Abstract:

Remote work at universities during the COVID-19 pandemic is fundamentally different from a cautious and slow transition from traditional teaching to online learning before the pandemic (before 2019). Therefore, it is expedient to discuss the present situation of specific studies at university as an extreme case. There was no mass distance learning and learning practice before the pandemic. Until a year ago, university teachers knew how to teach and understood how their students think and learn.

Before the pandemic, only part of university lecturers employed technology in the process of teaching, i.e. only those who were online teaching/learning enthusiasts. Thus, the process during the pandemic can be described as working in extreme conditions because of the following reasons: limited resources; limited opportunities to train teachers, most of whom have never tried to work online before; a limited number of support staff; a short period of time for the transition from traditional teaching to distance teaching/learning.

In this case, the aim is not to create the best possible online learning system, but to create distance access for all university faculty and students. Change has not been easy: there are both positive and negative experiences. Thus, research on emergency distance teaching should highlight certain essential factors that are important for teachers and students to achieve their goals in a virtual learning environment (VLE).

The aim is to discuss forced innovation in remote teaching models and to determine the attitudes of teachers to the remote teaching in the conditions of the pandemic.

The research question addressed in the study: In what way do teachers reflect on using VLE for their remote work? What is the attitude of university teachers, who have worked in a virtual learning environment in extreme conditions, to remote teaching?

In this paper e-learning is analyzed as a socio-cultural system, as ‘a multi-dimensional’ concept. The analysis of e-learning as a socio-cultural system enabled the formulation of interdisciplinary problem, for the solutions of which it is necessary to invoke theories and outcomes of computer science, also culture and education.

The study involved teachers of university who shared their learning experiences at least in Autumn 2019, then - in the Spring the Autumn semester of 2020 and in the Spring semester of 2021 (i.e., when they had to remote work under the conditions of forced innovation).

The results: remote working during the pandemic required a great deal of effort on the part of teachers of university to acquire new teaching competencies related to employing information technologies; this situation allowed to test the possibilities of distance communication; however, many methods and techniques of distance learning remained unused, as teachers and students tried to create a regular "classroom educational environment", only realized remotely.

Keywords:

Remote teaching, university teachers, teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic.