Total Transition to Online Learning Has Been a Time of Challenge and Innovation for Universities

© Daniil Prokofyev / HSE University

The new issue of HERB magazine focuses on understanding what it has been like for universities during the pandemic. Article authors described the risks faced by students and teachers, the introduction of new learning formats, and remotely implemented projects. They also shared their initial thoughts on the development of the university environment in the post-pandemic period.

The sudden transition to online learning has had a positive impact on opportunities for teachers to share experiences, according to Oksana Chernenko, Director for Innovations in Education at HSE University, and Veronika Saltykova, Project Team Manager of the Office for Educational Innovations and Short-Term International Programmes. In their article 'Horizontal Peer Support for Teaching Excellence in the Digital Age', the authors described the positive changes observed in traditional formats of teacher interaction as part of the Teach for HSE project activities held in 2020.

Thanks to the use of remote communication formats, the number of participants in the project's events has increased almost tenfold. For the first time, it became possible to cover all the campuses of HSE University simultaneously, making the exchange of experience more extensive, intensive, and productive.

The ‘Teach for HSE’ project is aimed at strengthening and developing horizontal links between professors, and since 2017 it has been organising courses and master classes to develop teaching skills, discussions on the hottest and most pressing topics about teaching, as well as other events involving topics that are suggested and chosen by the lecturers themselves. Moreover, as a rule, it is HSE University professors themselves who act as facilitators and speakers at such events, becoming mentors for their colleagues, who, in turn, try on the role of students.

In their article, the authors described the positive effects of this approach on both sides. When the whole process moved abruptly to a distance learning format, this approach fully justified itself. In the system of comprehensive support for teachers by the University, personal interaction between colleagues so that they can talk about their experience with online technologies, share their approaches to organising seminars and lectures in an online environment, and much more, has become particularly valuable.

A new stage in the development of teacher-led teaching support during the pandemic was the successful introduction of peer review, where teachers attended each other's classes and shared their impressions, giving and receiving meaningful feedback. It was the remote format that facilitated this practice, providing easy and virtually seamless access to their colleagues’ virtual classrooms.

Summarising their experiences, the authors of the article shared their views on the prospects for new models of communication in the digital environment, which they see as significantly different from the traditional and familiar offline formats.

The conclusions reached by the authors are not based on quantitative data, but on a qualitative analysis of reflective questionnaires completed by the lecturers who participated in the project courses, as well as meaningful comments made by the lecturers in their peer reviews. The information collected not only made it possible to see the demand for teaching support in the digital environment being formed by colleagues, but, at the same time, it provided a vast resource to build trajectories for the future development of the educational process.

It is clear that digital platforms and tools have proven to be effective, and the next big step for universities should be a qualitative shift towards blended learning. As the authors point out, in the future, there is still a need to rethink the experience of teaching in a digital environment and to involve big data for this purpose. Peer-led faculty interaction, which allows for the consolidation and development of internal University resources, will be a powerful tool in this process to maintain and improve the quality of teaching, contributing to the transfer of new evidence-based knowledge within the University community.

Yulia Brill, guest editor of the issue

In this issue, we explore the creation of digital and hybrid educational environments, the formation of ecosystems for online learning, and the impact of distance learning on students' academic performance and mental health. The issue's materials address the need for a comprehensive expert audit of the higher education system and an international initiative to create a platform for students with special needs.

We present to our readers one of the issue's articles, in which researchers discuss HSE University’s project on peer support for lecturers. The project includes various forms of horizontal communication between University lecturers: discussing pedagogical challenges and innovative practices used in teaching students, attending their colleagues’ classes and providing meaningful feedback, and certified professional development courses, among which many relevant topics were suggested by the lecturers themselves. Collaboration among teachers proved to be especially in demand and effective during the pandemic. The exchange of teaching practices made the online teaching process in many ways more comfortable and productive.