On 18 December, teaching of the 7-week e-course "Fundamentals of Regional Social Policy” was completed at Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute of Public Administration of the National Academy of Public Administration under the Office of the President of Ukraine, within the framework of Master of Public Administration (MPA) programme, with a specialty in Public Administration.
The course was developed and tested in the framework of creation of the Internet portal of the Interregional Information and Education Network "Effective State" for combining information resources of the National Academy of Public Administration under the Office of the President of Ukraine, regional institutes of public administration and other education institutions that provide educational services in the area of Public Administration, in order to ensure consistency of the processes of creating, analyzing, storing and disseminating information resources and knowledge in the sector of public administration and local self-government, with support of the DESPRO Project. The course was created using the MOODLE tools, allowing to successfully combine various forms of work (lectures, individual and group tasks, forums), and lasted from October 31 to December 18, 2011
That practice was very useful both for students and teachers of the course. For students, it included: teamwork, developing skills to formulate opinions and not to be afraid of expressing them, the ability to "listen and hear" others, a sense of "spirit" of competitiveness, positive attitude and friendly atmosphere, the possibility of creativity and innovation and so on. For teachers, it included: clear organization of working time, the ability to reach (involve) all students in the learning process, to adjust the course in accordance with the students’ needs - availability of feedback, the use of various educational forms and tools (forum and chat, tests and quizzes, group and individual tasks, etc.), more practical focus of the course, wider opportunities to communicate with the audience, usability of assessment tools, new information and more.
Participants of the learning process, including students, were fully satisfied with the experience gained: they liked communicating with colleagues in the distance format, exchanging views on the forums, they had a well-organized assessment system and mastered problem solving skills online. All students noted usefulness of the modernized form of education and mentioned that many of the issues discussed and skills learned would be necessarily taken into account in practice.
