Abstract:

The secondary and tertiary education systems in Russia have been undergoing considerable changes over the past several decades. These include a shift from knowledge-based learning to competency-based curricula that are designed around a set of key competencies that can be cross-curricular and/or subject-bound. It is contemplated that meta disciplinary results indicate a certain level of students' basic skills, i.e. their ways of thinking, understanding, communication and interaction. These results allow us to compare students' performance outside their educational environment, especially in the digital learning environment that we were all bound to go through due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are several factors that will affect our life in general and education in particular. They are increased longevity, global IT development, new mass media technologies, and globalization. These factors are giving rise to a new set of skills that a 21st-century university graduate should possess: an ability to process information, to understand the underlying meaning and context of any message, and an ability to think creatively or to colour outside the lines. What’s more students should learn to use modern means of communication, to manage their time and to build digital partnerships.

In practice, this means that both teachers and university lecturers are no longer to teach their students what to think, but rather how to think. Memorization of facts is pointless in a world where everyone has access to all the information of the human civilization. The challenge is not information storage, but information processing. It's not about information itself but how to use information. Teaching creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and a love for learning itself will be critical for the transition of the contemporary education from the industrial age to the automated age.

The 2020 pandemic may well prove to be a factor which changes the nature of educational modules – given that we were forced to undertake remote teaching on various digital platforms. Switching to online modes has not been stress-free, and it has taken its toll on the mental well-being of both educators and students. We have experienced a dramatic rise in the prevalence of e-learning – and it is a change in the delivery of education that is likely to stay.

Thus, the aim of this paper is to dwell upon some of the statistics on distance learning practices that have emerged in Russia during the lockdown period and to cover their positive and negative aspects.

Keywords:

Competency-based curricula, 21-century skills, e-learning, distant-learning, remote teaching.