On November 20, 2025, the webinar “Teach and Learn with AI” was held by UNESCO IITE and the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) within the joint project “Digital Transformation of Higher Education in Central Asia”. The webinar aimed to contribute to providing basic theoretical knowledge, practical strategies and empirical insights for effective and ethical integrating GenAI into teaching and learning.
At the webinar, two new Russian-language self-paced micro-learning online courses for higher education teachers were presented:
The course helps learners learn how to formulate learning outcomes and transform them into different types of assignments using AI, to develop criterion-based rubrics and set up automated grading, to generate detailed personalized student feedback, and analyze performance data.
The course supports teachers in guiding students’ interaction with GenAI toward achieving educational goals in academic, project and research activities making this interaction more effective and safer.
The courses were presented by their authors, Mr. Ivan Pechishchev, Associate Professor of Perm State University and expert in media education (Russia), and Ms. Tatiana Golubtsova, Head of Media Literacy House, Vice President of the Psychology-Business-Media Association (Kazakhstan). They shared insights on challenges and solutions of objective knowledge assessment using the potential of GenAI, and on teaching students how to use neural networks effectively and appropriately in academic and research activities. The webinar was participated by close to 700 educators from 38 countries including all Central Asian countries. The webinar participants demonstrated high engagement throughout the event by contributing through questions, comments and shared experience. A steady flow of feedback indicated strong interest from the audience, as well as relevance and importance of the topics raised. The webinar was moderated by Ms. Tatiana Murovana, programme specialist at UNESCO IITE.
Learners who successfully complete the course’s test assignments receive a certificate in Russian and English from UNESCO IITE and UNESCO-ICHEI. The courses are openly available on a free of charge basis on the online learning platform of the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) provided by UNESCO-ICHEI.
The two new online courses further explore the topic of empowering higher education teachers to unlock the potential of GenAI to transform their education practices and to use AI-enabled tools for pedagogical enhancements, that was covered by two Russian-language online courses developed and launched earlier this year:
The basic course helps learners understand how GenAI impacts traditional teaching methods and learning experience and how it can be used to create lecture materials, tests, assignments and feedback tools.
A course for teachers who want to master effective methods of interacting with GenAI. It includes examples of optimal strategies for working with generative neural networks, analysis of successful and flawed prompts, and techniques for optimizing queries according to various teaching tasks.
All four online courses are featured by clear learning objectives for each lesson, module and the overall course, structured and logical content flow, engaging and varied learning materials, and high-quality instruction delivered in engaging way based on real-world case studies. The courses are designed so that each course can be taken separately as self-contained thematic learning resource, or all four courses can be studied sequentially as components of a more comprehensive professional development programme.
To access the courses, please register on the educational platform www.iioe.org and select “Russian language” at the micro-certification section of the platform.
