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 usually”.

Both students and teachers, each one with its personal constraints, did their best to achieve teaching and learning goals. The universities’ informatic staffs 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 has chosen to maintain synchronous classes via platforms such as Zoom, Google Hangouts and Teams, following the semester schedule already established. The classes are complemented with the use of the university Moodle platform. Teachers also use other complementary tools, such as e-mails, WhatsApp and Skype.

Regardless of the solutions found by teachers and students, and the general good will of the educational community, this situation raises enormous challenges for all. Having as a starting point an evaluation of this transitional experience, the team did an on-line survey to students and teachers. 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 teachers and students where their educational facilities were located (municipality) and where did they attempt classes during the pandemic crises (at home, at students’ residence, municipality, country). These data will allow mapping the spatial lag between the educational community and the educational facilities. An indicator concerning the virtual distance between students, teachers and schools will be created and used to analyse the spatial consequences of the quarantine period.

Keywords:

Distance learning, covid-19, higher education, Portugal.