E-learning methods in the teaching of logical and philosophical disciplines

e-LearningIn the conditions of dynamic development of the labor market, firstly, the level of qualification is growing, it becomes necessary to change the specialty. Secondly, during the last decades an intensive modernization of information technologies in the system of distance education has been observed.

The development of technologies directs the entire education system (especially the higher education system) to the transition to a new stage, where the online education system is gaining wide popularity and relevance. Finally, the more structured online education, the more effective it becomes. At the same time, limited time in the classroom is not an obstacle to the formation of the proper competence of a person as a specialist.

Undoubtedly, online education is not only a way of obtaining a diploma, but also an opportunity to get knowledge and skills on the job, to be hardworking and self-organized, to be highly skilled and in demand in the future. In recent years, online lectures have gained popularity in universities around the world.

More and more universities started talking about the prospects of blended education, which means that the best courses of teachers become the basis for learning, and the achievements of students in online education are transferred to a diploma. Such measures can unite all the best in academic education and bring it to a new quality level where teachers can compete with the best specialists and universities in the world.

Thus, the Internet not only makes learning accessible to people, but also completely changes the very approach to the learning process. Creation of educational platforms has allowed to receive high-quality online education and to determine the purpose of education, knowledge and skills that a person wants to get, choosing for themselves the best educational platforms. Among modern online platforms, “Coursera” is considered one of the most popular educational platforms in the world. It has more than 15000000 users.

“Coursera” courses are available in online format and are most approximate to the requirements of academic education. Such courses, in their structure and content, resemble similar courses at universities. In general, Coursera is an attempt to make online university education more accessible. In 2013, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created an open platform for free edX courses, later joined by Harvard University, as well as over 90 US and international partners. Now edX is a nonprofit site with over 800 free online courses.

Thus, edX and Coursera absorbed the academic courses of universities and the resources of large corporations in different areas of education. In general, the challenges and demands of the sociocultural environment and the economy, on the one hand, and the growing desire of people to get knowledge in various specialties without leaving home, to gain access to online courses, on the other hand, have formed the needs of modernizing the information and technological foundations of the functioning of higher education system.

And therefore, in many countries of Europe and the world, online education has begun to gain key positions at various levels of the educational process. As for Ukraine, then online education has become one of the innovations that have appeared almost simultaneously with the same Western initiatives.

Starting from 2013, online education has confidently begun to enter the Ukrainian educational space. To realize the needs for obtaining virtual education in Ukraine, the first Prometeus project was introduced. He gave an opportunity on the basis of Open edX to launch online courses. I. Primachenko, a post-graduate student of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and A. Molchanovsky, professor of the KPI, created this program. Without any financial support, this project for the year was able to collect more than 150,000 users and offer more than 30 courses.

Let’s note that Prometeus is a combination of large academic courses of world universities and universities of Ukraine, which allows receiving a certificate at the end of the course. However, the main achievement of the organizers of Prometeus is the attraction of Ukrainian universities to cooperation with the support of the world’s leading universities. In fact, the organizers of this platform are convinced that the combination of the best qualities of online and offline education provides an effective opportunity:

– Attracting qualified teachers;
– Quickly create and disseminate the most up-to-date training programs;
– Allows students to receive individual consultations and conduct a final exam.

Continued this tradition of online education Ukrainian platform EdEra in 2014. In this program, the following elements were successfully connected: interactive lectures, abstracts, books, homework, exams, the opportunity to communicate with teachers. Another EDUGET project appeared in 2015.

With the participation of two Ukrainian investors who drew attention to the fact that online education can be of high quality and promising for business in Ukraine. In this program, you can find lectures on various subjects from teachers and practitioners. And all this shows that the professionally-oriented approach is designed to help users constantly update their practical knowledge and remain in demand on the labor market.

A vivid example of effective work of electronic education in the Ukrainian higher education system – at the Philosophy Faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv was developed a course of video lectures on philosophy for humanitarian specialties (Certificate of Copyright №6128 of August 14, 2015) and a course of video lectures on philosophy for Natural specialties (copyright certificate №6129 of August 14, 2015).

These courses of professors were placed on the Internet portal of e-learning of post-graduate students Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, created by researchers of the Philosophical Faculty [Internet portal for postgraduate distance education: [Electronic resource] .- Access mode: www.phdprogramme.univ.kiev.ua:8080. ] .

Typical problems of teaching logical and philosophical disciplines in the system of higher education of Ukraine are:
– Limited time for training courses aimed at forming general and special / professional competencies;

– Large number of lecturers (80-150 students) and groups of practical classes (25-30 students);

– Low productivity of students’ work at lectures;
– Overload of teacher and student with accompanying paper documentation, because this work is carried out during educational time;

– Student communication with a teacher only in oral form.

In our opinion, the use of e-learning is a productive tool for solving the problems described above. The Moodle open source software (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) can be of high efficiency.

The main goal of creating and implementing the e-learning system of the Philosophical Faculty is to increase the scientific and methodological level of the organization of the educational process, improve the quality and effectiveness of education, and harmonize the domestic education with the international educational space.

Based on our experience of practical application of Moodle software product during 2014 – 2016 in the process of teaching philosophical and cultural disciplines for postgraduate students and students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv of Humanities and Natural Sciences, the following positive e-learning opportunities can be formulated:

– Increased productivity of lecture lessons by pre-placing the materials of the lecture on the course page;

– Authorized and supervised by teacher access to the contents of the training course, the creation of personal accounts by the method of self-registration;

– Control of the academic activity of each student;

– Conducting online test tasks with the given time, number of attempts and method of evaluation, automated evaluation system;

– Automatic formation of lists of students, academic groups, assessment magazines;

– Improvement of the conditions of independent work of the student by placing electronic links and electronic versions of the recommended academic and scientific literature;

– Activating communication between students and the teacher in the form of creating electronic forums, sending personal and group messages, commenting on the tasks performed;

– Improving the internal quality assurance system. Educational materials and all information on student learning are stored on the server unlimited, and an array of statistical information is created for further analysis.

The most effective and expedient way is to use e-learning as an auxiliary tool. In 2016, the web-portal “E-Learning System of the Philosophical Faculty” was created at the Philosophical Faculty of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (www.e-philosophy.kiev.ua)[ E-Learning System of the Philosophical Faculty of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv] .

In recent years, 17 training courses have been implemented within the framework of the e-learning system of the Philosophical Faculty:

Philosophical problems of modern logic, specialty “Philosophy”, lecturer Iryna Khomenko

Heresy, specialty “Philosophy”, lecturer Iryna Khomenko

Rhetoric, specialty “Religious Studies”, lecturer Natalia Kolotilova

Modern logic, specialty “Philosophy”, lecturer Natalia Kolotilova

Modern logic, specialty “Religious studies”, lecturer Natalia Kolotilova

Traditional logic, specialty “Religious studies”, lecturer Natalia Kolotilova

Contemporary logic, specialty “Philosophy”, lecturer Iryna Khomenko. of culture, lecturer Volodymyr Prikhodko

History of science and technology, lecturer Lyudmila Shashkova

Introduction to the specialty, lecturer Sergii Rudenko

Methodology of teaching cultural studies at a high school, lecturer Sergii Rudenko

History of Ukrainian Philosophy, lecturer Sergii Rudenko American Philosophy, lecturer Yaroslav Sobolevsky

Cosmology in the history of European philosophy, lecturer Yaroslav Sobolevsky

History of Ancient Philosophy (part I), lecturer Anna Bokal

History of Philosophy for Political Scientists (Part I), lecturer Tetyana Trush

Draft standard for the use of e-learning in the teaching of philosophical and political science disciplines.

An electronic learning system is used as an auxiliary tool. For each discipline and teacher, a separate page is created Access to the course’s electronic page is given to students exclusively for the period of theoretical training, which is determined by the curriculum of the educational process.

For the first access to the electronic page of the discipline, each student must complete the self-registration procedure on the page of the system of electronic learning of the Philosophical Faculty by providing the necessary information.

Electronic discipline page contains the following components:

– Information about the lecturer (including contacts)

– Educational discipline program;

– Materials for preparation for lectures;

– Auxiliary training material (electronic versions of textbooks, tutorials, presentations, etc.).

Methods of conducting lectures

Lecture classes are conducted in the form of an expanded commentary on the disposition placed on the electronic page. Theoretical materials, modern textbooks, study aids, scientific monographs, scientific articles, other scientific information are commented.

An important condition for the effectiveness of lecture classes is the students’ prior acquaintance with the materials of the lecture. After getting acquainted, students attend a lecture.

Methodology for conducting seminars

Seminars are held in the form of presentations by students of the tasks performed and their discussion in the academic group (groups).

The main work of the seminars is to prepare electronic presentations devoted to answer one of the questions of seminars / individual work of students oral report in the form of comments to the prepared electronically presentations, informative addition to presentations and reports made to elaborate on seminar occupation.

The presentation is a text or graphic or visual material prepared by the student, which reflects the answer to one of the questions for the seminar session.

Students must send an electronic presentation on the content of one of the seminar questions no later than 15- 00 a working day preceding the scheduled time of the seminar session, on a specially created e-mail of the teacher who holds a seminar session.

A lecturer, who conducts seminars, creates organizational conditions for the students to process all the questions that have been made at the seminar session.

Presentations that have been submitted with a maturity date are not evaluated. The student’s log book displays the “0” mark.

In the absence of a student at a seminar session without valid reasons, the presentation submitted to him is not evaluated. The student’s log book is marked “A”, which means “Missing”.
In the case of academic plagiarism, the presentation submitted by the student is not evaluated. The student’s log book displays the “0” mark.

Created by S. Rudenko, Ya. Sobolevsky [Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Philosophy. №2 2017]

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