Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid
Learning
Zhanna Mikhailovna Moroz
a
, Lyudmila Viktorovna Kalyagina
b
Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Keywords: Continuing Education, Questionnaires, Blended Learning, Sustainable Development.
Abstract: The article is devoted to the issues of education in higher educational institutions in the interests of sustainable
development under conditions of self-isolation. The empirical study was conducted to identify the problems
that students had faced during the on-line learning. The authors analyzed the experience of distance learning
and they gave the quantity assessment of the prospects for the transition to blended learning. The paper
analyzes the assumption about the difficulty of adaptation of junior students of technical specialties to the full
acquisition of knowledge via the Internet, and it also determines the importance of hybrid methods of
conducting classes.
1 INTRODUCTION
At the World Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
the basic principles of sustainable development were
developed for the first time, which defined the basic
directions of education for sustainable development
and the trends in the new approaches to education
(ESD).
The heads of all countries unanimously adopted
"Agenda 21 (Agenda 21)" at the World Earth
Summit, where in chapter 36 "Education for
sustainable development" there has been stated that "
education is the foundation of sustainable
development" (Coptyugue, 1992).
Paragraph 12 notes that "the implications of the new
understanding of "education for sustainable
development" for the education systems are serious
and involve the significant rethinking of the
importance of the formal education systems in many
countries, which are no longer considered to be
acceptable to meet the needs of the society and
production (traditionally, the goal of education was
mainly to transfer knowledge, skills and values)".
Education is considered as a lifelong process that
must not only be corrected, but also changed and
transformed, or in other words, it is necessary to move
from "for life” education to "through life" education.
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0041-8477
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0617-1017
Аgenda 21 sets out the basic principles of education
for sustainable development which are based on:
universality, continuity and informality of
education;
interdisciplinary approach;
teaching methods based on the transition from
teaching to joint active cognition, the
development of systematic thinking and skills;
partner interaction between the teacher and the
student, joint discussion and informed
decision-making;
partnership of education and business;
comprehensive support by the state and the
society.
A new type of education that forms the world
outlook within the framework of sustainable
development includes the following trends:
variety of forms and methods;
continuity of different levels of programs;
the relationship between the programs of the
same level as well as the programs of different
levels;
adaptability;
consideration of the local characteristics;
unity of comprehensive and vocational
education; - practicality,
Moroz, Z. and Kalyagina, L.
Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid Learning.
DOI: 10.5220/0010669700003223
In Proceedings of the 1st International Scientific Forum on Sustainable Development of Socio-economic Systems (WFSDS 2021), pages 427-432
ISBN: 978-989-758-597-5
Copyright
c
2022 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
427
aimed at solving the problems of production
and society, taking into account the local,
regional and national characteristics.
2 CONTINUITY OF EDUCATION
IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
PANDEMIC
The conditions of self-isolation during the pandemic
accelerated the transition to the on-line learning using
distant learning technologies, which proves the
relevance of the adopted theses of Agenda 21 in
practice. The new way of life and the challenges of
the time dictate the need to introduce changes to the
educational programs, the development of advanced
and up-to-date methods of lifelong learning in the
interests of sustainable development.
In 2020-2021, the alternative means of
communication and interaction between teachers and
students were developed, in most cases, the Internet-
based technologies replaced the traditional classes
with the use of blackboards and chalk. Digital
learning has become the new format of education,
which allowed us to practice the skills of instant
response to changes, to act in a situation of
uncertainty, to be flexible.
During the pandemic, various approaches to
distance learning were used: the language
applications, the virtual learning, the video
conferencing tools, and the software for on-line
learning. In particular, in the process of the
continuous educational process, the on-line
conferences via Zoom or Skype platforms, the on-line
training via Moodle platforms were actively used.
One can say that during the period of self-isolation,
the electronic educational environment was created
and tested, including a wide range of tools: lectures
with feedback, webinars, video lectures, logic
schemes, adaptive test trainings, testing and
certification programs, online consultations, debate
tournaments, quizzes, on-line learning, on-line
meetings with interesting people, remote creative
laboratories, on-line exams, synchronous and
asynchronous interaction of participants of the
educational process and the formation of the
electronic portfolio of students. The access to the
electronic educational resources was carried out
through the student's "Personal Account" on the
website and in the automated information system
Platonus. At the same time, various services for
interactive visualization began to develop. For
example, the Padlet service allows you to draw, share
files, show pictures and texts simultaneously, which
resembles an on-line whiteboard. Padlet allows you
to work both in real time, to illustrate and put down
ideas during discussions, and to use the service at the
data storage location. The Figma service allows you
to create complex structures and draw diagrams,
which is important for designers and architects. It is
convenient to organize your work in Trello, since you
can use the Trello service to assign tasks and mark the
performer, give comments, store files, give urls, set
reminders, manage multiple projects and have
personal files.
Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, which
is the branch of the Irkutsk State University of
Railway Transport, has developed the instructions for
the work with remote access to the UIS: instructions
for checking your computer for malware, instructions
for using corporate mail via the WEB interface,
instructions for creating a group conference in
Microsoft Teams, instructions for setting up a VPN
connection on Windows 7.
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The authors of the article conducted an empirical
study to identify the problems the students had faced
during the on-line learning, to analyze the experience
gained and the prospects for transition to blended
training. The first-year students of Krasnoyarsk
Institute of Railway Transport of technical specialties
of full-time and part-time departments were the
respondents. The hypothesis of the study was to test
the assumption about the difficulty of adapting the
junior students of technical specialties to the full
acquisition of knowledge via the Internet in a higher
educational institution, as well as to confirm the
exceptional importance of traditional methods of
conducting classes in specially equipped classrooms
of the educational institution. It was important to
evaluate the students ' experience of on-line learning
and their readiness to come over to blended learning.
The anonymous handout questionnaire was used as
the method of empirical research, based on the
continuous classroom survey of the first-year students
of the "Train Traffic Support Systems" and
"Operation of Transport and Technological
Processes" specialties. This method allowed us to
interview the sufficient number of the respondents in
a short time for the pilot study. Secondly, the
anonymous nature of the survey allows us to count on
the answers of the respondents to be frank, and
thirdly, the questionnaire method is convenient from
the point of view of processing the results.
WFSDS 2021 - INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC FORUM ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
428
The special questionnaire has been developed in
accordance with the established rules of the study.
The questionnaire had 20 questions, 12 of them with
the answer options as "yes "or "no", which excluded
the possibility of ambiguous interpretation of the
question. The other 8 questions offered to evaluate the
events according to the ten-point system. The
explanation was given for all the questions that
clarified the meaning of the special terms used and
the foreign words that could be incomprehensible to
the respondents.
Before starting the survey, the goals and
significance of the research results were explained to
the students.
4 RESULTS
All the questions in the questionnaire can be divided
into three groups. The first group of the questions
identified the difficulties the students had faced
during the on-line learning, the second group of the
questions analyzed the emotional state of the students
during the on-line learning, the third group of the
questions assessed the experience of learning during
self-isolation and the prospects for transition to
blended learning. A relatively small number of the
questions allows you to analyze the answers for each
group of the questions separately.
It turned out that the attitude to the on-line learning
among the first-year students of technical specialties
of full-time and part-time forms of training was
different. For example, 43% of the full-time students
had problems with transition to the on-line learning
using remote technologies for the following reasons:
difficulty of mastering the remote technologies
(37%), difficulty of the work with lectures (28%) in
DLS, difficulty of the work with laboratory work
(56%) in DLS, difficulty of the work with practical
tasks (35%) in DLS, problems with the Internet (9%),
lack of a computer or laptop (7%). At the same time,
the part-time students had significantly fewer
problems in transition to the on-line learning; only
35% of the part-time students experienced difficulties
in transition to the remote technologies. However, for
the part-time students, all the difficulties of transition
to the remote learning were due to technical problems
with the Internet, which is probably explained by the
fact that most part-time students are from the rural
areas.
According to the evaluation done by the first-year
students of the full-time department, mathematics,
physics, history and physical education were the most
problematic subjects for the distance learning (50%),
while the majority of the students believe that they
have adapted to the on-line learning (89%). For the
full-time students, Zoom is the most convenient
service for conducting the on-line learning (44%),
Discord was approved only by 30% of students. At
the same time, 93% of the part-time students have
chosen Zoom.
Table 1: Students evaluation of traditional, on-line, and
blended learning models (% of the number of respondents).
Evaluation Traditional On-line Blende
d
10
p
oints 23 21 42
9
p
oints 0 7 7
8 points 14 21 7
7 points 7 0 7
6 points 28 14 14
5
p
oints 28 36 23
The study showed that the students did not
experience stress during the transition to the on-line
learning, 92% of students felt calm, 8% of students
were afraid of not having time to complete all the
tasks done by the teachers and not to pass the exam.
The need for live communication with teachers is
more necessary for full-time students studying
technical disciplines (89%) than for students studying
social and humanitarian disciplines (11%). The part-
time students of technical specialties are less
dependent on a teacher (62%), but everyone needs to
communicate with their classmates. At the same time,
the majority of students of the part-time department
received support from their teachers during the period
of self-isolation (79%).
The part-time students (84%) experienced more
comfort during the on-line learning than the full-time
students (74%). The result is obvious and it can be
explained by the fact that the part-time students have
more free time both for their work and for their
personal life. As a rule, the part-time students are
mature people who, in addition to studying, are still
busy at work, and they have families. At the same
time, the majority of the full – time students are
school graduates, they do not work and do not have
their families.
The graph in Figure 1 shows the students answers
to the questions that have two possible answers-
yes/no. The questions with the point score are not
shown in Figure 1, and they were analyzed separately.
Sustainable Education in Self-isolation and the Prospects of Hybrid Learning
429
Figure 1. Summary graph of the student responses.
The points were used to evaluate the various
learning models, the choice of the educational
platforms, the labor costs for preparing teacher
assignments during the on-line and classroom
learning, and the emotional state of the students
during distance learning at the period of self-
isolation. The answers of the students of different
forms of education to such questions are given in this
article.
It should be noted that the labor costs for preparing
the teacher assignments during the on-line and
classroom learning did not change for the majority of
the students (62%), while 38% of students noted the
decrease in the labor costs during transition to the on-
line learning.
The majority of the students of all forms of
education liked the experience gained with the use of
distance technologies (89%) and many of the students
are ready for "blended learning" (50%).
The positive point is that the attendance of the on-
line lectures has increased in comparison with the
classroom ones, the "feedback" has deepened, which
allowed the teacher to control the involvement of the
students in the classroom. On-line learning is
asynchronous, allowing you to learn anytime,
anywhere. Students and teachers do not spend time
and money to get to the place of study every day,
which allows you to get more free time without
compromising the quality of learning and even
strengthening it in some cases. The on-line learning
allows students to study at their own individual pace
by re-reading, skipping or speeding up their
concentration at their own discretion. On-line
learning requires more independent study of the task,
which has the positive effect on personal
development, since without the support of a teacher,
the student learns the material better.
5 DISCUSSION OF THE
RESULTS
Foreign studies show that students memorize by 25-
60% more information during the on-line learning,
compared to 8-10% when in the classroom. 81% of
US college students agreed that digital learning
technologies help them improve their grades
(Adesoye, Davis, Del Calvo and et al., 2021).
In the study conducted by the University of
California, the results showed that on-line learning
contributes to solving the climate change problems;
in particular, conducting classes in the online format
for 100 students led to the reduction of CO2
emissions by 5-10 tons per semester (Burns, 2020).
It should be noted that the success of on-line
education primarily depends on access to the Internet.
The gap in inequality of opportunity is observed both
between countries and between people with different
income levels within a country. For example, in
Switzerland, Norway, and Austria, 95% of students
have a computer, while in Indonesia this percentage
is 34%, according to the OECD (Bao, 2020). The
students who do not have the technical capabilities for
digital learning lag behind their peers, which leads to
inequality in knowledge acquisition and social
stratification of the society (Budenkova, 2016).
A serious disadvantage of on-line education is
social isolation, since educational institutions are
centers of social activity and interaction of people,
which are necessary for development and learning.
Young people are deprived of the opportunity to meet
and socialize with their friends, which can lead to
stress and depression (Novikova, E.S., 2018).
At the same time, in the classroom, you can have a
contact with each student and observe how the
student copes with the task, it is easier to focus on the
full-time lecture during distance learning, attention is
scattered on establishing contact with students
creating the right atmosphere in the on-line audience
(Lebedeva, Okhotnikova and Potapova, 2016).
Remote work requires more self-discipline and self-
organization. In traditional mode, there is the general
information flow in the classroom, but the remote
student communicates in the classroom mostly with
their teacher (Kucher, 2017). As a result, only the
teacher has the full picture.
It is unproductive to conduct a number of
disciplines in Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway
transport remotely; in particular, it is impossible to
conduct physical education classes without the
necessary equipment. The students of engineering,
construction and many other fields of study cannot
acquire the necessary skills if they do not practice
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430
their knowledge. It is impossible to teach and acquire
professional skills in locksmithing, welding,
electrical installation, turning skills, to master the
mechanisms of repair and construction works,
technical operation and repair of tracks without
practical training, experimental installations and
specially equipped laboratories.
Being at home environment, it is more difficult for
a student to concentrate, and his motivation decreases
due to the lack of control and the competitive
environment, which can negatively affect academic
performance.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that during the
remote learning process, there was the need to
develop a new combined model of the educational
process, based on the preparation of special distance
programs that contribute to the continuation of high-
quality learning in the on-line mode. Both students
and teachers believe that remote learning methods can
complement the traditional learning process.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents the empirical study among the
full-time and part-time students of technical
disciplines in the form of a questionnaire, identifies
the basic approaches to distance learning and defines
the electronic educational environment, systematizes
the advantages and disadvantages of the on-line
learning, and identifies ways to develop new
educational technologies.
The authors compare the traditional approach to
learning using whiteboards and chalk, specially
equipped laboratories, and distance education using
on-line classrooms and services for interactive
visualization in real time. The quantitative assessment
of the type of educational services chosen by the
students is given.
As a result of comparing the basic approaches to the
provision of educational services, the shortcomings of
the on-line learning are revealed:
the lack of the Internet and the computer
creates a gap in opportunities for obtaining
knowledge, increases the social stratification of
society;
social isolation, lack of communication can
lead to stress and depression;
reduced motivation in the absence of control
and a competitive environment;
difficulty in concentrating at home;
lack of special equipment for obtaining
professional skills.
The advantages of the on-line training are
identified:
wide audience and increased attendance;
distance and comfort;
economy of time and money for getting to
theUniversity for students of all forms of
education, as well as economy of money for
living in another city for part-time students;
asynchronous learning (classes at anytime,
anywhere);
personal development of students, contributing
to an independent approach to the study of the
material, learning, the development of
responsibility and initiative, the management
of time resources and the formation of critical
thinking.
On the scale of the national education transition
to blended learning the following effects were
obtained:
the possibility of optimization and
improvement of teaching processes;
adaptation of educational material in a more
convenient form for perception and
presentation of knowledge, which saves
students ' time on notes
savings were obtained by eliminating
unnecessary time losses and financial costs for
conducting classroom lessons in an educational
institution;
development of information technologies,
methods of data transmission, knowledge
visualization;
improving computer and information skills;
ability to teach more students;
active involvement of students in the learning
process and the possibility of a broad
discussion of the acquired knowledge and skills
in the learning process.
In general, we can say that the experience of the on-
line training with the use of remote technologies
obtained during the period of self-isolation was
positive. The majority of the students noted the high
efficiency of blended learning and they are ready to
use the new educational model in the near future.
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