological search and work experience, and refraining from strict classification, we can distinguish the types of forms of educational work according to the main component, the method of impact in a single or repeated action (event) of the teacher. In this case, the typology of forms of educational work will be based on such means: a word, experience, work, game, psychological exercise. Hence, there are five types of forms of educational work with schoolchildren: verbal-logical, figurative-artistic, labor, play, psychological.