In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) epidemic a pandemic and whole education system came to a standstill. An immediate transformation from an offline mode to online mode of teaching learning was needed. Majority of teachers in India were not prepared for digital pedagogy. Regardless of serious difficulties and deep-rooted traditional teaching and learning methods, they quickly involved themselves in their professional learning virtually and adopted the online teaching methods to keep the system going on. Thus, the present study is focused to find the answers of the questions emerged out of this situation such as: (i) how teachers prepared themselves to come forward for gigantic initiative? (ii) How did they learn the digital online techniques? (iii) How the deficiencies of electronic gadgets, such as mobile phones and tablets were arranged in short span of time and made available to all the stakeholders? This is a qualitative study using phenomenological enquiry as an approach, participants were selected with purposive sampling technique and data were collected through the in-depth (semi-structured) interviews of 15 school teachers, 5 school heads, and 5 block education mentors from Punjab state of India. The findings of the study indicated that with continuous motivation, school teachers took the initiative to come forward for digital teaching and learning. Some teachers out of firm professional commitment managed to pursue their professional learning mainly through their own efforts. In addition, the Education Department provided online crash courses to teachers. The clusters of teachers having sound knowledge of technology collaboratively trained the teachers at block levels. Majority of teachers have their own gadgets but underprivileged sections were provided mobiles and tablets by the government and non-government agencies. A quick shift to virtual professional learning resulted in significant improvements in the learning outcomes of students. Hence, the study will motivate the teachers of other states to pursue virtual professional learning to update themselves. Additionally, it suggests that teachers ought to be part of forums, interest groups, and online professional communities to interact with peers and know how the rest of the world is doing with digital education.

The emergency situation due to the spread of COVID-19 has brought new requirements to Higher Education to continue the learning process. In musical ensemble class, performance practice is mandatory and plays a crucial role in musical education. The pandemic has forced all classes online, but for performance practice, it was mandatory to implement a new type of student-teacher interaction, such as e-tivity. It is a dynamic and interactive learning process led by a teacher online. The investigation of the efficiency of e-tivity for training musical ensemble skills was carried out in this paper. The research was tested through experimental work that took place at Kazan Federal University (Russian Federation). Due to a complete shift in the education process to distanced learning, all disciplines were studied online, including the specific musical courses that required collective work with face-to-face interaction. The curriculum of future music teachers includes an ensemble basic course to train students‘ musical performance skills in groups. For the study, 114 students from classes with instrumental and vocal ensembles were gathered and were organized by means of e-tivity based on several online tools, including Aiseesoft Video Converter Ultimate. This tool creates a video with a split-screen effect. By using such a tool, students created the video by following the teacher‘s instructions separately, and afterward they united their musical records in one video with a split-screen effect. At the end of the research work, musical artworks belonging to certain art styles, namely classical, Tatar and Russian folk music, and jazz, were collected. The analysis of the obtained data exhibited a high level of results in each criterion scale and effectiveness of the online work with musical ensembles. Students saw improvement in self-education by the means of creativity and critical self-assessment. The increasing frequency of students‘ listening of their own performance during the ensemble music-making by e-tivity brought advantages for the involuntary repetition process.

The article discusses the features of professional development and self-development of teachers and students of pedagogical educational institutions in Russia, India, Brazil. Russian researchers analyze the influence of activity of future teachers in digital environment on their professional development and self-development, as well as the relationship of professional development with students' self-determination, namely, goal setting. Empirically, the relationship between the digital activity of students of the pedagogical magistracy and the desire for professional self-development was revealed, which, in turn, depends on the severity of the goals and their orientation on obtaining a teaching profession. The study of Indian scientists is aimed at studying the quality of life of teachers on the effectiveness of professional development. It was found that the majority of Indian teachers has a low level of professional development. Factors that negatively affect the level of professional development were identified, namely: low financial status, unfavorable family environment, physical and psychological well-being, job security. Researchers also consider reasons for professional development, including lack of time, lack of accountability for professional development activities etc. The Brazilian study examines the features of social perceptions of teachers about teacher education and their professional development. The authors depicted social perceptions of teachers about teacher education based on four categories: planning, didactic procedures; assessment and teacher-student relationship. The article also provides recommendations for the successful application of pedagogical practice and the creation of an environment for the teachers’ professional development, taking into account the results of all three blocks by countries participating in this study.

No abstract