ANALYSIS OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TRANSITION TO ONLINE LEARNING ON THE EXAMPLE OF MOOC PHILOSOPHY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Purpose of the study: The situation of a mass transition of Universities to online education in the period of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to see the challenges of distance e-learning in practice. In this unique situation, the same students studying the same course changed only the form of education, which allows us to see the consequences of such a transition. The purpose of the study is the analysis of changes in students' educational activities in the transition to online learning. Methodology: The article provides a quantitative statistical analysis of changes in the behaviour of first-year students of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (N=3122) in the framework of studying the mass open online course “Philosophy” on the platform open.edu when switching to fully e-learning in March 2020. The authors have applied data mining MOOCs from students’ learning portfolios. Main Findings: Existing technological solutions and educational technologies made it possible to quickly adapt the education system to the distance format. However, the transition to fully e-learning has led to a sharp increase (by 16-17%) in the number of students who do not participate in intermediate tests and not doing homework in the e-course and later did not return to normal learning. Applications of this study: Since modern higher education is increasingly using e-learning, it is necessary to anticipate the consequences of the implementation of e-learning. The study helps to see general trends in this area. Novelty/Originality of this study: The study provides an analysis of students’ learning when switching to online education based on data taken directly from students’ learning portfolios, which allows us to see a completely objective picture of changes in students' behaviour.

Learning Portfolios as Means of Evaluating Futures Learning: A Case Study at Renaissance College

This article evaluates a particular classroom improvement project. It contributes to answering three questions: (1) Does adding the (personal) futures perspective to our course change how learners think about and plan for the future? (2) Does an integrated learning portfolio help evaluating learners’ foresight capacity? (3) How can we know the answers to questions 1 and 2? I use the case study approach—describing our “teach the future” experience within an undergraduate course at a Canadian University—and a (computer aided) content analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of adding core elements of (personal) futures learning to an existing course. The results will be of interest to others who wonder whether “teaching the future” makes a difference in building foresight capacity. In particular, readers can glean the potential value of learning portfolios for this purpose. First, I describe the case study and how futures learning fits into this context. Second, I provide an overview of the course “RCLP 3030 Integrated Learning Portfolio” including the course outcomes, assessment, and futures-related content. Third, I describe the actual run of the course and how learners engaged with the material; this includes learners’ contributions to the online discussions that will help evaluate the learning that takes place and the effectiveness of the course design. Fourth, with the help of computer-aided content analysis I analyze the learning portfolio submissions of all learners at the end of the course. Fifth, I provide an evaluation summary, discuss next steps, and offer recommendations of general interest.