S.M. Chechelnitskaya, professor, Dr.Med.
Teacher training institute of physical culture and sport of MSTTU, Moscow

Key words: e-learning, distance learning, virtual educational environment, professional higher education, adaptive physical culture, on-line testing.

In the last decade the process of supplementing traditional education with e-learning has become an integral feature of a modern, competitive university in the world. E-learning (including distance learning) has several advantages over traditional ones. Almost 60% of professors of US universities surveyed marked that today the results of distance learning are not inferior to or surpass the results of conventional classes, while 33% of the surveyed teachers believe that the results of distance education will surpass the results of conventional education in the coming years.

The advantages of e-learning (distance learning) are especially important for higher educational institutions in the field of physical culture. Over 100 students of Teacher training institute of physical culture and sport (TTIPhCS) are active athletes who stand for the country at the international level and spend a lot of time in training camps. E-learning meets the modern requirements of the barrier-free environment, which is also in high demand in TTIPhCS. Students, masters and postgraduate students - handicapped with musculoskeletal disorders in wheelchairs are being trained in the institute.

The purpose of the study was to analyze the experience and perspectives of using virtual learning setting in a higher professional educational institution in the field of physical culture (TTIPhCS of MSPU).

Results and discussion. E-learning is carried out in TTIPhCS on the moodle platform. This is a learning management system or a virtual learning setting. Moodle is a free web application which is used by teachers to create effective websites for online learning. The access to the resource is open and anyone can log on to the web page at moodle.mgpu.ru, register and take a look at interesting materials on it.

The work on the system saturation is not finished yet, but it already contains lecture, multimedia and video materials on the biomedical disciplines for students of the specialization “Physical culture for people with disabilities (anatomy, physiology, physiotherapy, biochemistry, general and clinical pathology, etc.).

The knowledge testing system is used actively. Test tasks can be of different levels of complexity, from simple yes-no questions to complex multi-way situational tasks. The tasks can be done in the free form, for example, by writing an essay, a summary or making a presentation.

Using the moodle system you can arrange test tasks so that you could check not only the volume of theoretical knowledge, but also the operational level of competence in accordance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Professional Education (FSES HPE). For example, it is possible to control such competence as the ability to work in an interdisciplinary team of specialists that implements the recovery process of persons with disabilities (PC-22). In order to determine the degree of development of this competence a student is to do a test containing questions from a variety of disciplines (pedagogics, physiology, pathology, psychology, theory and methodology of adaptive physical culture, etc.). Some questions help a student to understand the terms of private subjects, others are focused on his ability to explain the conceptual framework of pathology to a psychologist or a teacher.

A question bank, created by teachers, is used for monitoring and inter-session assessment of academic progress of students. A checklist for specific discipline is filled for each student automatically during the semester so that he could manage his educational process. By the end of the semester a common summary table is formed, which contains the points earned by a student and his rating.

The first experience in the moodle electronic environment showed some of its advantages over conventional education. Here are some of them.

A student, who missed classes for objective reasons, will not fall behind his fellow-students, as he has an access to all the necessary materials, including tasks, from anywhere. This feature is particularly in demand by students studying based on an individual schedule.

Slow students who lag behind their group during conventional classes can always return to the material and examine it in the required amount.

Students know nothing about the problem of lack of textbooks or workbooks. They get access to all the necessary literature after the registration on the course website. Moreover, the site contains numerous links to recommended Internet resources which facilitates the search.

Using the moodle system a student can get additional teacher’s consultations both off-line, using the forum, chat or e-mail, and on-line, via Skype. Some issues of disciplines are discussed by students on their own forums.

The documentation of the learning process is an important advantage – at the end the student gets the course of study itself, including multimedia and video materials, email correspondence with teachers and fellow-students, and can refer to them later when needed.

There is no chance of subjective evaluation of student’s academic progress - the system that checks the correctness of answers to the test questions will not affect the progress in other subjects, social status and other factors. Therefore, students who are tested in the system are calmer and often have the best results.

The use of e-learning has greatly improved the quality of distance education by creating Inter-session tasks and access to all course materials. Currently, the staff of TTIPhCS continues filling the system and expanding the scope of its application. The pages of psychological and pedagogical disciplines and theoretical sections of the disciplines of sports departments are planned to be connected.

References

1. Traynev, V.A. Distance learning and its development: (Generalization of the methodology and practice of use) / V.A. Traynev, V.F. Gurkin, O.V. Traynev; Un-ty of inform. and man. – Moscow: Dashkov i K, 2012. – 293 P.: illustr. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: pifkis@mail.ru