The academic staff of National University "Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” keep learning about various online learning tools and methodologies of organizing distanced education.
Representatives of Poltava Polytechnic, Doctor of Philology, Professor of Germanic Philology and Translation Department Tetiana Kushnirova and PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of Germanic Philology and Translation Department Anna Pavelieva took part in a webinar titled “A Seat at the Table With Education Week: Testing & Accountability”. Teachers from Ukraine, the United States of America, and Argentina discussed the issues of standardized tests in the process of distanced education. The event was moderated by experienced lecturers Peter DeWitt, past president of the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education, University Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder Lorrie A. Shepard, and Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin Angela Valenzuela.
According to Doctor of Philology, Professor of Germanic Philology and Translation Department Tetiana Kushnirova, the choice of scientific topics for the webinar was very relevant in terms of online education.
“Many questions that worry modern teachers were raised during the webinar, such as the issue of standardized testing as a criterion of distanced student assessment. Some issues important for the USA were also discussed - including the issues of taking into account the ethnic diversity of students in test preparation, the necessity of removing ethnically specific names, and problems of gender equality - should be keep the ‘he/she’ pronouns or is it better to replace them with the plural forms ‘they/you’ - and many other issues,” the scientist commented.
“Teachers in the USA often face problems similar to those of their Ukrainian colleagues, including the absence of students in online classes, correct structure of classes for distanced learning, efficiency of the educational process, unbiased evaluation of the students’ results and so on. The participants of the webinar discussed the teaching methods and the need of changing the education system of the USA, the first decrees of President Biden in the education field, and the influence the storming of the United States Capitol will have on the development of schools; how to help students form their views on Donald Trump’s second impeachment, how should teachers counteracts critics in the social media and from the parents, how should the education system change because of the pandemic etc.
“We also talked about the peculiarities of distanced education in Ukraine as compared to the USA, exchanged practical pieces of advice and recommendations. Besides, I as a teacher learned a lot about American educational websites created to help teachers in distanced teaching during the pandemic, such as Teach from Anywhere, Curriculum Associates, and Renaissance, which will open free access to digital textbooks and articles in February 2021. These services can be useful to Ukrainian teachers, too,” PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of Germanic Philology and Translation Department at National University "Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” Anna Pavelieva commented.
The philologists of Poltava Polytechnic recently had a chance to learn about the British approach to preparing an examination with an expert from Cambridge University.
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
