Colonel assistant professor Andrija KOZINA holds a PhD in the social field of pedagogy at the University of Zagreb. His major fields include andragogy, military pedagogy, and contemporary teaching methods. His secondary field is the intercultural curriculum in the military. Currently, he works as a Military Pedagogy and Contemporary military concepts course associate and as a dean at the University of Zagreb. He is a permanent member of the NATO DEEP team.
Question 1. How has the e-Instructor Certification Programme benefited your career?
The course in general aims to raise the quality of teaching. The University of Zagreb is yet to recognize NATO as an educational institution for the course to be counted as a form of training from a scientific perspective.
Question 2. What could be a successful method to help online learners, with different ages, to stay focused?
Firstly, a successful method can be using different forms of lectures synchronized with the transmission of theoretical basics. In addition, can also recommend work in small groups under the mentorship of the lecturer. Finally, would highlight work tasks that are made to support asynchronous teaching. The classes must be engaging and interesting, full of video clips, quizzes, problem-solving tasks, etc.
Question 3. How could the learners’ engagement and interaction be improved?
It is a problem connected to motivation and making the lectures interesting. First, the topic has to be (made) interesting to the participants, then to be associated with previous experience of the participants and connected to the original purpose of the lecture itself – whether it will be useful to them and whether they will be able to use it in their work. We know that adults learn only what will be useful to them.
Question 4. What tools could be used to improve and keep a high standard of motivation and collaboration?
I am of the opinion that it is best to use LMS platforms that are adapted for e-learning, for e.g. Moodle, Ilias, Blackboard. Now they all have different tools in them that can be used for this purpose. In the end, to conclude, the most important thing is the motivation of the teacher oneself, so they can do what they know well and want. Every e-learning preparation requires a lot of ingenuity, knowledge and time.
The interview was conducted by the NATO DEEP eAcademy team