Today, in education in general and in higher education in particular, there is no more pressing problem than the organization of the educational process in the context of a pandemic that all universities in the world are facing. Also, there are no universal recipes for how to organize educational and scientific processes in a university without losing quality. The authors share their experience on how to restructure the work of teachers with students in the context of distance communication, organize the work of an educational portal, conduct training sessions, internships, state final certification, create motivational remuneration for the teaching staff. The article concludes that the challenges of the pandemic to higher education made it possible to find algorithms for interaction between students and teachers in the online environment, showed the need to improve the methodological qualifications of teachers, motivational and psychological support for participants in the educational process, accelerate the development of digital resources.

This article critically examines the result obtained by researchers at the Higher School of Economics in relation to the results of the experiment to assess the quality of online learning. It is noted that the thesis about the possibility of “complete replacement of traditional forms of education with online education without loss of quality” is distorted in the media, and the conclusions are based on insufficient data. To clarify the conditions of the transition and implementation of online technologies, it is proposed to hold a large-scale experiment with a randomly selection mechanisms for participants of training courses, instructors, disciplines (modules). The article focuses on the fact that while the impact of online education on the psychology and physiology of students has not been sufficiently studied, there is a risk of deteriorating health, as well as a drop in the quality of education. It is proposed to develop temporary standards limiting the maximum time of work online for different categories of students and teachers.
The risks of «financial bubbles» in the online education market due to the rush demand after the COVID-19 pandemic for government agencies and private businesses has been identified. The conclusion is made about the priority development of short-term online courses related to the development of rather narrow and applied competencies in demand by the modern information society, about the possible success of online technologies in case of obtaining a “second higher” education and improving qualifications. High-quality online systems in the field of higher education require serious investments in research and development in the field of psychology and pedagogy of education, the use of medical control tools. In the medium term, the benefits of this research, conducted by medical scientists, educators and psychologists, will be used by organizations on the “second wave” of interest to online learning. From an organizational point of view, the correct “rotation” of the contingent of students, when part of the time they study full-time, and part of the time they learn online with computers / tablets and high-quality Internet access, will not lead to a deterioration in the quality of education, but will significantly reduce the spread of the pandemic.

The article examines the problem of broadcasting the communication culture from the system of education toward the labour market. The authors argue that communication model “teacher - student” acts as a matrix for communication model “employee - employer”. In this regard, such a resource as behavioral features of interaction, the communication culture between teacher and student requires special attention. The authors substantiate the thesis that “teacher - student” behavioral model is being reproduced by graduate in the relationship “employee - employer” and reflects “teacher-centric” communication model in the educational process.
The authors have carried out a content analysis of the websites of employers in business structures and government organizations. The results confirm a clearly expressed demand for the communication skills of an employee. At the same time, an expert survey of recruiting specialists who assessed the level of communication skills of graduates majoring in economics and management showed a vivid disparity between free use of digital technologies (digital skills) and poor communication skills (soft skills).
An analysis of the online questionnaire survey of teachers and students in the field of economics and management of nine Russian universities revealed barriers to the formation of “soft skills” of future graduates: inability to see the interests of the “Other”, the habit of pointing fingers instead of solving problems, the lack of client-oriented skills as well as willingness to take personal responsibility for the results of work. The authors outline the ways of restructuring the patterns of teacher and student behavior, which require them to adopt an educational paradigm based on a model of equal interaction of all participants (stakeholders) of educational process. This model will foster the development and mastering of “soft skills” of the future graduates.

The article was prepared on the basis of a field study conducted at Udmurt State University within the “Transitive University in the Context of Global, National and Regional Challenges” Project. The article presents the results of a survey of employers on assessment the quality of training of graduates. The study focused on identifying criteria and channels for staff selection, as well as existing forms of cooperation between organizations of Udmurtia and educational institutions. The aim of the study was to clarify the role and place of Udmurt State University in the personnel training in the region. The research method was online questioning, the sample was spontaneous, the number of organizations was 192. The results of the study revealed a rather mixed picture. On the one hand, it is obvious that in general in Udmurtia organizations, rather low assessments of the quality of specialist training at Udmurt State University prevail, since most of the average grades are below 4 points. On the other hand, methods of cooperation with universities are formal and confined to organizing diploma / undergraduate practice and hiring young specialists. The low interest of employers in financing the development of new technologies and training of personnel is also obvious. In the vast majority of cases, enterprises want to get ready-made employees for their current needs without an agreed resource-consuming and long-term cooperation. Channels of communication and coordinated interaction on a long-term basis between the university and employers are most common either absent or are assessed as formal and episodic. Here, several significant reasons can be singled out such as insufficient financial resources of small organizations for working with universities; lack of time or desire on the part of organizations; lack of resources at the university for the implementation of the order; focus on “traditional industries” in the Udmurt Republic while neglecting the needs of the innovative potential development in the region. This results in the persistence of the employers' practice of “self-education in the workplace.”

 

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is to foster a positive learning environment in which students become motivated and engaged in classroom activities. Growing concerns have been shown about how evaluative praise functioned as a good reinforcer for students' achievement and desirable behaviour affects students' motivation to learn, depending on teachers' messages communicated with students. This study examined the impacts of different types of teacher praise upon university students' perceptions. Case study was employed to collect the data through observations and semi-structured interviews. The results highlighted that students perceived differently towards kinds of praise that they earned. They tended to respond to specific, verbal praise in a more positive way because of its explicit recognition and precise information about their contributions, hence it could make better their self-concept as well as help them keep motivated. Also, high-achievers sought for ability praise whereas low-achievers desired to draw effort praise from teachers. Educators would benefit these findings for the pedagogical purposes.

 

The article is devoted to the actively debated, difficult and for many teachers a painful problem addressing lecture as a dominant form of teaching. Nowadays, lecture is increasingly seen as an inefficient form of education, hopelessly outdated, with little interest and response among students, useless and, in principle, dying. The authors are firmly convinced that lecture was, continues to be and will be the main and indispensable form of instruction for the reproduction of an intellectual elite. To substantiate this position, the article presents an argumentation system that unfolds in three stages. In the first part of the article, the essence of lecture is revealed in the light of Randall Collins' theory of intellectual interactive rituals. The subject's intellectual creativity is conditioned by his personal contacts “face to face” with other intellectuals, as well as the position of this subject in the intellectual network. There is a demonstration that lecture has all the hallmarks of an interactive ritual, and it is its archetypal case, which ensures the transmission of cultural capital from the older generation of intellectuals to the young one. During this process, its successful participants feel surge of emotional energy necessary for intellectual creativity. In the second part of the article, the distinctive positive aspects of lecture are systematized and discussed, which together make it a unique form of training that gives indispensable experience to both lecturer and participants. The third part of the article, based on the real history of education and providing illustrative examples, is a kind of empirical confirmation of the first two parts. The article may be of interest to teachers, students, as well as anyone who is not indifferent to the current state of education in Russia.

Consumer society is associated with abundance of goods and services. Usually the scientific activity is not among them. Meanwhile, with scientometric indicators introduction, science activity acquired characteristics of consumer society in which it runs. The publication activity in modern circumstances got in track of consumer focus: authors, journals and mediators became economical actors, and scientific text became the product of “sings absorption and absorbed by signs”. Was it possible to avoid it? - this question is without answer. It is clear that imposing quantitative scientometric indicators became the catalyst of this process.

The dominant orientation of the domestic strategy of higher education (standards, competencies) towards the current demands of the labor market slows down and constrains the development processes at universities. The ability and readiness to respond to the challenges of the future is steadily becoming a real basis for the success of higher education institutions in conditions of modern technological and socio-economic changes. Time and situation require taking into account in university strategies not only the demands of the labor market, but also the features of the future and trends in knowledge development. And this, in turn, dictates the need to liberalize the existing education strategy, as well as to “synchronize” the development of the university both with trends and prospects for the development of technologies and infrastructures, and the historical and epistemological patterns of knowledge development, its functions, ways of organization and forms of life.

The development of globalization processes requires the provision of scientific and technological leadership of economies. In solving this goal, universities are called upon to play a special role, which can ensure the competitiveness of engineering education. Among the main indicators of academic leadership are ensuring the world level of training content, increasing academic mobility, growing demand and efficiency of master's and postgraduate studies, increase in the number of online educational programs, increase in the number of competitive courses and programs taught online, development of a targeted training system. The key condition for increasing the competitiveness of engineering education is the strengthening of its integration with science and the industrial sector. This is due to the possibility of solving a set of tasks for the development of content, organization and management of the educational process. The effectiveness of their solution is determined by the composition of partners involved in joint activities. The analysis shows that there are trends in the expansion of partnerships and the intensification of international cooperation. This facilitates the development of various formats of interaction to improve the training of engineers. Among the most developing integrated forms of training are networked educational programs. A distinctive feature of their implementation is the growth in the number of participants in network partnerships, among them are universities (as a rule more than one), industry institutes, enterprises (more than one). The network format is being implemented and remains promising in the organization of student practices. The basic departments created at enterprises are the main instrument of targeted training. With the development of the system of professional standards, the role of integration of universities with enterprises in organizing and conducting procedures for assessing the qualifications of personnel has increased. The need to solve the problem of increasing the global competitiveness of education reinforces the requirement to develop the integration of universities with academic science in the form of scientific and educational centers, with foreign universities, enterprises and high-tech businesses.

The global task constantly represented in the documents adopted by the government is the breakthrough development of the Russian economy. The results of the “New Opportunities for Everyone” Federal project in the framework of the national “Education” project are aimed at developing human capital - a cross-cutting condition for achieving national development goals of the country (increasing life expectancy, accelerating technological development of the Russian Federation, ensuring accelerated implementation of digital technologies in the economy and social sphere, etc.). Additional professional education at Kazan National Research Technological University is considered as an integral and real part of the lifelong learning system. The University is actively involved in the implementation of the Federal project. For this purpose, about 20 additional professional development programs have been developed and implemented.

In the 21st century, human capital has become the most important factor for the development of society. Human capital contributes to enhancing the position of Russia in global economy. Nowadays, education is an investment which provides the scale and quality of the economic growth, the prosperity of the country and every person in particular. Unfortunately, the formal educational potential of the Russian population is not used to its full. Therefore, the role of universities in our country is reconsidered; they are becoming the drivers of the growth in the economy and regional centers of innovations. At the same time, apart from education and science, the universities are responsible for the third social mission, a global trend with local characteristics. Having a huge intellectual potential, the University is able to influence individual regional processes. The authors consider the generation of relevant ideas for the development of continuing education as the most important and unique mission of higher education to shape the future of each child, create conditions for self-development of the individual, its career tracks that ensure continuity, identification and support of giftedness.

During the period of the forced transition of universities around the world to the online education, the demand for digital free access services has grown. A unique opportunity has appeared to supplement and develop the theoretical and methodological provisions of online learning based on the analysis of the empirical results that characterize the relevance and effectiveness of the digital environment parts. The educational materials free available at the Internet are the part of the digital environment, which are combined into the concept of open educational resources (OER). The purpose of the study is to assess the relevance of OER for faculty, systematize the main ways of working with them, identify the motives and barriers for the development of OER by faculty. The study conducted among the lecturers at Russian universities showed the high importance and value of OER for their teaching and methodological activities to create and develop the training course content in digital environment. More than half of the faculty staff create and distribute their copyright materials on the Internet on their own initiative for the convenience of their students. The faculty and students freely exchange educational materials using a variety of web services. In conditions of increasing demands on faculty and content of training-course, OER is a valuable resource for educational activities. The analysis of the regulatory framework revealed a lack of OER policy in Russian universities, which is one of the barriers for lecturers to create OER. The results of the study made it possible to develop recommendations for the development of OER in the field of higher education: consolidate the concept of OER in the regulatory framework of education, provide methodological and legal support for the creation and use of OER by faculty, and conduct an information campaign to reveal the prospects and advantages of using OER in higher education.

The article presents an analysis of the pedagogical capabilities of social networks in solving modern educational problems. The pedagogical potential of teacher's personal page can influence on individualization of the educational process, selection of the content of education, organization of pedagogical communication, involvement in activities. The author describes and analyzes the experience of interacting with students on the social network platform, which confirms the positive impact of the communication with the teacher through a social network on students' attitude to the subject and educational motivation. The restrictions of the use of teachers' personal pages in the process of education are connected with increased requirements to the content and design of a personal page. Possible negative consequences of interacting with students through social networks include non-compliance with the boundaries and blurring the boundaries of communication, the interpenetration of professional and personal spheres of life.