E-learning in the practice of teaching doctoral students

Abstract This article presents the teaching methods implemented in the course ‘Modern methods and techniques of teaching in higher education institutions’ for doctoral students of exact sciences in the Doctoral School of Maria Curie Sklodowska University who were not taught classes before and who originally were not very interested in another course. The e-learning mode entails many challenges. In this particular case, the greatest challenge was to convince doctoral students to participate actively in classes and to become genuinely interested in the course. The article describes the topics of the classes and the methods used to reach PhD students of science (the author is a representative of social sciences). After the classes, a questionnaire was conducted online, which was aimed to identify students’ satisfaction. The survey was aimed at examining the interest of doctoral students in e-learning, their assessment of the usefulness of distance learning and preparation for the implementation of teaching applications during the coronavirus pandemic. The use of a number of didactic applications; setting new challenges, research problems to be solved and changing roles; and conducting classes for students of media sciences gave positive results. The classes show that a teacher from the social scientific discipline can introduce a completely different view of teaching in exact sciences, especially in a remote form. During the exercises, didactic applications and methods were introduced during joint classes with teachers from the University of Mons (Belgium), which were conducted initially remotely and then stationary. The article is based on the results of research conducted under the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA)—project ‘E-learning and ICT in education in Poland and Belgium. Comparative study’ (Poland-Wallonia Bilateral Exchange Program).