Changing from face to face to e-learning in emercency contexts: experiences from Covid-19 2020 pandemic crisis in university contexts in Portugal

Abstract

On the second week of march 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the Portuguese universities, mainly organised in face-to-face teaching methods, and with little experience in full on-line teaching, had to, abruptly, find a way to assure that classes went on “as usual”. Both students and professors, each one with its constraints, did their best to achieve teaching and learning goals. The universities’ informatics staff worked around the clock to ensure that everybody was connected and to find the best solutions for these unprecedented circumstances. Under the umbrella of FCCN (a branch from the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology that manages the Science, Technology, and Society Network, a digital research infrastructure), most universities have chosen to maintain synchronous classes via platforms such as Zoom, Google Hangouts and Teams, following the semester schedule that had already been established. The classes are complemented with the use of the university Moodle platform. Professors also use other complementary tools, such as e-mails, WhatsApp and Skype. Regardless of the solutions found by professors and students, and the general goodwill of the educational community, this situation raises enormous challenges for all. Taking as a starting point the evaluation of this transitional experience, the team did an on-line survey to students and professors. The inquiries focus specifically on the difficulties, advantages and disadvantages experienced and on whether if this forced change may or not be an opportunity to change teaching and learning contexts in the future and overcoming some of the challenges that teaching faces today. Could the imposition of a new pedagogy integrate new forms of access to knowledge? Will a differentiated pedagogy materialize and involve the student in the learning process, concretizing interactive learning processes? Furthermore, we also asked professors and students where their educational facilities were located (municipality) and where they attended classes during the pandemic crises (at home, at students’ resident, country). These data will allow mapping the spatial lag between the educational community and the educational facilities. The virtual distance between students, professors and schools were mapped and used to analyse the spatial consequences of the quarantine period.