The Use of Moodle in the Teaching of Philosophy and Distance Learning

Andrii Abdula, Halyna Baluta, Nadiia Kozachenko, Darja Kassim, Feliks Zhuravlev

2020

Abstract

The paper highlights the importance of philosophy and special philosophical disciplines for the modern general education, assuming their role in the soft skills training, and more concretely in developing critical thinking in students. However, the emerging trend of reducing the university philosophy courses can make it difficult to fulfill this role in full. In this context using the distance learning tools and learning management systems can help to provide an appropriate educational environment (also in view of the current pandemic situation) to ensure the sufficient level of learning outcomes in philosophical literacy and critical thinking skills. Moreover, the modern e-learning tools and technologies can facilitate the involvement of students into the global educational space and promote development of their lifelong learning skills. In elaborating a virtual learning environment for philosophy courses, one has to take into account certain features of philosophical disciplines, which are instrumental in their structure and may cause some difficulties by its implementation. Namely, the learning outcomes in philosophy courses may not easily be parametrized, philosophical questions often allow for multiple alternative answers, and philosophical discourse is essentially communicative. Remarkably, the Moodle learning management system is well suited for addressing these issues and enhancing the learning process. To this effect we propose various task types to maintain high standards of learning achievements: test control in the flipped classroom, control of work with primary sources, control of self-study, test implementation of interim thematic control. In this way the Moodle system can well be regarded as an efficient virtual tool for an on-line support of a general philosophy course. Still, one should be fully aware that this tool can only play a supporting role and cannot entirely replace a substantive philosophical dialogue actually occurring either in a “physical” classroom or by means of a video-conference platform (such as Zoom, Google Meet, etc.). Modes of study, directly related to communication, are integral part of the methodology of philosophy and its teaching, since philosophy itself is a discursive and pluralistic field. Nevertheless, taking into account the features of the discipline, it is possible to provide not only an effective test control, but also to implement a number of general educational goals, such as updating the basic knowledge, memorization, activating the cognitive interest, developing the ability to reason, and -- last but not least – the skill of acquiring and assimilating information. The paper presents a comparative statistical analysis of the student academic achievement by studying philosophy in a lecture room and distantly during the pandemic.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Abdula A., Baluta H., Kozachenko N., Kassim D. and Zhuravlev F. (2020). The Use of Moodle in the Teaching of Philosophy and Distance Learning. In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology - Volume 1: AET, ISBN 978-989-758-558-6, pages 616-630. DOI: 10.5220/0010926600003364

in Bibtex Style

@conference{aet20,
author={Andrii Abdula and Halyna Baluta and Nadiia Kozachenko and Darja Kassim and Feliks Zhuravlev},
title={The Use of Moodle in the Teaching of Philosophy and Distance Learning},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology - Volume 1: AET,},
year={2020},
pages={616-630},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010926600003364},
isbn={978-989-758-558-6},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology - Volume 1: AET,
TI - The Use of Moodle in the Teaching of Philosophy and Distance Learning
SN - 978-989-758-558-6
AU - Abdula A.
AU - Baluta H.
AU - Kozachenko N.
AU - Kassim D.
AU - Zhuravlev F.
PY - 2020
SP - 616
EP - 630
DO - 10.5220/0010926600003364