Horizontal Peer Support for Teaching Excellence in the Digital Age

Higher Education in Russia and Beyond. 2021. No. 2(27). P. 16–18.

Chernenko O., Saltykova V.

The impact of digitalization on higher education, strategies for using online tools in teaching and methods of effective communication in an electronic environment are topics that have been studied for at least two decades [1]. Interest in them arose long before the COVID-19 pandemic and the forced total transition to distance learning. During this period, the methodological arsenal of researchers and teachers has accumulated many materials on how to effectively teach students in digital environments. But only in the spring of 2020, did digital education become a reality for all teachers. It was during this period that a radical change took place in understanding the role of digital technologies in learning and the approaches to working with them. This provided the most ambitious practical test of the techniques and theories that had been developed. As a result, some of them have proven their viability and effectiveness, and others have not and should be discarded. The principle of "learning by doing" has never been so relevant. However, this is where an important question arises: Who can be a mentor and reliable guide for university teachers in the digital world?

Keywords: innovations in education