Radical changes in education occurred in 2020 during the pandemic. The need to fully switch to a distance-learning mode required rethinking the approaches to the organization of the learning process. Despite the fact that Russian universities were already using digital learning tools quite extensively at the beginning of the pandemic—those were seen as auxiliary, supporting tools. Within a short period, online learning made it necessary to design educational programs from a digital-technologies viewpoint, as traditional teaching methods had lost some of their functionality in the distance-learning mode. First of all, the changes affected the disciplines focused on the formation of soft skills, such as communication skills, group interaction, and managing people. Another problem of digitalization of all aspects of our lives is the huge amount of readily available information. In this regard, developing the students’ systemic thinking and augmenting their ability to find and properly use information became an important alternative to acquisition of factual knowledge. This article summarizes the experience of the educational process at one of the leading Russian universities, National University of Science and Technology (NUST) “MISIS” during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the analysis of the degree of application of digital tools in online and hybrid learning. In this article, we present the description of methodology approaches to the use of digital tools for soft skill development, using the example of teaching specific disciplines “Systems Thinking and Theory of Constraints” and “Life Cycle of Corporations and Change Management” in the master’s program in Corporate Finance taught at NUST “MISIS”.

This study analyzes the approach towards educational process organization at a university. We study existing practices of educational program personalization (and the relevant existing limitations) in the Russian system of university-level education. This study reviewed the general trends in university program personalization and performed an in-depth analysis of actual cases of personalized study plan implementation at Russian universities (we compared the declared objectives of such programs with their real-life implementation results). In this article, the authors also highlight the limitations affecting the maximum attainable level of personalization of study programs (such as the minimum number of students enrolled in a course in a given semester, problems of resource reallocation between different chairs at the university and administration costs of digitalization of a personalized study process). Based on our research, a model of study process organization (based on multitrack educational programs) has been developed and implemented. The article describes an algorithm for implementation of multitrack educational programs, highlights the limitations that this model of educational process complies with and formulates the advantages of this approach towards organization of the university-level study process compared to models employing individual educational trajectories.

The article discusses an adaptive educational model for training engineers for the metallurgical industry, which has been developed and applied at NUST MISIS since 2022. The experience of NUST MISIS in designing multi-track educational programs, taking into account the requests of industrial partners, is presented. The concept of implementing such programs is based on the concept of an educational trajectory, which presupposes the choice of a learning outcome within the framework of a training area, designed to meet the current and/or prospective needs of employers. This approach allows, within the framework of one educational program in the field of Metallurgy, to provide for the possibility of in-depth training in the field of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, foundry technologies, metalworking by pressure, powder metallurgy, metal corrosion and metal science. In order to make the choice of educational trajectories more conscious, the ARTCAD project discipline has been introduced into the Metallurgy multi-track educational program. The analysis of the structure of the educational program is carried out, the possibilities of adapting the program in the course of its implementation are shown in order to reduce the time required for training specialists of a given qualification to enter the labor market. The article considers the evolution of the adaptive educational model in the context of changes in the higher education system in connection with the transition from bachelor’s degree to basic higher education. The proposed changes suggest that when choosing an educational result, you additionally choose the duration of training and the level of qualifications. The features of the transition from the master’s degree level to specialized higher education are considered. The possibility of using a multitrack model for designing corporate master’s degree programs is described. An example of a program developed at the request of METALLOINVEST MC LLC is presented.