Experience And Results Of Distant And Blended Learning In General Technical Disciplines

The essence and rationale for the choice of a blended learning model for general technical disciplines

Currently, in the scientific and methodological literature, issues of blended learning are widely discussed, but there is still no consensus on the definition of this concept. In Russian literature, there are different definitions for blended learning, such as hybrid, combined, mixed and integrated. Despite the discrepancies in the name and interpretation of the concept, most authors define blended learning as a combination of traditional (full-time) and e-learning (distance). Summarizing the accumulated experience, we defined the main essence of blended learning in general technical disciplines as a purposeful process of organizing educational and cognitive students activities, which is based on the integration of traditional and electronic forms of general technical training with using distance educational technologies and the priority of students' independent activity in solving general technical problems.

Nowadays, in foreign and domestic practice, there are several main models of blended learning. These models are similar to each other, but in the domestic models of blended learning, the specifics of russian education can be traced as it is shown a Table 1.

We selected a blended learning model for general technical disciplines, paying attention to such criteria as the level of students initial general technical training, types of educational activities performed by students, the degree of individualization of the educational process and the students readiness for independent educational activities, work experience of students and lecturers in the electronic educational environment and finally technical equipment (the availability of computers, laptops, tablets and a stable Internet).

Having considered all the listed criteria, we have identified the key factors that influenced the choice of a blended learning model for general technical disciplines: difficulty in mastering theoretical material; the large workload of solving general technical problems; low initial training of students and, as a result, their unpreparedness for independent (remote) mastering of the curriculum of disciplines; insufficient experience of the teaching staff in providing distance learning; low students equipping level with personal computers. Considering all these factors, the most acceptable model is the rotational one, where the teaching material is rationally distributed between traditional and distance learning.

Moreover, the rotational model "Inverted class" is of our particular interest. The main characteristic of the chosen model is that a face-to-face lesson, it can be either a lecture or a practical or laboratory lesson, is preceded by an independent study of educational materials using online resources, which is subsequently discussed and consolidated with lecturer during the lesson.

Implementation of the blended learning model for general technical disciplines

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Krasnoyarsk State Agrarian University” (FSBEI НЕ Krasnoyarsk SAU) creates all necessary conditions for the effective organization of blended learning, including development of e-learning provisions such as "Regulation on the organization of the educational process using e-learning and distance learning technologies" (FSBEI НЕ Krasnoyarsk SAU, 2015) and "Regulations on the functioning of the electronic information and educational environment" (FSBEI НЕ Krasnoyarsk SAU, 2020) which are regulated and stimulated the usage of blended learning in the educational process.

The lecturers of the department of general technical disciplines of FSBEI НЕ Krasnoyarsk SAU developed a general strategy for the implementation of blended learning in general technical disciplines (Noskova, 2018; Romanchenko, 2020). In this case the electronic courses of general technical disciplines in Learning Management System "Moodle" is the basical part of learning. The electronic course of the discipline has a certain structure, which includes an introductory part; theoretical material (interactive and video lectures, a list of references and reference materials, hyperlinks), tasks for independent work, a fund of assessment tools and remote communication. The priority direction of training is the orientation of teaching methods to the active independent work of students, for example performance of individual calculation and graphic tasks, research papers and course projects, participation in conferences and so forth. Students pre-study information in Moodle LMS in accordance with the rotational model. The teacher has the opportunity to track the students' activity during studies. All the necessary information and statistics for each student is available for viewing by the teacher online. An important point of blended learning is the systematic assistance to students in their educational and cognitive activities through the interactive communication organization between all participants of the educational process.

Organization of distance learning in general technical disciplines

The learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the effectiveness of distance learning in general technical disciplines. The first semester students studied face-to-face according to a mixed model, and in the second semester they were forced to switch to distance learning.

And now came the great question: how to ensure the maximum efficiency of the educational process in the context of full distance learning? Conducting lectures in various forms (face-to-face, distance, video lectures) does not cause difficulties, although, the organization of practical and laboratory classes is very difficult.

Practical training in general technical disciplines is, as a rule, the solution of applied problems. The lecturers of the department have developed teaching aids and guidelines for solving general technical problems in all disciplines. Videos have been created to solve complex problems. However, the level of mastering the educational material and completing assignments turned out to be low. In part, this issue was resolved by the choice of effective communication tools that allow to quickly resolve emerging issues (forum, chat, e-mail, Skype, Zoom and social networks).

It is not always possible to carry out laboratory work in a remote format, as laboratory equipment is very often required. Currently, virtual laboratory work is actively discussed in scientific and methodological literature.

However, the developed specialized software systems (virtual laboratories) require significant financial investments and not all educational institutions have the opportunity to purchase them. For laboratory work in such disciplines as "Theoretical Mechanics", "Resistance of Materials", "Theory of Machines and Mechanisms" and "Machine Parts" the lecturers of the department prepared tasks for conducting a computational experiment using applied programs which are available to students.

General technical training monitoring

The assessment of students' progress in general technical disciplines was carried out with the help of tests, presentations of practical and laboratory work, oral exams and presentations of a course paper.

The estimation of the educational material assimilation according to the test results was carried out on two levels of assimilation: the level of memorization and the level of understanding and application.

For such assessment, tests have been developed for all discipline educational modules, focused on different levels of mastering the educational material.

Figure 1 shows an example of two test tasks with different levels of material assimilation, in which student should determine the degree of mobility of a flat mechanism. The first test task (Figure 1, a) refers to the first level and is used to test knowledge of the formula, the second test task (see Figure 1, b) refers to the level of understanding and is used to test the ability to apply knowledge of the formula in practice. The first test task (Figure 1, a) refers to the first level and is used to control knowledge of the formula, and the second test task (Figure 1, b) refers to the level of understanding and is used to control the ability to apply knowledge of the formula in practice.

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The organization of such monitoring for each educational module of the discipline allows to identificate students' problems in understanding the educational material. The purpose of such monitoring is to determine the structure of knowledge and skills and timely adjust student's educational activity (Zyryanova & Polinovsky, 2020).

In the spring semester, control events were held in a traditional format: examinations and presentations of practical and laboratory work, full-time coursework and remote testing in Moodle LMS. In the fall semester, all control activities were carried out remotely in Zoom in the form of an interview and in Moodle LMS in the form of tests.

To assess the dynamics of students' progress in general technical disciplines, four levels are allocated: unsatisfactory, low, medium and high. The level of a student's preparation was determined by the average score for all control activities of the studied general technical disciplines on a 5-point scale: excellent - from 4.5 to 5 points; good - from 3.6 to 4.4 points; satisfactory - from 3 to 3.5 points; unsatisfactory - below 3 points. The test results were also evaluated on a 5-point scale. The high level corresponded to 90–100% of correct answers, the medium level - 72–89% and the low level - 60–71%. The overall students' progress in the field of study "Agroengineering" for the 2019-2020 academic year as a result of blended learning in general technical disciplines is shown in Figure 2 (Bezyzvestnykh & Smolyaninova, 2017).

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The Figure 2 shows the level of mastering the material for three forms of knowledge control: testing the level of memorization, testing for the level of understanding and application and exam. When full-time and distance learning are conducted in the spring semester, the level of mastering the material in all forms of control is significantly higher than in the autumn semester, when only distance technologies were used.