Abstract:

Atlas is a character from Greek mythology, a titan who was condemned by the Olympian gods to carry the world on his back. This concept, as associated with University teaching, has been highlighted in the research and reports developed by various organisations and Universities on the evaluation of teaching during the period of confinement as a result of the health crisis caused by COVID-19.

The aim of this work is to show the need for a role change in the University environment, where the teacher must stop acting as Atlas and, instead, should help students to take responsibility for their learning.

The methodology used for the development of this article is based on narrative literature search. The search was guided by the objective established for this article. The key words selected were: University teaching, University students, University education in times of confinement. The bibliographic sources used were WOS, SCOPUS, GOOGLE SCHOLAR and ERIC. A synthesis table and a conceptual analysis were carried out with the results.

Students’ lack of autonomy and the demands placed on teachers as to what is expected of their role within the social imaginary have revealed that there is a need for a change in the roles of both University teachers and students. This change should be mainly focused on encouraging students to take responsibility for their learning and gain autonomy. In this way, we will move towards a new pedagogy more aligned with the far-fetched and poorly implemented Bologna proposals.

Keywords:

University Teaching Style, Innovation in Education, University Education, COVID-19, on-line Teaching.