Interaction and collaboration are essential pillars of successful learning.. The study aimed to find out how school communities collaborated during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess the importance of collaboration in addressing the challenges faced. The selection of eight schools was made in a targeted way, considering that the participating schools would have chosen different virtual learning environments or technologies used for distance learning; and that schools would be of different types and sizes, and from different regions of Lithuania. . Three methods were used in this qualitative study: analysis of scientific literature, expert interviews, and focus group discussions. The results of our study confirmed that the focus of distance learning is on technological solutions, but not on the methodologies and strategies used to organise learning in virtual learning environments. Moving ‘traditional’ teaching to virtual space has become a key strategy for organising learning in virtual learning environments. The transfer of ‘traditional’ teaching strategies to distance learning not only limits the impactful interaction in virtual learning environments but also encourages ‘academic dishonesty’ among students. The success of distance learning strongly depends on students’ motivation, as well as their ability to organise their learning, solve problems in teams and critically evaluate the information provided.

Today’s challenges make us change and sometimes, for example, in critical situations, forcefully transfer studying to digital spaces. One of the main objectives raised by educators is ensuring effective, collaborative interaction between learners and teachers or groups of learners involved in the educational process (Verstegen et al., 2016). E-learning is not an exception, there interaction and collaboration are also very important (Stadler et al., 2019). This raises a key question: how to ensure that interaction and collaboration are upheld in distance learning? To find an answer to this question qualitative case study was chosen. The case study considers the interaction and collaboration in solving physics problems. The aim of the research – to find in what ways does coherence between the Collaborative Problem Solving construct and various interactions help the teacher to strive for effective education of students during synchronous learning. Results show that cognition and practical activities are inseparable, when solving problems and cooperating in virtual environments. In addition, solving life-related problems in a virtual environment is one of the most effective ways to empower students to act. The findings of this research can be beneficial to teachers of natural sciences when striving to enhance distance learning in crisis and other extreme situations. It can also be an incentive to change attitudes towards the limitations of distance learning.