Designing teaching methodologies in a digital environment: St Petersburg University hosts the GSOM International Summer School for higher education institutions
The International Summer School for teachers, university administrators and corporate universities at the Graduate School of Management of St Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) focused on the challenges of digital didactics, pedagogical design and the possibilities of digital learning environments.
Today’s world is changing rapidly, and so are the demands on the education system. The large number of digital tools available to the higher education teacher requires reflection and integration into pedagogical activities. The Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University offers a permanent platform for representatives of higher education institutions and corporate training who have an interest in teaching methodologies in a digital environment.
The summer school was attended by 95 representatives of universities and corporate universities from Russia and the CIS: Far Eastern Federal University; Tomsk State University; the Higher School of Economics; North-Caucasus Federal University; Almaty Management University; Business School XXI Century-Consult; Gazprom Neft Corporate University; the Corporate University of Russian Railways; TMK2U Corporate University; and others.
The development of modern teaching methods and digital technologies is especially important now, when the educational system is facing new challenges. Elvira Zeletdinova, Vice-Rector for Teaching Methods at St Petersburg University, emphasised this aspect in her speech at the opening of the summer school. ’I would like to emphasise that the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University is a leader in the development and implementation of the latest, cutting-edge teaching methods at the University. Three years ago, we could only theorise about how to organise blended learning and integrate distance technologies into the learning process. Today, the University has the successful experience of teaching 25,000 students at once in a distance learning format. Now, we are working on a new task of introducing hybrid learning.’
The programme of the Summer School, developed by the Centre for Teaching Excellence in Business Education at the Graduate School of Management and supported by VTB Bank, included both theoretical and relevant practical components.
The project work for online and on-campus participants, grouped into teams, consisted in developing an interactive lesson and was divided into several stages: setting an educational goal; developing a teaching scenario for the lesson; integrating it into the digital environment; and preparing a demo lesson based on the developed scenario. The participants could use all the digital tools and facilities available at the Graduate School of Management: hybrid classrooms, online platforms and VR.
The participants in the Summer School project have produced 10 teaching scenarios using digital tools and will be able to apply them in their work in the new academic year. The staff of the Centre for Teaching Excellence in Business Education at the Graduate School of Management are ready to support the participants in the implementation of the developed tools.
Olga Dergunova, Deputy President and Chairman of VTB Bank Management Board and Director of the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University, emphasised that over the past two and a half years the educational process has undergone a transformation, introducing new services and synchronous distance learning.
The GSOM Summer School has become a unique platform where participants could review their approaches to teaching methods in a digital environment, test hybrid classrooms and digital tools at the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University, and elaborate on further transformation of their teaching practices. Developing and incorporating modern teaching methods into the teaching and learning process is an important part of the development strategy of a business school.
Olga Dergunova, Deputy President and Chairman of VTB Bank Management Board and Director of the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University
At the event, the Centre for Teaching Excellence introduced to a wider audience the approach developed by the Graduate School of Management to designing interactive scenarios in a digital environment: the key steps involved in the design; the subtleties needed to build a coherent lesson; and how to understand whether the new learning format is working and whether it is successful.
Elena Gafforova, Director of the School of Economics and Management at Far Eastern Federal University, believes that designing academic programmes and academic disciplines is traditionally the responsibility of a teacher. ’However, this task becomes a challenge at a time of technological advancement and generational change for students. This challenge was accepted by the teaching team at the Summer School. We progressed from setting goals to obtaining working tools that we could test. The excellent organisation of the event gave us ready-made solutions, which can be implemented in our practical life tomorrow,’ shared Elena Gafforova.
As an international business school, the Graduate School of Management at St Petersburg University has always been striving to implement the best practices in teaching and to create tools that can be useful for other higher education institutions and corporate universities. The Summer School proved that the developments of the Graduate School of Management in teaching methods and digital tools are versatile and can be widely implemented in education.