Abstract:

Teaching and assessing in University courses have had to be re-planned during and after the lockdown due to the declaration of state of alarm by Spanish Government in March 2020. Spanish University System had to change the way to perform teaching and assessing suddenly and abruptly. Whereas teaching staff applied traditional expositive techniques based on giving face-to-face lectures, the lockdown implied that teaching had to be imparted from home via Internet. This change involved the need of using new techniques, tools and technologies that teachers are not considering for their lectures and more of them could not apply and take advantage.

This paper is devoted to reflect on the paradigm shift that we have suffered: now, the interaction between teacher and student is carried out with Internet in a virtual way and, depending on the technologies and tools to be applied, the communication breach can be reduced or even avoided. Most of universities have developed some learning platform for virtual campus. However, these tools are usually utilized as a document repository or a site where students can discuss using chats or forums. Teachers did not usually consider the virtual campus for teaching online by using, for example, videoconference platforms in order to give their lectures; taking into account the need of using some non-traditional hardware, tools and techniques to provide enough quality to teaching and assessment in virtual mode.

It is necessary to reflect about the actions developed by teachers for their lectures with respect to methodology and resources (especially due to the assessment is not in a face-to-face classroom). Hence, we propose some possibilities to apply several tools and techniques for teaching and assessing under the paradigm of non-presential sessions; i.e. a translation of traditional learning and assessment into distance learning and assessment (removing any type of face-to-face interaction). The problem is the fact that neither teachers nor students are prepared for this change or the technological requirements under these circumstances.

Keywords:

Teaching, assessment, distance learning, educational resources, information technologies, COVID-19.