Abstract:

The upsurge of the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns led to school closure globally. Across the globe, students have been away from schools and their teachers for long periods of time. To cope with this educational emergency, in Portugal, all levels of education suspended face-to-face classes, which were replaced by online activities.

Forced to prepare for this change almost overnight, the large majority of higher education institutions resorted to emergency remote teaching (ERT) as the solution to maintain instructional continuity in the context of the global health crisis. This sudden transition to online education represented a big challenge for higher education lecturers, who had to adapt from face-to-face to online teaching and to explore a large number of digital tools that would allow them to keep teaching and assessing remotely.

Resorting to a survey conducted among the tourism faculty of a higher education institution in Portugal, the purpose of this study is to examine the pedagogical approaches employed during ERT, the main resources used to communicate with students, the main Web tools used, as well as the perceptions on online classes and assessment.

Keywords:

COVID-19, emergency remote teaching, higher education, digital tools, tourism faculty experiences.