THE EXPERIENCE OF DISTANT TEACHING CHEMISTRY TO THE USMU STUDENTS DURING THE LOCKDOWN

The introduction of distance technologies in the educational process is a critical task at all levels of education, and in the higher education system as well. The complexity of implementing such technologies at a medical university is associated with the practical orientation of most disciplines, in other words, with the necessity of the formation of practical skills of the students. Before the lockdown regime, full-time students had the remote access only to tests or some recorded video-lectures and video-consultations posted on the university educational portal along with other materials of the academic and methodological complex. The paper describes the educational experience of distant teaching Bioorganic Chemistry to the students of the Ural State Medical University during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, taking into account technical capabilities and resources that were available in this period. The paper presents the positive and negative consequences of replacing face-to-face lectures with the video-format. The authors analyzed the technical capabilities of free web services for their use when organizing the educational process. The paper specifies the main difficulties when giving chemistry practical classes on the ZOOM on-line platform and describes the students’ behavior patterns during such studies. The authors compared and analyzed the results of midpoint assessments carried out in full-time and distance forms, as well as the learning outcomes of the past and current academic years. The paper presents the student survey data on the satisfaction degree of distance learning. The authors conclude on the impossibility of the equivalent replacement of full-time chemistry education with distant teaching.