This section substantiates a methodology for effectively linking the reproductive and creative components of students’ independent work. It shows that reproductive activity is not the antithesis of creativity but its knowledge base, and that their proportion should be set dynamically according to students’ preparedness rather than as a single fixed percentage. The study develops a five-stage procedure (diagnostic-epistemic orientation, stabilizing the reproductive foundation, a transformative bridge, creative construction, and epistemic verification with reflection), a chain of interconnected tasks, an epistemic verification protocol, a five-component criteria system and a four-level analytic rubric. It also substantiates the pedagogical conditions for the methodology’s effectiveness and the principle of adaptively reducing instructor support
independent work
reproductive and creative components
transformative task
epistemic verification
scaffolding
analytic rubric
reflection