SYNTHETIC CHARACTER OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN ORGANISATION OF DISTANT TEACHING OF CREATIVE AND PRACTICAL ACADEMIC SUBJECTS UNDER PANDEMICS AND SOCIAL CATACLYSMS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE COURSES “JOURNALISTIC SPECIALITY” AND “DESIGN IN ADVERTISING AND PR”)
Authors:   National University of Food Technologies, Ukraine, Antonova Olha 
Published: August 2021

The article is dedicated to the demarcation of the transformation specificity of creative and practical subjects into distant teaching in higher education institution. The particularities of the course didactic elements usage on the Moodle platform and within extra-platform resources were studied on example of the course "Journalistic Speciality (Photo Journalism)" which was located on the website of distant learning of Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, and "Design in Advertising and PR", educational and methodological package located on the web-portal of National University of Food Technologies. Academic subjects of such type aim to form students' practical skills and, thus, are based on imitation as a method of teaching which is hard to realize during distant teaching of an academic subject. The formation of necessity of creative seeing and self-realization within the academic subject is also important. Taking into consideration specific situation caused by the events in Luhansk region in 2014 and later and events, caused by the COVID-19 pandemics, it was particularly important to create psychological comfort and minimize stress situations connected to the absence of direct contact with a teacher and groupmates during the studying process. The aim of this research was to trace out the specificity of usage of the Moodle platform and extra-platform resources in distant teaching of creative and practical academic subjects (also with usage of computer technologies and specific equipment) to the students of humanities. The researcher also pursue the aim to lighten gained experience in search of optimal for distant learning forms and methods of teaching for provision of high educational result and psychological comfort of students. The author uses such methods of research as analysis of educational and methodological literature, programmes, manuals and methodological recommendation, available programme means and a platform for distant learning; approbation of chosen methodology in the conditions of distant learning in evacuated university and during the learning process under the conditions of lockdown; questionnaires and interviews with the students who took part in studying of the academic subject, working out and statistical analysis of the results; progress monitoring of students' educational activity, observation and evaluation of their extra-curriculum creative activity. The usage of both basic methodological forms of work and interactive and playing technologies (web-quests, glogs, and comics) realized due to combination of the Moodle elements and outside internet resources assisted to better mastering of learning material and helped to those students who faced distant learning for the first time to adapt quicker to the particularities of the Moodle distant learning platform and to make their integration into student community easier. The choice of platform and extra-platform educational resources allowed to meet psychological, educational, professional needs of the students and encouraged them to creative self-realization in open information space.