IS DISTANCE LEARNING A COMPULSORY MEASURE OR A DEMAND OF OUR TIME (THE CASE OF I. HORBACHEVSKY TERNOPIL NATIONAL MEDICAL UNIVERSITY)?

Abstract

Education reform, a paradigm shift in quality assurance and learner-centered education, and quarantine restrictions due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have heightened the need for new approaches to learning, comprehensive implementation of online technologies, and fundamental changes in methodology that would provide an effective combination of direct and indirect forms of interaction between students and teachers. This has become a challenge for many medical universities, as well as I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University. The article describes the way the distance learning methods have been implemented and how the organization of the educational process at the university has changed taking into account present challenges related to quarantine restrictions. Implemented technologies have been found not only to be a forced measure in response to temporary constraints, but are also a drive for further improvements in education. Distance learning at the university is of a pronounced systemic character; each of its elements interacts with the other and is aimed at high-quality training of university students who are fluent in the global information space, have deep knowledge and skills in searching, processing information via modern computer technologies.

Distance learning is an important supporting element in the global educational space; it is an effective complement to traditional forms of education, as a means of partial solving of its topical problems, especially during a pandemic. Distance learning technologies are powerful means of cognition. The forced transition to distance learning contributed to intensive use of new information technologies, rethinking the role of a teacher; it made it clear that even after the pandemic the elements of distance education will be used in the post-quarantine learning. We hope that the experience of using the elements of distance learning at our university will be useful to other.