METHODOLOGY OF TEACHING SPECIALIZED SUBJECTS TO FUTURE OPERATION OFFICERS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES

The provision of high-level efficiency of counteraction against crime by the operational units of the law en-forcement agencies requires the appropriate level of staffing with highly qualified workers, which are almost absent today. It preconditions the necessity to increase the quality of professional training of the future operational staff in corresponding higher education institutions. One of the important factors that contributes to the accomplishment of this task is the improvement of the methodology of teaching major subjects in the educational institutions. The goal of the current research is to define the fundamentals of the methodology of teaching major subjects in the higher educa-tion system to the future operational staff members of law enforcement agencies. The research is based on the general scientific approach of induction (including system approach, modeling, experiment, generalization, and sociological and other methods of scientific cognition). This revealed, first of all, substantiation and successful testing of the methodology of teaching one of the major subjects of professional specialization to the future operational staff mem-bers (“Surveillance”). Then, the most general provisions and efficient elements of this methodology were used for the identification of the fundamentals of teaching these subjects, which include subordination of the educational process to the goal of provision of the operation units of the law enforcement agencies with staff members who are ready for work; examination of knowledge, skills and competencies that are being developed according to responsibilities of an operational staff member; organization of the educational process with the involvement of educators who have signif-icant experience in the appropriate area of investigation activities and active involvement in classes of the current staff members of operational units of the corresponding profile; motivation of students to self-study (through intro-duction of problem-based teaching in simulated conditions that are strongly similar to the real-life ones); distribution of the general volume of academic hours according to the following principle: minimum lectures – maximum practical classes; attribution of the capabilities of using the acquired knowledge in practical activity, demonstration of creativ-ity in volatile conditions that are modeled to recreate real-life situations as the major object for assessment of future operational staff members' academic success; attribution of several features (parameters), within the frames of every subject, and for every of the parameters – specific assessment criteria; use of a package of innovative pedagogical techniques.