Abstract:

The present contribution is focussed on the analysis of two graduate courses in General Didactics that took place in the second semester of the academic year 2019-2020 at University of Macerata (Italy). The courses, that are located at the first year of the degree in Science of Education (curriculum Socio-pedagogical Educator + Educator in childhood services), started, as originally designed and planned, in a face-to-face context to be soon converted into online courses after just one week of classes as a result of security measures in the globally spread COVID-19 health emergency in March 2020.

The out of blue closure of the University was an unexpected event mostly for students who were not prepared to change their “status” and face the related changes it would imply for their learning process. Faculties experienced minor issues in the transition since University of Macerata already had an e-learning infrastructure for students who choose to enrol in courses developed at a distance.

Of course the university was not prepared to the increased amount of online access and had to adjust its services at both technical and organizational level to be able to provide a major support to faculties and students in terms of information and problem solving actions.

The study presents a first reflection on the key issues connected to student engagement in the General Didactics courses that were attended respectively by 110 students (curriculum: Sociopedagogical Educator) and 415 students (curriculum: Educator in childhood services) and that were developed through a Learning Management System (OLAT platform) and a videoconferencing tool for synchronous meetings (Microsoft TEAMS).

Data collected through teachers’ participant observations, a final questionnaire and a set of semistructured interviews show students’ perceptions about their motivation and obstacles in taking active part in the course and highlight a twofold level of data interpretation: the students’ attribution to external factors (such as technical issues like bad Internet connection or not appropriate equipment) as a major variable for full participation in some activities, and the students’ perspective of being part of a group class as a key aspect whose value changed according to the kind of proposed activities and the modality chosen by the teacher to provide feedback.

Keywords:

e-learning, student engagement, emergency, transition.