24.11.2020
On November 24, a session of the Academic Council took place at RSUH, discussing the educational process.
In accordance with the order of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, education in Russian universities is to be carried out in a distance format until February 6, 2021. In the spring of 2020 the University had already introduced the distance format, and this experience helped a lot to quickly transfer the educational process back online.
“For the uninterrupted implementation of distance learning at RSUH, 358 corporate ZOOM accounts have been purchased, and about 100 teachers use personal accounts,” said Rector Bezborodov.
“Tin this academic year, the Department of Education and Methodology organized the work of digital volunteers. They help teachers to effectively conduct classes from the ever-increasing number of multimedia classrooms of the University," Dr. Bezborodov noted.
The transition to the distance learning format demanded serious financial investments from the University. “We are purchasing licenses for new video conferencing services, for work in a digital environment,” Rector explained.
Thanks to significant efforts to ensure the educational process and tough financial discipline, RSUH managed to get into the list of 34 Russian universities provided with financial assistance to purchase the necessary digital equipment. Rector called the volume of additional funding from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “significant”, but a number of programs will be implemented through co-financing coming from RSUH.
The University will continue creating a unified electronic knowledge database as the importance of online education grows. “We really feel the need for such a base, as well as a system of professional retraining of the faculty working in the digital environment,” stressed Dr. Bezborodov.
Rector paid special attention to conducting trainings for emotional stability during the period of online training. These tasks are assigned to the Vygotsky Institute of Psychology.
Dr. Nadezhda Arkhipova, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, emphasized the need to create online educational courses at RSUH, as without them education in the future “will become impossible”.
First Vice-Rector Olga Pavlenko spoke about the interest the international educational online platform Coursera expressed in cooperation with RSUH. “There are two types of online learning: internal - for the University and external - created for further export to the global educational space,” Dr. Pavlenko explained and added that if RSUH was to become a center for the export of online education, then it was necessary to meet high requirements for developing of courses of this kind.
Dr. Vasily Makolov, Head of the Department of Education and Methodology, said that the Department had already started preparing the schedule for the Spring semester. It is expected that education will go back to the offline format in the spring. “Nevertheless, when forming the schedule, we are placing the classes of teachers from the risk group into a single day, so that students won’t have to come to RSUH that day in case we find ourselves in the mixed learning format again,” Dr. Makolov explained.
During the session, the members of the Council considered and adopted the draft Regulation on the position of Director of the combined group of majors and tracks, the draft Regulation on the online implementation of educational programs, the draft Regulation on the competition "Project research teams of RSUH" and the draft Regulation on the competition "Student research teams of RSUH”.
Dr. Larisa Pastukhova, Vice-Rector for Project Activities, presented a report on the 2nd All-Russian Seminar on Educational Work with Students in Educational Institutions of Higher Education held November 19-21. The event was organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia.
“We have conducted a monitoring of the practice of organizing educational work with students,” said Dr. Pastukhova. “In fact, all the universities of the Russian Federation presented their best practices within the framework of a large competition.”
A unique training program was implemented at the Seminar, created by experts from leading Russian universities, thanks to which more than 30 people were able to undergo advanced professional training.
It was also announced that on November 5, Dr. Nikolai Trifonov had been appointed Vice-Rector for Security, and Dr. Irakly Bolkvadze was appointed Vice-Rector for Administrative and Social Work.
The academic title of Associate Professor was awarded to: Dr. Ksenia Vorobyova (Psychology), Dr. Nadezhda Ivanova (Theory and methods of vocational education), Dr. Mikhail Salamatov (Theory and methods of physical education), Dr. Dmitry Antonov (Theory and history of culture) and Dr. Olga Cherkaeva (Museology, conservation and restoration of historical and cultural objects).
