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

Andrii I. Abdula

1 a

, Halyna A. Baluta

1 b

, Nadiia P. Kozachenko

1 c

, Darja A. Kassim

2 d

and

Feliks M. Zhuravlev

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

State University of Economics and Technology, 5 Stepana Tilhy Str., Kryvyi Rih, 50006, Ukraine

Keywords:

Philosophy, Critical Thinking, Soft Skills, Reﬂexive Learning, Test Control, Moodle, E-Learning Environ-

ment, Education During a Pandemic, Distance Learning of Philosophy, Risk Society.

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. More-

over, 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 implemen-

tation 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 assimi-

lating 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.

1 INTRODUCTION

Reforming of the education system should be pro-

vided for in response to public demand and informa-

tion standards of the world educational culture, which

is focused on the formation of key competences of

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5484-1639

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4772-9240

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2358-9076

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1750-1237

participants in education (Shokaliuk et al., 2020). In

education, the process of transformation requires re-

vision and reassessment of the humanities, especially

philosophy, as it should be regarded as a powerful

methodological platform, which leads to successful

solving of the tasks outlined in the national educa-

tional strategy.

616

Abdula, A., Baluta, H., Kozachenko, N., Kassim, D. and Zhuravlev, F.

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

DOI: 10.5220/0010926600003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 1, pages 616-630

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

1.1 Outlining the Problem

Scientiﬁc and technological advance shows a notable

paradox: on the one hand, society seeks acceler-

ated development to achieve pragmatic results; on the

other hand, this advance causes dangerous transfor-

mations of biosocial reality characterized by low lev-

els of prediction, uncertainty about the future events.

The constant growth of life threats is a reason to as-

sess these trends as “risk trends”. In our opinion,

modern education is not relevant without considering

the situation of risk as a “measure of unexpected dan-

ger” (Giddens, 1990). We view risk in its positive

sense as a “rational way of mastering reality”, which

is the prospect of rational construction of a new type

of educational culture, including a “diversiﬁcation”

constant. Thus, on the one hand, the 2020 pandemic

caused long-term social isolation, which led to a clear

understanding that social stability, is the result of a

comprehensive justiﬁcation of “protective”, prema-

ture social and, in particular, educational strategies,

and, on the other hand, it showed new tools and op-

portunities, emphasizing the effectiveness of distance

learning (Polhun et al., 2021).

What are the trends and resources of educational

culture focused on preserving the educational base in

the current situation? Undoubtedly, a high-quality,

balanced resource of distance learning justiﬁed itself

as a full-ﬂedged type of education, having been de-

veloped from, in a certain sense, experimental educa-

tion to a global educational network. In 1969, the ﬁrst

university of distance education, the Open University,

was opened in Great Britain. Nowadays, it is an edu-

cational centre playing an essential role in the social

and economic life of the country (Open University,

2021).

In the UK, the Quality Assurance Agency for

Higher Education praised the quality of the educa-

tional process at universities, involving a wide range

of distance learning technologies. Widespread use

of “distance technologies” has formed the paradigm

of “distance education” with the following con-

cepts: “distance reaching”, “emergently organized

distance teaching”, “test tools”, “independent assess-

ment”, “distance learning”, “distance counseling”, “e-

learning”, “blended learning”, “online learning plat-

form”, “learning management system”, etc (Syvyi

et al., 2020; Vlasenko et al., 2020). The centres of

distance education work successfully in other coun-

tries.

The pandemic situation has demonstrated a ﬁne

line between social and biological. As Badiou (Ba-

diou, 2020) notes: “An epidemic is complicated be-

cause it is always a point of contact between natural

and social deﬁnitions. Its full analysis is transversal:

it is necessary to understand the points where these

two deﬁnitions intersect and derive the consequences

from that”.

In our opinion, the new type of education pre-

supposes the existence of a high-quality educational

environment, which takes into account past and

present experience, provides qualitative analysis of

advantages and disadvantages, and successfully com-

bines traditional and modern educational achieve-

ments with current social values. Thus, modern ed-

ucation type presupposes the existence of philosoph-

ical discourse, focused on the formation of critical,

systemic, and other kinds of thinking, relevant sec-

tions of social ethics, especially, pedagogical, envi-

ronmental, information culture in combination with

e-learning technologies.

For it is necessary to introduce e-learning tools

in the educational process, the educators should take

into consideration the speciﬁcity of their implementa-

tion that allow to master the strategy of teaching phi-

losophy on the basis of the online learning environ-

ment. Thus, there is a need to outline the educational

perspectives of philosophy teaching with the involve-

ment of online learning environment and to identify

the particularities of the use of test tools in this pro-

cess.

The experience of the rapid transition to distance

education has well demonstrated the peculiarities,

pros and cons of the distance learning management

and, in particular, in the teaching of philosophical dis-

ciplines. On the one hand, these features are already

familiar. On the other hand, new characteristics be-

came apparent due to the peculiarities of the social

situation, the features of the national education sys-

tem and the peculiarities of the subject itself.

Therefore, in our study, based on our work (Ab-

dula et al., 2020) we aim to consider the general fea-

tures of Moodle as a tool of creating of the e-learning

environment, the features of using this platform in

teaching philosophy and analyze the relevant results

of distance learning in quarantine 2020.

1.2 Analysis of Recent Research and

Papers

The issue of the placing philosophical disciplines in

the educational space is considered by scholars all

over the world. The research paradigm is represented

in (Crawford et al., 2005; Dewey, 1904; Halpern,

2014; Hintikka, 2007; Lakhuti, 2014; Quitadamo and

Kurtz, 2007; Lipman, 2012), and others. The national

tradition includes the publications (Karapetian, 2020;

Kopotun et al., 2020; Terno, 2012). Dewey (Dewey,

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

617

1904) was one of the ﬁrst educators who prioritized

critical thinking in education. He believed that the

main drawback of traditional education was its focus

on reﬁned knowledge, devoid of analytical process-

ing. John Dewey outlined a new “reﬂexive” style of

education, as reﬂection makes it possible for a student

to perceive the object from different viewpoints. The

philosopher notes that “knowledge” does not mean

understanding; certain information does not guaran-

tee that the opinion can get the right direction (Dewey,

1904). Hintikka (Hintikka, 2007) describes critical

thinking as an opportunity to combine different per-

spectives, as a crucial resource, focused on the search

for cognitive distortions. He thinks that to teach how

to think and analyze is a huge challenge from educa-

tion to philosophers (Lakhuti, 2014). The researcher

substantiates the notion of Socratic epistemology as a

special cognitive strategy, which has a dialogical form

(Hintikka, 2007).

Standard educational programmes cannot achieve

such progress in the development of cognitive skills,

as the programmes, including the development of

critical thinking. The author of an educational pro-

gramme focused on reﬂective thinking Lipman (Lip-

man, 2012) admits that teaching thinking skills is

different from the ordinary acquisition of academic

knowledge. He substantiates the idea of higher or-

der thinking, which synthesizes creative, moral, eth-

ical and critical thinking. Lipman (Lipman, 2012)

considers the ways of thinking as necessary modes

of reﬂective educational practice. Lipman’s approach

was developed by Sanchez-Ruiz et al. (Sanchez-Ruiz

et al., 2015), Reid and Anderson (Reid and Anderson,

2012) and others. Therefore, the reﬂexive paradigm

highlights reﬂective and dialogic strategies as a de-

velopment of personal autonomy embedded in a spe-

cial space of mutual open-mindedness for joint explo-

ration and discovery.

The use of the potential of philosophy in the de-

velopment of critical thinking and other important

competences is complicated due to several reasons.

Firstly, the place of philosophy in a number of gen-

eral educational courses is uncertain. Secondly, it is

complicated to transfer the content of philosophical

disciplines to e-learning platforms.

The practical implementation of distance learning

is based on one of the most promising online learn-

ing platforms, which is actively implemented in the

educational process and facilitates its modernization

– Moodle. In the current educational discourse, the

potential of using e-learning platforms is considered

in various aspects (Astaﬁeva et al., 2020). Petrenko

(Petrenko, 2017), Pienkin and Yatsenko (Pienkin and

Yatsenko, 2014) consider Moodle as an important

component of the provision of distance education

and blended learning. Zhelezniakova (Zhelezniakova,

2016) treat it as prerequisite for realization of the

students’ self-management capacity. Myshchyshen

(Myshchyshen, 2011) considers Moodle as tools of

information and communication support to the pro-

cess of advanced training. Avdieiev (Avdieiev, 2015),

Oproiu (Oproiu, 2015) draw attention to the fact that

Moodle is a way to optimize the educational process

in higher educational establishments. For Nedilko

et al. (Nedilko et al., 2017) Moodle is a key aspect of

quality of professional training of future specialists.

Holotescu et al. (Holotescu et al., 2014) outline that

e-learning platforms provide students’ involvement in

the global educational space and the development of

lifelong learning skills. The use of e-learning plat-

forms is also considered in the context of globaliza-

tion, changes in the institutional status of the educa-

tion system (Triakina et al., 2018). Biletska (Biletska,

2013), Horshkova (Horshkova, 2015), Mintii (Mintii,

2020), Semenets (Semenets, 2017) draw attention to

the considerable practical experience of using Moo-

dle in the process of teaching exact mathematical sci-

ences and natural sciences. Dolynskyi (Dolynskyi,

2013), Akulenko (Akulenko, 2012), Shalatska et al.

(Shalatska et al., 2020), Ustinova et al. (Ustinova

et al., 2019) show that Moodle can be used by teach-

ing social science and humanities.

1.3 Unsolved Aspects of the Problem

Unfortunately, there is a dangerous tendency in the

national education to curtail the humanities, espe-

cially philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, cultural studies,

etc. They are losing their positions, undermined by

the tendencies of educational instrumentalism and vi-

tal pragmatism. The reasons of such situation are as

follows: the relativization of the educational culture,

the lack of deﬁnition of standards of quality of edu-

cation, as well as rigidity, the ﬁrm rootedness of the

“monopolized” post-Soviet educational tradition. Af-

ter a few decades, philosophical subjects focused on

Marxism lost their relevance, as they reproduced the

structures of crowd psychology, the realized ideolog-

ical function and function of identity formation. As a

result, philosophy focused on Marxism created a false

stereotype about its uncertainty or even its useless-

ness. Thus, a hidden paradox has emerged: the min-

imization of the humanities in education contradicts

current educational strategies, outlined in the Law on

Education.

Among the educational competences deﬁned by

the Law on Education, there are a number of extra-

curricular competences, which, in our opinion, pro-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

618

vide for an in-depth mastery of a philosophical re-

source. According to the Law on Education, “com-

mon for all competences are the following skills:

reading with understanding, a skill to express one’s

opinion orally and in writing, critical and systemic

thinking, ability to logically justify one’s position,

creativity, leadership, ability to manage emotions in a

constructive way, assess risks, make decisions, solve

problems, ability to cooperate with other people”

(Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, 2017). Thorough anal-

ysis of the subject ﬁeld, included in the scenario of

achieving the stated goal, implies a direct mastery

of the information product of philosophical genesis.

Instrumental competence, which means performing

technical procedures and operations, ways of deter-

mining information adequacy, criteria for trust in an

information source, etc., is also particularly relevant.

Therefore, the main unsolved aspect of the prob-

lem is the question of whether the information, puri-

ﬁed from philosophy, is sufﬁciently efﬁcient in com-

petitiveness of education if it is considered as a com-

plex product, formed by long-term research selec-

tion by historical trial and error and as the result of

successful, balanced, and projected educational pro-

grammes, focused on education and society, theory

and practice. The implementation of electronic sup-

port in the teaching of philosophy is also important.

However, the speciﬁc nature of philosophy as a sub-

ject should be taken into consideration. Using e-

learning platforms is a deﬁnite challenge of the mod-

ern times, so the educators need to respond to it ade-

quately.

Nevertheless, the following question arises: how

and to what extent can we trust e-learning, in training

philosophy and other humanities?

Instrumental and information competence be-

comes more topical. We may deﬁne it as the im-

plementation of technical procedures and operations;

the ways to determine information adequacy, criteria

of its quality and trust in the source of information;

the independence of information processing and re-

production based on academic integrity.

The previous research did not focus on the anal-

ysis of the complex speciﬁc character of modern ed-

ucation, its socio-ethical orientation, unapparent but

important problem areas of distance learning, the

research of the causes and factors of their elimi-

nation. These highlight a broader horizon of re-

search. The main unresolved aspects of the problem

are the following issues: whether learning manage-

ment, cleansed of philosophy, is effective enough to

provide competitive education as a complex social

product; whether distance education can be consid-

ered as a universal learning tool that gives a sustain-

able result; whether distance education has the oppo-

site effects and drawbacks arising due to the “dissolu-

tion” of participants of the educational process, who

are in a “closed” e-learning environment. Thus, the

objective of the paper is to reveal the peculiarities of

electronic support of teaching philosophy, highlight-

ing its subject speciﬁcity on the basis of methodically

substantiated forms of test control.

2 THEORETICAL BASIS OF THE

RESEARCH

As Shunevich (Shunevich, 2011) emphasized the

formation of the theoretical framework of distance

learning dates back to the 60s of the 20-th century.

Shunevich (Shunevich, 2011) follows the classic of

distance education Keegan (Keegan, 1980) and notes

that the prolonged absence of theory has weakened

distance learning. In the article “Comparative Anal-

ysis of Early Foreign Theories of Distance Learn-

ing”, he describes the autonomy of the student in

the educational process, emphasizes the fundamen-

tal difference between classical and distance learning

(Shunevich, 2011). What is the essence of distance

learning? The e-learning course is an artiﬁcial, dia-

logical opportunity for learning, in which the bridge

between the student and the institution is an artiﬁcial

signal carrier (Shunevich, 2011, p. 106). That is why,

in our opinion, the e-learning platform should con-

tain the parameters inherent in the process of natural

learning with its ﬂexible, multidimensional potential:

forms, methods, tools, technologies, etc.

If philosophy is considered as a source of criti-

cal thinking, the method of its formation appears as

a combination of different models of learning. It is

clear that “rigid models” are typically suitable for in-

dividual tasks, while “soft models” dominate when

there are atypical problematic situations with uncer-

tainty potential. Such models play a special role in

the process of personality formation. “The develop-

ment of critical thinking is just such a task that can be

solved with the help of a soft learning model”, says

Terno (Terno, 2012, p. 18). Methods of the critical

thinking development require a set of conditions that

include problematic situations, knowledge of critical

thinking strategies, creating choice situations, making

a dialogue, giving students’ opinions in writing, the

right to correct mistakes, etc. This system of learning

implies its openness, plasticity, the presence of varia-

tions and feedback.

Individual-oriented project methods and dialogue

play a special role, as they are focused on recon-

structing the educational participants’ individual ex-

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

619

perience. The methodology is based on the follow-

ing principles: identifying and denying assumptions,

verifying accuracy of facts and logical consistency,

examining context and exploring alternatives (Terno,

2012, p. 18). In our opinion, this is the way in which

the monologic “banking” or ﬁxed teaching is reori-

ented to qualitatively developing innovative model.

Such a guideline was taken into account by the

community of lecturers of the Philosophy Department

in Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University in the

process of teaching the course “Philosophy” with its

positive consequences. Firstly, the philosophical re-

source was preserved as a source of formation of dif-

ferent types, styles of thinking, a methodological plat-

form for learning the variety of the best examples of

world philosophical culture. Secondly, the structure

of the course, the logic of its presentation, demon-

strated the effective implementation of a number of

tasks of informative and constructive content, as it

successfully combined the traditional informative or

lecture-seminar system of education and the modern

pedagogical approaches, which necessarily include

person-oriented techniques. And fourthly, we would

like to draw attention to the advantages and problems

caused by using e-learning management systems in

general and, in particular, by using Moodle, taking in

consideration the global challenges of the COVID-19

pandemic.

Thus, there was a need to combine the critical re-

source of philosophy and the tools, provided by the

e-learning environment. Obviously, such a combina-

tion could not have been a perfunctory transfer of the

course to an online learning platform. However, it

also requires both the peculiarities of the course and

the speciﬁcs of the chosen platform. We used Moodle

as such e-learning platform.

In our opinion, we should consider the particular-

ities of using Moodle, taking into account the global

challenges, tasks and problems that cause the reform

of the education system in Ukraine. Moreover, it is

necessary to pay attention to features of use of the

platform in comparison with similar systems. Thirdly,

it is necessary to demonstrate the expediency of ap-

pealing to Moodle, in the context of teaching the so-

cial sciences and humanities, especially philosophy.

As for the ﬁrst aspect, we should admit that the

implementation of Moodle is increasingly correlated

with the prospect of implementing the principles of

blended and distance learning, taking into account

that the latter is a relatively new phenomenon in

the educational space of Ukraine (Bondarenko et al.,

2018). Petrenko (Petrenko, 2017) says: “The use of

modern information and communication, electronic

technologies in combination with pedagogical expe-

rience will allow to raise higher education in Ukraine

to a higher level” (Petrenko, 2017, p. 140). This prob-

lem is also considered in the context of globaliza-

tion, changes in the institutional status of the educa-

tion system and the integration of the national educa-

tion system into the European educational space (Pe-

trenko, 2017, p. 116). In response to these challenges,

the scholars draw attention to the following beneﬁts

of distance learning: the ability to save considerable

amount of time while displaying signiﬁcant amounts

of information; focusing on the speciﬁc achievements

of each student; ensuring the relative independence

of the process of communication between the student

and the teacher from the place and time, organization

of control and planning of students’ independent work

in the conditions of reduction of class hours and tran-

sition to the credit-modular system, etc. (Lavrentieva

et al., 2019, p. 102), (Zhelezniakova, 2016, p. 34).

In general, these characteristics have economic, op-

erational, informational and pedagogical dimensions

(Myshchyshen, 2011, p. 98). Unlike distance learning

that requires using ICT, blended learning presupposes

a combination of different forms of activities (tradi-

tional, distance, electronic, etc.), at the same time it

takes advantage of distance learning and eliminates

its disadvantages (Petrenko, 2017, p. 141). An impor-

tant tendency of recent years is the increasing level

of integration of distance and traditional learning (Pe-

trenko, 2017, p. 6).

As for the second aspect, we should mention that

there are several groups of e-learning organization

software: copyright software, learning management

systems, content management systems, and educa-

tional content management systems (Pienkin and Yat-

senko, 2014, p. 105). Among these tools, one of

the most suitable for higher education institutions

is the open source distance learning platforms, to

which Moodle belongs (in general, there are a great

number of such systems: ATutor, Claroline, Dokeos,

Sakai, Prometheus, etc.) (Pienkin and Yatsenko,

2014, p. 106). A considerable number of scholars

think that Moodle has certain advantages over other

similar systems. The evidence is the considerable

number of users who have chosen this system (about

90 million people (Petrenko, 2017, p. 140)), as well

as the fact that it is used by educational institutions in

more than 100 countries (Pienkin and Yatsenko, 2014,

p. 106), demonstrating positive statistics of students’

involvement (Oproiu, 2015, p. 428–430). The basis

for the functioning of this system is based on the prin-

ciples of social constructivism, according to which,

the teacher is regarded as an assistant and mentor;

training is carried out in activity; self-presentation and

self-realization of students are provided; the learn-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

620

ing environment is ﬂexible, able to adapt to spe-

ciﬁc needs; the student can observe and respond to

the activity of participants in the educational process

(Teplytskyi et al., 2015). Accordingly, Moodle al-

lows to organize distance learning in such a way that

it meets the today’s didactic requirements: regularity,

systematic character, objectivity of control, individ-

uality, economic efﬁciency, that is, it is fully capable

of completing the tasks assigned to it (Avdieiev, 2015,

p. 7).

Other advantages include: openness of the sys-

tem, ability to adapt to speciﬁc tasks and types of ac-

tivities; providing ample opportunities for communi-

cation and data exchange; the availability of a ﬂex-

ible evaluation system and opportunities for statisti-

cal analysis of performance; versatility and simplicity

in using (Pienkin and Yatsenko, 2014, p. 106). An

important argument in favour of Moodle is that as

an open source system, it can be freely distributed,

applied and modiﬁed (Pienkin and Yatsenko, 2014,

p. 141).

Moodle is quite capable of providing the distance

learning functions assigned to it, but it should be ad-

mitted that the use of a virtual learning environment

has its peculiarities when it supports training courses

in philosophical disciplines.

(1) The complication of parameterization of learn-

ing outcomes. This is due to the fact that all

philosophical disciplines and, ﬁrst of all, philos-

ophy involve the teaching of thinking, and not

just memorizing the biographies of a number of

philosophers and difﬁcult obscure terms. Obvi-

ously, this peculiarity is inherent in other courses,

but the main difference is that the results of teach-

ing philosophy are very difﬁcult to calculate and

quantify. This problem is typical, in general, for

determining the level of competence formation,

which does not reduce to speciﬁc knowledge, abil-

ities and skills. We have discussed above the com-

petences, which include, inter alia, environmen-

tal competence and information and communica-

tion competence, lifelong learning, civic and so-

cial competences related to the ideas of democ-

racy, justice, equality, human rights, well-being

and a healthy lifestyle, with an awareness of equal

rights and opportunities; cultural competence. For

this type of competence there is a problem of ver-

iﬁcation, parameterization, quantiﬁcation, the so-

lution of which would make it possible to simply

revision of the level of their formation by tools

of e-learning, where testing is particularly conve-

nient and widespread.

(2) The plurality of approaches. The second problem

is related to the speciﬁcity of philosophy, namely

its pluralistic nature. Philosophy cannot be rep-

resented as a single holistic entity, the conven-

tional result of a study of the existing philosophic

community. Philosophy is a constant develop-

ment of thought, which consists in asking ques-

tions, ﬁnding answers and constantly rethinking

them. Thus, any reference or educational mate-

rial in philosophy bears a signiﬁcant imprint of the

philosophical position of its author, which cannot

be considered universally acceptable to all partic-

ipants in philosophical discourse.

(3) Communicative nature of philosophy. There was

an experiment when the android Bina48 gave a

lecture on philosophy (Palmer, 2018). Its results

show the achievements of robotics, but they do not

mean a breakthrough in the teaching of philoso-

phy. The main results of the teaching of philoso-

phy are formed in the course of communication;

they are argumentative and critical skills, values

and socio-cultural competences.

For the use of e-learning courses is an up-to-date

challenge that can greatly enhance students’ cogni-

tive activity through interesting activities, the philos-

ophy teacher must ﬁnd ways to integrate these activ-

ities into the learning process and use them in a way

that does not deteriorate, but rather improve the qual-

ity of philosophy teaching. Obviously, it is simply

impossible to fully implement a philosophy course on

an e-learning platform without communicating with a

teacher. It is not only about teacher’s support in fo-

rums, chats, ongoing consultations and other forms of

feedback, but it is also about full-ﬂedged group sem-

inars, involving pluralism of thoughts, discussions,

and critical, philosophic reasoning in real-time.

3 RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH

In teaching philosophy, not all activities are reduced

to face-to-face communication. The student has to de-

velop skills of individual work, be able to work with

primary sources, to carry out relations and system-

atization, to draw conclusions, to reason the opinion

and to express it and so on. Thus, in the process of

philosophy teaching, it makes sense to use e-learning

courses as a support of full-time study, which allows

to cover other activities of the student and to evalu-

ate his or her individual work. Let us consider some

of the techniques of using a Moodle-based e-learning

course and their peculiarities in philosophy teaching,

using the Moodle controlling tools in the philosophy

course.

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

621

3.1 Test Control in the Flipped

Classroom Model

Firstly, the thing that makes Moodle convenient is to

provide theoretical material. This approach makes

it possible to use the ﬂipped classroom model when

students are introduced to the lecture material before

the lecture begins. Then, the lecture itself is based

on explaining the most interesting points of the topic,

discussing problematic and incomprehensible parts of

the material.

It is advisable to combine the ﬂipped classroom

model with the simplest test to check whether the stu-

dents have read the material to the lecture. Test tasks

most often involve the literal reproduction of text and

they perform two functions: checking for content un-

derstanding and activating memorization.

We should admit that the test assessment of the

quality of the philosophy study is quite complicated

and, when provided formally, it usually has a nega-

tive result. Firstly, ordinary tests are mainly focused

on checking the memorization of certain characteris-

tics, terms and names, which is quite possible without

understanding the essence of the philosophical con-

cept. Secondly, tests without any material, given in

advance, provide students with a choice of a textbook

or other reference sources. In the case of philosophy,

it cannot be guaranteed that the opinion of the author

of the test coincides with the way the relevant mate-

rial is presented in the textbook chosen by the student.

Thus, it is advisable to limit the use of simple veri-

ﬁcation tests as a control measure in the virtual ac-

companiment of philosophy training to the following

parameters: (1) tests can only serve as a tool of the

simplest control of familiarization with the material

before the lecture; (2) tests should be directly bound

to, and limited to, the material provided.

It is necessary to mention some technical points.

Moodle allows you to create various types of tests.

For this purpose, it is quite convenient to use several

test types: multiple choice tests, tasks with short an-

swer, matching tasks, built-in answers, gap texts, true

or false statements. The most problematic types of

tasks are multiple choice tests and gap texts, where

a student has to ﬁll in the missing words. In Moo-

dle multiple choice tests are implemented very well,

if you do not take into account the following feature:

if the student selects all the answers, he or she will

be assessed as having chosen all the right answers.

Therefore, while creating the test, it is advisable to

use the penalty for incorrect answers, which is real-

ized by negative indicators.

Missed word assignments or the gap texts dif-

fer from short answers in that regular “*” expres-

sions to substitute any character sequence cannot be

used. Missing words should be ﬁlled in, so there

is a serious spelling problem. If we do not con-

sider the cases of the students’ illiteracy or care-

lessness, we deal with the instability of Ukrainian-

speaking philosophical terminology and the lack of

a stable tradition of Ukrainian transliteration of the

philosophers’ names. For example, “Leibniz” can be

spelled in Ukrainian as

– –

– – and etc.

There are several ways out of the situation. For ex-

ample, it is possible to provide students with accurate

spelling, to familiarize them with the terms to be used

in the tests, and to provide clear instructions for com-

pleting this type of assignment.

3.2 Test Control of Independent

(Out-of-Class) Learning

The university course in philosophy provides much of

the material that the student studies out of the class-

room. It is necessary to state that making notes and

writing assignments are irreversibly out-of-date, but

this should not be considered as a negative trend.

Rewriting and reproduction is rapidly inferior to spec-

ulating and evaluation, which should be reﬂected as a

change in teaching methods, especially in philosoph-

ical courses that have a world-view forming task. In-

dependent study in a philosophy course means that

the student works on certain themes for which the stu-

dent has been provided with the relevant list of refer-

ences. However, no one can guarantee that the stu-

dent will not use Google search engine as the primary

source of answers instead of reading recommended

textbooks and sources. In such situation, one can ﬁnd

some positive aspects, as independent work involves

familiarity with fairly standard concepts, deﬁnitions

and personalities. Thus, doing simple tests for choos-

ing names, book titles, philosophical directions will

not be superﬂuous, and it will allow the out-of-class

study with the online learning environment should

also include tasks that do not provide obvious answers

that pop up in the ﬁrst search engine rows. So, it is ad-

visable to develop tasks that help the student to master

the material submitted for self-study. It is appropri-

ate give the student a task to analyze the text where

the student is offered to choose a statement that most

fully reﬂects the main idea of the text, or a statement

that contradicts the text, a statement that may or may

not a conclusion.

The skill to work with primary sources, analyze

them and correlate with the theoretical material de-

scribed in the textbook is an important type of stu-

dents’ activity while studying philosophy. The pri-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

622

mary sources are often discussed at the seminar, but

this kind of work can be successfully implemented

through the online support of the Moodle training

course. In addition to widespread multiple-choice

tasks and built-in answers, it is appropriate to use

gap texts and true or false statements. Moreover, it

is necessary to focus not on the literal reproduction

of the text of the primary source, but on realizing the

author’s opinion and on correlating it with the philo-

sophical direction or tradition to which the author of

the text belongs. The re-writing tasks showed good

results in “true or false statements”, when the opin-

ion presented in the source text is formulated in other

words.

The speciﬁcity of test veriﬁcation of out-of-class

study is the need to set a deadline clearly. This is due

to the fact that most of these tasks are woven into the

canvas of the classroom material and their untimely

fulﬁllment breaks the logic of teaching. On the other

hand, the student should understand that out-of-class

study is as chronologically regulated as activities in

the classroom, which are carried out on schedule. The

method of self-study is not regulated. It is focused on

checking the results; thus the student develops skills

of self-study, self-control and planning.

3.3 Test Implementation of Interim

Thematic Control

The possibility to make full use of test tasks for in-

terim control is also limited. Firstly, it does not jus-

tify setting a high score for these types of control, so

it stimulates some manifestations of students’ plagia-

rism, because it exists in a form of distance learning.

Secondly, thematic control does not imply the avail-

ability of ready-made material, as in the case of prepa-

ration for an “ﬂipped classroom” or an activity for

checking understanding of primary sources. Thirdly,

thematic control should be designed not only to check

what students have memorized, but also to presuppose

tasks that require speculation and reasoning. Thus, it

is appropriate to use such tasks as matching, multi-

ple choice tests, but with a slightly more complicated

formulations. The challenges of ﬁnding a mismatch,

ﬁnding an error, or ﬁnding the wrong answer are con-

sidered to be fruitful. The task of matching state-

ments with authors has also shown good results as

well as the tasks for chronological ordering. In ad-

dition to testing knowledge, the matching tasks also

have a cognitive load: it is convenient to offer stu-

dents a number of characteristics of philosophical di-

rections or doctrines, which are usually opposed, in

order to relate them to these areas (here it is appropri-

ate to create the task in such a way that the character-

istics are distributed evenly and not more than three

parameters, optimally two). It is appropriate to offer

students assignments for reasons that involve estab-

lishing a pattern, continuing a logical chain, choosing

the causes or effects of a particular position.

We should draw attention to the task of drawing

conclusions in which students are asked to select all

the correct conclusions (or one) from the text pro-

posed. In the simpler version, it is a reformulation

of the thought, in a more complex one, the logical

or substantive consequences generated by the idea

demonstrated in the text. Test for matching is conve-

nient to use as an extension of the test for true or false

statements, because it allows you to evaluate a num-

ber of statements at once by correlating them with the

choice of true/false.

The result of thematic control in this form is not

only the score expressed in points, but also a certain

broadening of the student’s horizons. Obviously, in

the development of in-class and out-of-class activi-

ties, the student does not focus on reading the works

of the philosophers mentioned above, but focuses pri-

marily on short theoretical information that can pro-

vide a clear answer to the questions of the seminar

or the assignment for out-of-class study. Philosophy

does not provide such answers. The teaching of phi-

losophy involves the formation of the skills of con-

textual, discursive analysis, aimed at clarifying the

course of reasoning of a particular philosopher, which

leads him to certain conclusions. The mentioned test

organization achieves at least two goals: ﬁrstly, it fa-

miliarizes students with the aphorisms and important

quotations of the classics of philosophy, shows their

depth, and secondly it develops the skills of philo-

sophical analysis and intensiﬁes educational interest.

An indirect, but pleasant, consequence is that students

remember the names of philosophers and basic philo-

sophical terms.

4 RAPID APPROBATION OF

DISTANCE LEARNING

PHILOSOPHY

One of the main challenges for the education system

worldwide has been the COVID-19 pandemic. The

pandemic, as well as the severe restrictions imposed

by governments of different countries to subdue the

rapid outbreak of the disease, has affected the func-

tioning of the social, economic, and political spheres

of society and has signiﬁcantly transformed all com-

ponents of the learning process.

A key component of these changes is the active in-

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

623

troduction of distance learning technologies at differ-

ent levels from radio, television, and text messaging

to full-ﬂedged online learning (World Bank, 2020).

As a rule, the leading role in this process was given

to learning with the support of recent information and

electronic technologies, the use of multimedia and e-

learning. Such learning is known to involve two ap-

proaches: (1) asynchronous learning via the media,

e-mail, discussion forums, where students and teach-

ers do not have to be online together; (2) synchronous

learning through video conferencing and live chat, al-

lowing students and teachers to feel directly involved

in the learning process rather than isolated from it

(Lisnani et al., 2020). The responses to the deci-

sions to control the risks and how to minimize their

impact on the students by implementing all compo-

nents of e-learning are as follows: using new edu-

cational technologies such as Learning Management

Systems (LMS) of Moodle, and Blackboard for pro-

viding communication, sharing course content, ex-

changing lecture notes, slides, and other materials,

controlling knowledge, and using Zoom and simi-

lar software products to schedule, stream, or record

classes is a response to risk control decisions and the

way to minimize the impact of those risks on stu-

dents by implementing all components of e-learning

(Hamaniuk et al., 2020).

Simultaneously, such overall, albeit forced, tran-

sition to distance learning requires not only the justi-

ﬁcation and implementation of the necessary changes

in the shape and content of the education process but

also an assessment of its current and potential con-

sequences. However, the practical experience of the

rapid transition to distance learning allows us to iden-

tify a number of not only positive but also negative

aspects. Thus, in a positive sense, the beneﬁts of the

transition to e-learning are revealed in several direc-

tions.

(1) The general dimension include the active access to

online resources to ﬁnd the necessary information

and materials, implementation of the function of

recording lectures, meetings, beneﬁts for personal

growth and development (increasing computer lit-

eracy), increasing the use of available resources

(Moodle and other platforms), updating technolo-

gies for the university.

(2) The pedagogical aspect presupposes that students

and faculty could join the latest technologies and

teaching tools, master the technologies of blended

learning, and receive the opportunity to work re-

motely (Oyedotun, 2020, p. 2). It is also empha-

sized that the use of LMS in the education pro-

cess helps to facilitate e-learning, as it allows ac-

cess to learning without time or place restrictions,

which is essential in the context of social isolation

caused by the pandemic (Raza et al., 2021).

The negative aspects can be characterized as fol-

lows.

(1) Limited material and technical base, lack of

necessary resources, equipment, Internet access

(which questions the possibility of providing a

full-ﬂedged e-learning mode, while the ofﬂine

mode is insufﬁcient), lack of permanent power

supply in some countries.

(2) Lack of sufﬁcient qualiﬁcations, prior training and

practical experience for both students and faculty.

(3) Problems with ensuring high-quality teaching due

to limited technical capabilities reduced students’

interest in work and lack of teacher-student en-

gagement.

(4) Limited opportunities for monitoring knowledge

and student malpractices.

(5) Factors of psychological and social pressure in

connection with the pandemic, etc (Oyedotun,

2020, p. 2).

This list of risks can be continued if we take

into account the experience of implementing distance

learning at Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University.

Firstly, there is the lack of a single e-learning platform

clearly deﬁned at the state level. Secondly, method-

ological support has been developed insufﬁciently.

Thirdly, there are signiﬁcant technical risks associated

with the insufﬁcient capacity of the existing material

and technical base, etc.

As the global studies with the sample of 30,383

students from 62 countries show that most students

appreciate the support of the faculty and communi-

cation with the university community, but the lack of

computer skills and the sense of increasing workload

have not allowed them to achieve higher learning re-

sults in new conditions (Aristovnik et al., 2020).

These problems concern not only the introduction

of distance learning in a particular country. They arise

due to the limited nature of the technology itself, the

reassessment of its ability to fully achieve its objec-

tives, to respond to other global challenges that are

not directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is

obvious that these problems are also connected to the

speciﬁcs of the rapid and forced transition to distance

learning (although, of course, economic, social or po-

litical factors can signiﬁcantly reduce or, conversely,

increase their acuteness).

Simultaneously, we should also pay attention to

the peculiarities of the social or mental environment,

the way of providing education in a particular educa-

tional institution, the features of the course (including

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

624

the cycle of philosophical disciplines), the possibil-

ity of their implementation by distance learning. As

demonstrated by the analysis of changes in higher ed-

ucation in response to COVID-19 in 20 countries, the

feedback from higher education providers could vary

considerably and include both social isolation strate-

gies and curriculum redevelopment for the transition

to online learning (Crawford et al., 2020).

We will try to assess the consequences of the rapid

transition to distance learning under quarantine re-

strictions, taking into account the speciﬁcs of the or-

ganization of education and the results of the ﬁnal

and current performance of the students at Kryvyi Rih

State Pedagogical University (Ukraine).

The purpose of our analysis is the statistical gen-

eralization of the results of the current and ﬁnal suc-

cess of the students studying the course of philosophy

with a different share of e-learning support. The anal-

ysis was carried out in the framework of teaching the

course of philosophy in the second year of studying at

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University. The course

of philosophy is taught for one year, so it lasts two

terms. The ﬁnal control is carried out in the form

of an exam; the intermediate control is carried out

only in the form of the sum of points received for the

ﬁrst term. The course provides the following distri-

bution of hours by the types of activities: 34 hours of

lectures, 34 hours of seminars, and 56 hours of self-

study.

Traditionally, the course is taught entirely in the

classroom, and Moodle is usually used to control the

progress of the students’ mastering the themes for

self-study, to provide references and additional ma-

terials, and to support the work of part-time students.

Since March 2020, educational institutions have been

to signiﬁcantly expand the use of learning manage-

ment systems and online platforms. For the course

of philosophy, such systems were mainly Moodle and

Zoom. Thus, with the implementation of e-learning,

a big share of the classroom material was presented in

Moodle: the texts of the lectures, materials to prepare

for seminars, primary sources with the tests to them

to assess how the students have mastered the mate-

rial. Besides, the teachers continued to hold classes

according to schedule, but with the help of Zoom.

It is obvious that the organization of the learning

process was not immediate; the adaptation to the new

learning environment took place until about the end of

April. It is easy to track, considering students’ speed

of scoring. To do this, we can compare the increase in

the ratio of the total number of points in each seminar

of the second term to the number of students in the

group that did not have an experience of e-learning

and the group that experienced distance learning in

the second term (ﬁgure 1).

Figure 1: Speed of scoring in the second semester 2020.

For comparison, we used the data of the average

student group of the Faculty of Natural Sciences (FK-

18), which did not show a sharp decline in attendance

due to the transition to distance learning, and the data

from the previous year of the group of the relevant

specialty (FK-17), which studied entirely in the class-

room (the lecturer is the same in both cases).

The OY-axis on the ﬁgure 1 shows the scale of

an average increase of points per n students of the

group (the sum of points for the current t and pre-

vious themes divided by the number of n students in

the group), themes (t) from 1 to 8 are plotted on the

OX-axis. For clarity, the set of points is shown by a

solid line.

The comparison of the speed of scoring shows a

signiﬁcant difference in the students’ activity in the

ﬁrst month and a half of e-learning (themes 2-4 along

the OX-axis). However, later the situation improved

due to the fact that students adapted to the conditions

and began to complete tasks. Thus, the average num-

ber of points gained during the term, by the end of the

term was almost equal to the previous year, i.e. the

students reached the standard.

Since autumn 2020, the learning of philosophy

has been also continuing similarly as e-learning, but

due to the fact that students have already been morally

and technically prepared for that, there is no corre-

sponding “failure”. This can be seen from the com-

parison of the speed of scoring for the ﬁrst term by

groups FK-19 and FK-18, FK-17 (ﬁgure 2). Only the

ﬁrst group out of these three mastered the course of

philosophy with extended distance learning support

under quarantine in the ﬁrst term, while in the ﬁrst

term, the rest two groups studied the corresponding

course fully in the classroom.

Today, the speed of scoring in the classroom and

online does not differ signiﬁcantly.

In general, the results of the retrospective analysis

of the rapid distance learning implementation can be

divided into two groups. Firstly, these are subjective

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

625

Figure 2: Speed of scoring in the ﬁrst semester 2021.

impressions, and secondly, they are certain statistical

generalizations.

Let us start with subjective impressions. We will

not talk about the impressions of the organization

of teaching during the quarantine and the efforts re-

quired for that. First of all, subjective impressions are

about the student performance and quality of learning

as well as the students’ general attitude to study. Sub-

jectively, the introduction of learning management

system for studying philosophy has an interesting ef-

fect: the number of students with average points de-

creases signiﬁcantly, while the number of students re-

ceiving a high score or a low score increases accord-

ingly. Thus, students with good performance begin to

study even better, but bad students – even worse.

This impression is illustrated by comparing the re-

sults of the exam session by groups of the Faculty

of Foreign Languages (ﬁgure 3). For comparison,

we have chosen all student groups of the admission

year 2017–2018 (111 people) who took the philoso-

phy exam in June 2019 and all student groups of the

admission year 2018–2019 (70 people) who took the

exam in June 2020. The ﬁrst sample shows the results

of the philosophy exam (2019) in groups where the

students did not study online and the second one illus-

trates the results of the same exam (2020) in groups

where the students studied philosophy online in the

second term and where they had to pass the exam the

online. We have considered only the results of the ﬁrst

attempt to pass the exam, and the grades for the resit

of the exam are not taken into account.

Percentages are plotted on the OY-axis, and corre-

sponding letter grades are on the-OX axis. It is clear

that the percentage of letter grades A, B, C (excellent

and good) has increased, but also the percentage of

letter grades Fx and F (unsatisfactory) has increased.

Simultaneously, there was a corresponding decrease

in the percentage of letter grades D and E (satisfac-

tory).

The students, who received a higher-than-

expected grade, explain this fact as follows: they re-

ceived constant access to learning materials, the op-

Figure 3: Comparing the results of the exam session by

groups of the Faculty of Foreign Languages.

portunity to complete additional activities online, and

the ability to score points online for classes they could

not attend. Thus, as a rule, students who aspire for a

good grade are offered to work with primary sources

as additional tasks. This activity means that the lec-

turer conducts an extra colloquium with students to

determine the level of text understanding. During e-

learning, the assessment of the primary sources was

accomplished using tests. Students noted that this is a

convenient way of assessment because the questions

fully correspond to the text of the primary source, so

after reading the text, one can successfully pass the

test. In addition, an unexpected motive for more ac-

tive work for the students with good performance was

the lack of access to grades and the level of prepa-

ration of other students. Thus, students noted that

awareness of the poor level of preparation of other

students usually affects negatively their motivation for

better training. Moodle allows students to see only

their own grades, so some of the students applying for

the scholarship assumed that there were a signiﬁcant

number of students in their group who prepared bet-

ter than them and, therefore, could get a higher score

in the scholarship ranking. Thus, the number of the

highest per cent grade (100) in 2019 was 15 out of

330 (4.5%), and in 2020 22 out of 297 (7.4%).

At the same time, the grades of the part of stu-

dents who are usually classiﬁed as “weak E-graders”

in many groups have shifted signiﬁcantly towards Fx

grade. It should be noted that the number of “lower”

F (0-24 points) has increased signiﬁcantly. From in-

terviews with students, we have found out that when

there is a low motivation to learn, personal contact

with the lecturers serves as an additional means of

control. The majority of students noted that they

needed further explanations on how to use the learn-

ing management system and that they considered dis-

tance learning as a vacation, but hoped to make up for

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

626

a lost time at the end of the term.

Let us consider statistical generalizations. The re-

sults of the analysis of a larger sample (table 1) in-

cluding students from ﬁve faculties do not conﬁrm the

importance of “subjective impression”. For compari-

son, we used data from two samples: 2019 (the num-

ber of sample elements – 330) and 2020 (the number

of sample elements – 297).

Table 1: General characteristics of the statistical sample.

2019 2020

Number 330 297

Sum 20826 18999

Average 63.1091 63.9697

Mode 50 50

Median 62 63

Dispersion 388.6385 498.1376

Mean deviation 16.4436 18.0229

Asymmetry 0.1281 -0.2849

The column (2019) shows the results of the ﬁnal

control of groups that studied the course of philoso-

phy only in the classroom. The corresponding share

of e-learning platform involvement was insigniﬁcant;

it was used mainly for controlling the studying of the

themes required for self-study. These groups took the

exam in June 2019.

The column (2020) shows the results of the ﬁnal

control of groups that studied the course of philoso-

phy in the classroom in the ﬁrst term, but in the second

term, they were to transmit to e-learning. Thus, in the

second term, the share of the learning management

system increased signiﬁcantly. These groups took the

exam in June 2020.

The comparison of the characteristics of the two

samples illustrates that the average, the mode and the

median of the students’ grades in 2019 and 2020 are

almost no different. There is a slight increase in dis-

persion and, consequently, in the mean deviation, but

concerning percent grades (0-100), such values can-

not be considered signiﬁcant. There is a small but no-

ticeable difference in the asymmetry of the two sam-

ples. Although the asymmetry of both samples is

quite insigniﬁcant, in 2019, it was right-skewed, i.e.

the values of the grades weighed slightly to the lesser

side, while in 2020, the left-skewed asymmetry was

obtained, i.e. overall grades increased slightly. We

can talk about a slight increase in the extreme val-

ues of the sample, but, in general, it is not signiﬁcant.

It can be illustrated by analyzing of learning quality

(ﬁgure 4).

Percentages are plotted on the-OY axis, the sum

of excellent and good grades (A + B + C), satisfac-

tory grades (D + E), unsatisfactory grades (Fx + F)

Figure 4: Learning quality.

are plotted on the OX-axis. In general, the learning

quality in 2020 increased by 1%. Due to the “slip-

page” of E-students’ study results in 2020, learning

success decreased by 2% (ﬁgure 5).

Figure 5: Learning success.

It is also interesting to track ﬂuctuations in the per-

centage of letter grades. According to individual ob-

servations and surveys, it can be assumed that there

was a “migration” of “lower” grades: C (good) and

E (satisfactory). The percentage of these grades de-

creased since some students received a higher grade

and some a lower one. Thus, the biggest ﬂuctua-

tion occurs in the percentage of the lower satisfactory

grade E – 8%. The mode of grade D in 2019 was

65, and in 2020 it is 61. The mode of grade E itself

has not changed (50), but the mode of grades Fx + F

has increased (from 30 in 2019 to 45 in 2020) even

with a simultaneous increase in the percentage of F.

Therefore, we can assume that the grade E is partially

“dissolved” in the neighbouring D and Fx grades, re-

ducing the mode of the better grade and increasing the

mode of the worse one.

Despite the lack of impressive differences and

shocking results, we can say that the distance sup-

port of the philosophy course with the help of Moodle

has successfully fulﬁlled its function of providing the

learning process during the quarantine. Thus, taking

into account the speciﬁcs of the subject and using the

optimal means of organizing learning in Moodle, we

can achieve results fully correlating with learning in

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

627

the classroom. In our opinion, that indicates that the

use of Moodle in teaching philosophy is quite beneﬁ-

cial.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND

PROSPECTS OF FURTHER

RESEARCH

Trends in modern education are linked, on the one

hand, to the desire to develop cultural competences

and, on the other, to take into account the informa-

tional inﬂuence, using its opportunities. The philo-

sophical courses, especially philosophy, are directly

meant for the formation of beliefs and convictions,

values, systemic and scientiﬁc worldview. Therefore,

the signiﬁcant reduction or even the complete exclu-

sion of philosophy from higher education in favour of

majors jeopardizes the realization of the stated educa-

tional priorities. The creation an e-learning environ-

ment will help to simplify and universalize a signif-

icant number of types of activities dealt with mem-

orizing information and providing control, so lec-

tures have more time for other activities. First of all,

these are activities directly related to communication,

which is an integral part of the philosophy training.

Moodle can be used as a tool of the online support of

the philosophy course, but it is not possible to trans-

fer a full amount of discipline into the virtual space, as

this course has a considerable ideological load. This

is due to the dialogic, discursive, communicative and

pluralistic nature of philosophy. However, taking into

account the peculiarities of the discipline, it is possi-

ble to provide not only the evaluative function of test

control, but also to realize a number of educational

functions: the updating of basic knowledge, memo-

rization, activation of cognitive interest, the develop-

ment of ability to reason and more simple, but not less

important, – the skill to familiarize oneself with infor-

mation.

We should note that the use of e-learning environ-

ment on the one hand imposes certain restrictions on

the educators and creates a risk of “mechanical” pas-

sage of the course by the students. At the same time,

it encourages the teacher to develop new and rethink

existing forms of learning in order to fully implement

them in e-learning support systems (Hamaniuk et al.,

2020).

The peculiarities of the use of Moodle as a tool

in the philosophy teaching can be extended to other

courses, not just the humanities. They open the

prospect of using test tools not only as a control but

also as an effective learning tool. Moodle tools such

as essays and seminars are promising to assess the

level of idea formation, the ability to express and rea-

son students’ own opinions, but they also have their

own implementation speciﬁcs, which we will high-

light in future research.

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