Faculty Development for Emergency Remote Education in 2020: the experience at Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP)

Abstract

After the suspension of face-to-face classes in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was necessary to provide emergency remote education for thousands of students at all levels of education in Brazil. No one was prepared to face such a challenge. Due to the lack of familiarity with technology-mediated education strategies, the only available at that, this situation soon brought to light signs of fatigue and stress among teachers and students. It was also noticeable the need, on the part of teachers, of training to take advantage of the existing resources for remote education at the university. The energy expended for the preparation of classes, activities, and assessments in the context of remote education was enormous and it would be necessary to acquire basic skills to keep the teaching-learning and assessment processes of students happening and with good quality. These signs and requests for help on the part of teachers and students began to become evident at the end of May 2020 at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School of the University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP). Students complained about content overload, overlapping and disorganization of the activities proposed for the virtual environment, and were very anxious about the assessments they would have at the end of the semester. On the other hand, we saw insecure teachers offering online activities, unsure of how to take care of various aspects, such as: recording attendance, engaging students in online classes and, most importantly, student assessment. In short, how to use remote education resources, starting from little or almost no previous experience? In this context, the Center of Faculty Development for Teaching (CDDE) of FMRP-USP assesses the needs of teachers and proposes a training focused on the use of the USP e-Disciplines platform, according to the basic principles of good education and student assessment. For those teachers with greater expertise in remote education, we conducted two complete courses using hybrid teaching based on the remote flipped classroom strategy. For a more novice audience or for those who would not be able to dedicate themselves to the complete course, we provided personalized help. This is the experience that we present in this article and that will serve as a basis for the necessary adaptations to face the education challenge during and after the most acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.