This study aims to share the digital storytelling experience of higher education teachers including those using English as a Medium of Instruction. The methodology consists of giving a task to 130 students of bachelor course divided into 29 creative groups. Students created video stories on prearranged topics concerning the world economy agenda. We focused on analyzing the stages of project creation and the role of a teacher in the process, drivers of successful implementation of the digital storytelling, and compared the effectiveness of different types of classwork with digital storytelling. Thus, we conclude that such factors as the cohesion of the creative groups, ability to use video editing instruments and distribution of the tasks between members in the initial stages play the least important role in the successful implementation of the task, but at the same time can be most easily influenced and course-corrected by a teacher. The research also demonstrated that the potential to connect the topic with the own interests of the creative group, ability to present the result of work publicly and interest in the topic were the main drivers for success and involvement. Those are the characteristics of the generation Z, and we strongly believe that the teachers of higher education should consider the findings we present in the results section. It is also revealed that digital storytelling, despite being time-consuming, has a more emotional influence on students and gives them more satisfaction after a presentation.

The paper is based on the advance studies of the adaptation of MADI students, future engineers, to the conditions of a forced pandemic associated with the COVID-19 virus. At the first stage of the study (spring 2020), using the content analysis method, the main directions of adaptation and the patterns of future engineers were identified: educational activity, social responsibility, social communication, financial constraints that arose during the period of a sharp change in learning activity, and also the specificity of changes in the place and living conditions, including moving to another region of Russia. At the second stage (spring 2021), using the semi-formalized interview method, a survey of students of the same technical university was conducted about the difficulties faced by boys and girls at the beginning of the pandemic, based on the previously identified directions of adaptation. The results of the study have shown a gender difference in understanding the difficulties of forced adaptation to the conditions of a modern pandemic: girls adapted better to school. The specificity of gender adaptation will help to predict the behavior of graduates of technical universities on labor market in the future.