Online workshop on transforming education from residential to non-residential distance learning during the 2020 COVID-19 evolution

Defence Education Enhancement Program (DEEP) organized three-day online workshop on 16-18 November, 2020 to identify best practices and lessons learned by Allied and partner professional military education (PME) institutions in transforming education from residential to non-residential distance learning during the 2020 COVID-19 evolution. This workshop (and a follow-on conference in 2021) is designed to report on NATO efforts concerning the development of the strategy and follow-on planning approaches to support advanced distance learning for Allied/partner PME.

On the first day there were eight briefings of representatives from BALTDEFCOL, Latvia NCO Academy, North Macedonia Military Academy, National Defence University of Ukraine named after Ivan Cherniakhovskyi, U.S. Joint Forces Staff College, Canadian Forces College, Georgia NDA concerning the ADL Experience. The chief of the Scientific ADL Centre of the National Defence University of Ukraine named after Ivan Cherniakhovskyi Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Tyshchenko provided the briefing on ADL in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The five working groups worked on the second and third days of the online workshop. Deputy Commandant of NDUU Colonel Valerii Dobrogurskyi was one of the moderators of the first working group. The working groups were focused on following aspects:

• Best ways for a professional military educational institution to transform/adapt distance learning.
• Best ways to train academic staff to be able to design curriculum and provide teaching in a distance learning environment.
• Best ways to transform a specific lesson/course into a distance learning format.
• Technologies that are needed for distance learning.
• Best ways to train academic staff for the challenges associated with transforming/adapting English Language Training (ELT) to a virtual/blended learning environment.