Pedagogical Opportunities Of Distance Education In A New Reality

Abstract

The article identifies one of the tendencies in the information pedagogy development as a leading direction for improving the distance learning quality, which consists in shifting the emphasis on the interaction between the teacher’s training activity and the students’ learning self-educational activity. The problem of forming new teacher’s functions in the context of a distance educational process is considered. The distance learning pedagogical equipment is proposed, in which the teacher’s function is to manage students’ independent work, create the distance learning toolkit, and determine methods and forms for feedback and control. This is due to the fact that in distance learning a significant place is given to the students’ independent work, which prepares them for active self-development. The aspect of subjects’ pedagogical interaction, associated with their temporal and spatial remoteness, when creating innovative educational products and the corresponding internal students’ increments is characterized. It is concluded that the effectiveness of distance learning in the education system is manifested in the focus on revealing the inner potential of a person, enhancing his independence qualities in solving educational and cognitive tasks.

Keywords: Digital educational environment, distance learning, independent students’ work management, new teacher’s functions and roles

Introduction

Thespecial features of the modern period in the new reality are expressed in the fact that the qualities of the individual’s adaptation to the new life conditions during the pandemic situation come to the fore. The modern situational unpredictable virus factor has made adjustments to the society life and to the education system; in particular, when preserving the educational process quality is combined with the need to ensure the educational subjects’– pupils, students and teachers – health safety. Universities, schools and institutes for advanced training have moved educational courses to the Internet space in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

This is primarily due to the fact that the information revolution and digital technologies have widened the gap between traditional education systems and the rapidly changing social, economic and technical society’s living conditions. The information revolution has led to the need of transforming various educational systems and required an active search for new models of distance learning in education (Order of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, 2019).

At the same time, we note that with tremendous progress in the field of technical equipment, significant reserves for improving the quality of distance learning lie in expanding the pedagogical capabilities of digital technologies and the digital educational environment in general.

Problem Statement

Maintaining the education quality under the new circumstances of using distance learning is an extremely relevant problem. New realities require an urgent response from pedagogical science and practice. In the digital space, traditional pedagogical theories have to adapt to completely new realities, forming innovative information pedagogy, “the teacher’s function is radically changing: from relaying educational information to the organizing self-learning and self-education process” (Stashkevich, 2014, p. 26). The concept of “ready-made knowledge”, traditionally established within the society, gives way to the concept of transforming incoming information into modeling one’s own knowledge picture based on the self-educational activity development.

This defines a new educational process structure, in which the academic disciplines content is delivered through a variety of information platforms and digital devices, changing the nature of pedagogical impact.

Considering the issues of distance learning pedagogical equipment, it is necessary, firstly, to characterize the aspect associated with the functioning of the modern digital educational environment.

Based on the educational environment definition as a system of conditions affecting the personality formation, as well as the set of opportunities for students’ self-development contained in the social and spatial-objective environment, let us dwell on the features of this environment main characteristics (Yasvin, 2019). When organizing distance learning, the most important aspect is the features of the pedagogical subjects’ interaction in the modern digital educational environment, which consists in temporal and spatial remoteness with them being involved in the educational process, when creating innovative educational products and the corresponding internal increments of study subjects (Shchelgachev & Sivtsova, 2020).

With a sufficiently developed environment technological support, one more feature stands out – the psychological factor due to the specificity of productive pedagogical interaction and teacher’s reduced educational capabilities in the context of online learning (Andreev, 2015). According to Schneider (2019), to a large extent (Schneider, 2019). In practice, in this regard, a pedagogical problem arises when, for example, educational material is mastered in the form of a complex of video lectures, presentations with comments, video cuts in the complete absence of support from the teacher. This form of presentation of educational material excludes students’ judgments and inferences on the studied material, reduces their ability to comprehend the material as an axiological value, does not contribute to the development of critical thinking.

Research Questions

What are the leading trends in the education modernization (educational environment, knowledge transformation, changing the teacher’s and student’s roles, etc.), which must be taken into account in the context of distance education?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to identify and characterize the pedagogical opportunities of distance education and information (electronic) pedagogy in improving the education quality in the new reality.

Research Methods

The study has used a theoretical method of generalizing pedagogical experience, a theoretical analysis of scientific literature and an empirical analysis of pedagogical practices, which determines their functionality.

Findings

The effective use of distance learning presupposes creative interaction between all the pedagogical process participants in a digital environment, which allows the teacher not only to use ready-made computer programs, but also to integrate their own developments into them, to conduct interactive communication with each other, with scientific teams from different cities and countries (Rezinkina & Dzidziguri, 2015).

At the same time, as the analysis of pedagogical practices has shown, there has been the greatest problem with training creative teachers who would be capable of continuous self-education and creative self-realization. The main task of professional development is to reveal and develop the teachers’ creative potential, develop their opportunities and professional career (Gadusova et al., 2019).

First of all, let us dwell on the university teacher’s (teacher)new image as an organizer and moderator of distance learning in a digital environment.

As Galyas (2020) emphasizes, implementing distance online communication and online learning requires teachers to reassess their social function and value-rational view of teaching and educational activities, to search for new technologies of including a moral and humanistic and upbringing component in the education system.

In this regard, new roles of a teacher with clearly defined functionality occur: online courses author, teacher-curator, teacher-coordinator, teacher-consultant (Gafurov et al., 2019). We should specially emphasize the role of the teacher in the managing students’ self-education in the course of distance learning format. Increased attention to the students’ reactions directly during the training session in the online learning format, the active students’ involvement in the development of the lesson’s structure and course can improve social communication between the teacher and the student, as well as stimulate the child’s interest in the subject and in distance learning in general (Rosanda & Starcic, 2019).

Managing students’ independent work in new conditions presupposes forming their motivation to study, the ability to formulate the goals and objectives of educational activities, the competence of working with information. The teacher’s function in this situation is to organize effective interaction between the subjects of education, create distance learning toolkit, determine methods and forms of feedback, control the learning process, etc. (Guryevskaya, 2020).

Analyzing the features of the educational subjects’ interaction in the digital environment, it is particularly important to characterize the current trends in the creating an interactive educational process. So Shchelgachev and Sivtsova (2020) emphasize that from a pedagogical point of view, two approaches can be distinguished. The first approach consists in organizing distance learning as an exchange of information between a teacher and a student using digital means and information and educational portals. Accompanying the students’ activities in developing independent knowledge and gaining personal experience with this approach is minimized, and sometimes absent. In the second approach, the education subjects’ personal, productive and creative activity is the leading one. At the same time, the main emphasis in the students’ independent work is transferred to the educational material, the pressure on a teacher increases due to additional functions (manage and control, consulting and anticipatory). This approach contributes to motivating a student to learn, improves the educational material perception, etc. (Shchelgachev & Sivtsova, 2020).

Let us characterize the possibilities of improving the distance learning quality from the perspective of implementing pedagogical resources of this process.

The formation and development of distance learning is based on the positive trends in the distance education system functioning in our country. We can agree with Liksina and Gerasimova’s (2020) opinion that distance learning has emerged from the part-time system due to a technological breakthrough – the use of new communication technologies and the creation of a unified world educational space. Distance learning can be carried out in educational institutions of higher professional education, regardless of their legal organizational forms for all educational programs, including programs of additional professional education.

The prerequisites for the distance education development are, to a certain extent, the domestic experience of evening and part-time schools, when special programs and textbooks were created. Assignments for part-time students, teaching methods for mathematics, physics, literature and foreign language teachers, published in mass circulation by the “Prosveshchenie” and “Drofa” publishing houses.

In this regard, it is important to consider the issue of introducing a credit-modular training system into the school in a new way, taking the digital technologies achievements in to account, in order to provide an algorithm to prepare for tests, requirements for knowledge, skills, competencies for each module (Nekrasov, 2018).

The development of information pedagogy as a leading direction for improving the distance learning quality is largely determined by the creating a new model of an educational session (lesson), where the emphasis is put on optimizing the interaction between the teacher’s training activity and the learners’ (students, cadets, course participants, etc.) learning self-educational activity.

Within distance learning, a significant place is given to students’ independent work, which actually prepares them for active self-development based on the organization of self-educational activities (Gareev et al., 2018). Independent work is a student’s work which involves guidance from a teacher: selecting material, the presence of clearly formulated tasks, goal setting, time planning and implementation diagnostics (Kolomiets & Golubchikova, 2019).

Models of distance learning organization can be characterized as far as the system of training sessions, combining the teacher’s and student’s activities, becomes more complex:

• Reproductive model, when the teacher consistently introduces all the educational material and the students consolidate and reproduce it orally or in writing, solve knowledge application problems;
• Partial search model, where the teacher introduces a part of the educational material, and students independently, in case there are texts or information and multimedia tools based on assignments, fully explore new questions, bring them into the system, relying on the algorithm outlined by the teacher;
• The search model assumes that the teacher only states a problem, gives an introduction to new knowledge, and the subjects independently plan the goal, methods, product and result, expand theoretical knowledge, find areas for their application;
• A creative and research model, where the subject sees the problem himself, independently plans the goal, methods, product and result, deepens theoretical knowledge, finds various areas for their application (Maron & Rezinkina, 2018).

Organizing and managing the development of the educational subjects’ independence presupposes the presence of a high level of the teacher’s information culture, since at this stage of development of distance systematic learning systems there is a number of problems:

• providing ready-made knowledge in a presentation form, which does not activate thinking and cognitive students’ activity and provide for a purely reproductive way of teaching;
• among teachers, there is nointegral system and coordinated methods of organizing distance learning and assessing the students’ independence and creativity activity;
• it is difficult for teachers to ensure checking the tasks completed by students and assessing a large array of the student’s activity results;
• the need to create a flexible self-assessment system and mutual assessment of students’ achievements;

Massive open online courses which exist today are to some extent aimed at developing the ability to learn, at continuing education. However, pedagogical support is needed in a flexible learning organization, which will allow each student to build their own educational route (Gotovkina, 2015).

Conclusion

Therefore, the effectiveness of distance learning in the education system should be largely manifested in ensuring the focus on revealing a person’s inner potential, activating his independence qualities in solving educational and cognitive tasks in difficult conditions of a new reality.

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