Now, on the “Delta” wave crest, when the morning news give new record numbers of infected and dead, the “covid” pandemic seems endless. Nonetheless, it will inevitably end someday. And the vast majority of those who are reading this article now, will go through it. After all, all the pandemics that have taken place, so far have ended sooner or later, and there is no reason to believe that this pandemic will be an exception.
The pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, has affected all areas of human life, and higher education with science is no exception. Empty university classrooms; lectures, seminars and exams have become remote; academic mobility has declined sharply; prestigious international conferences take place in online (or at best in a mixed) format.
But will the end of the pandemic mean an automatic return to everything that existed before it began? There are discussions about it in the respected world media and in the professional communities, and the common answer to the formulated question is negative. After all, the pandemic involuntarily gave rise to new practices that proved to be very effective and will remain useful even when the “covid” (which will not go anywhere) acquires the status of a common seasonal disease, and people will know to effectively prevent and treat it.
Observing these discussions, the author felt the need of reconsidering own teacher’s experience.
The image of an ideal lecturer was formed for me during my student years by my professor Dmytro O. Horodetsky, who taught general courses of thermal and electromagnetic phenomena. He never squinted at any papers (it seemed that he did not bring them to the audience at all), and, confidently writing readable formulas and bold diagrams in chalk on the board, he explained what was written in extremely clear and understandable language. The students knew that each of these lectures was “rehearsed” by the professor with himself the day before, so that he would never appear unprepared in front of them. And that’s why he was especially loved and respected.
Therefore, when my colleagues were already carrying computers and projectors to show their presentations, I still gave lectures in the same way as the lecturers did to me (although in winter, wet blackboard cloth physically tanned hands in the classrooms of the cold Radio Physics Faculty of Kyiv National University). The students (at least the best of them) liked such lectures, and I firmly set myself to remain a kind of relic of the “classical era” to the upmost.
Therefore, the need to go online was really traumatic for me. Preparation of quality presentations took a lot of time, and giving a lecture “in emptiness”, without the possibility to observe the reaction of at least a few advanced listeners, at first just scared me. I’m not talking about the low quality of our Internet, when the sound at the crucial moment suddenly disappears, or the connection just breaks, and everything has to be rebooted.
However, the period of adaptation passed quickly. I realized that after each slide of the presentation, you should pause and try to engage in dialogue with invisible listeners, try to encourage them to ask questions and let them know that they are being watched. That it is necessary to arrange testing and control more often. And carefully prepared presentations turned out to be a universal material for the future, which can be permanently updated with relatively little effort.
In addition, online lectures have proved to be a great saving of time, because within the metropolis, a few hours spent every day in crowded subways and minibuses, have long been an inevitable evil. These hours, as it turned out, can be used much more productively for scientific work (of course, this is not applicable to the experimenter, who must somehow get to his installation, but for the theoretical physicist and philologist or historian working with texts, the advantage was undoubted).
And in science, online seminars and conferences have shown considerable benefits. First of all, I began to take part in numerous events, which I simply would not have reached before because of their remoteness. Of course, the Internet could not recreate the special charm of conference banquets or cultural programs. But it provided an opportunity for fruitful scientific discussions, and this is the most important thing. The defenses of thesis are eventually conducted online, and it is also the considerable time saving for most participants in the process.
As a result, my personal scientific productivity has increased during this quarantine: 4 articles on physics in peer-reviewed journals in 2020, as well as 4 in 2021, not to mention the monograph “Ukrainian translation and translators: between literature and nation-building”, which received the first award in the nomination “Scientific Book” at the “Publishers’ Forum” in 2020.
Of course, my own example is not quite typical. In fact, we are exposed to the harsh realities of life.
Last year, my good acquaintance, the Honored Director of the Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, during the first quarantine enthusiastically told me about a meaningful online session of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, which he watched from his apartment on Prorizna Street; but then he added sadly: it is impossible for us, because some of my colleagues, fellow academics still need outside help to turn on the computer.
Of course, online can only partially replace live communication. Training of a high-quality surgeon (and a high-quality opera singer, as well) is possible only in the direct “physical” contact between teacher and student. Of course, “face-to-face” seminars and practical classes are much more effective in all areas of training. Nothing will replace the informal exchange of fresh scientific ideas at a conference banquet, at the last.
But even after the end of the pandemic, a significant part of lectures (especially for the last two years of bachelor’s and master’s degree and post-graduate research degree, when students who are forced to earn living today, also face an acute problem of travel time) will continue to be online. Scientific conferences and seminars, even if conducted again in the face-to-face mode, must retain a powerful online component – this will attract high-quality new participants from around the world.
We need to start talking just now about what our universities will be like after the Kovid pandemic. After all, it would be a big mistake to simply return to “as was the case”, ignoring the useful developments and discoveries that (albeit forced) have appeared over the past year and a half.
Maksym STRIHA, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor
Svit newspaper, № 41 – 42, November 2021