It wasn’t all bad: evaluating the shift online in Latin America

No university was prepared for the ravages of Covid-19. Students and staff frequently lacked the critical digital – and personal − skills to rapidly transition to remote learning. When it became clear that remaining closed indefinitely wasn’t an option, most institutions were obliged to swiftly design orientation and training for their academic community to keep the school year moving forward.

Latin American higher education has been wedded to a traditional paradigm of the university for centuries. Reform, when it takes place at all, tends to be incremental, often impeded by political interests, bureaucracy, regulatory bodies or all of these. The pandemic forced rapid adaptation, with urgent need prevailing over tradition and the obstacles of the past. 

It quickly became apparent throughout the region that universities had to make major changes to the curriculum, the course syllabus and teaching strategies. Remote work quickly proved more complicated than simply transferring classroom activities to Zoom, while teaching and studying from home presented new challenges.

Many students had trouble getting or maintaining connectivity; others had difficulty finding spaces without distraction. In the midst of the pandemic, in many remote areas and urban neighbourhoods, students had to leave home to search for internet connections from the street or pay for access by the hour. Anxiety and stress levels rose on all fronts.

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There is still a long way to go toward best practice in virtual education, but many universities are rethinking their activities, not only to accommodate the emergency, but to improve their practices going forward.

There are, for example, important conversations taking place about the undergraduate degree and its traditional design. Many teachers have begun to recognise that it isn’t possible to transfer all the content from a syllabus designed for face-to-face learning to virtual education and that it is necessary to provide some experiences differently.

This recognition is forcing adjustments to the content and requirements of many degrees − an analysis that was well overdue even if the pandemic had not occurred. It has long been apparent that degrees throughout the region emphasised excessive content while lacking emphasis on developing the skills necessary for the job market and life in today's world. The obligation to teach online is prompting an important reflection on “what” and “how” to teach.

It is highly likely that one of the results of the pandemic will be a significant improvement in higher education throughout the region. It has certainly challenged a tendency towards “self-satisfaction” previously evident at many universities and sparked much creativity and innovation.

Many teachers are discovering the previously underutilised potential of their Learning Management Systems, along with the possibilities of emerging software that provides exciting new tools for online teaching. There has also been an increased number of collaborations between academics and teachers − some coordinated, others spontaneous − leading to new possibilities for solving common problems.

There is a stronger tendency to share ideas and solutions across disciplines within institutions, something that was uncommon before. These new channels of communication are creating new internal dynamics.

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At Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology (Tec de Monterrey), for example, “academic communities” were established, bringing together teachers to seek creative solutions to shared challenges. In many cases, groups came up with new designs for teaching science disciplines and other areas where the transition to online education presented the greatest challenges. Several groups developed new software; in some instances, successfully commercialising new educational products.

These communities have shared ideas that have helped close the distance between their 31 campuses in Mexico and connected the Tec in ways that did not exist before. The institution continues to experiment with simulations and remote labs, introducing new technologies for remote control so that students can conduct labs from home.

The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago, developed a manual for online teaching after weeks of intensive work and, rather than limiting its distribution to their own campus, uploaded it to the internet where it was downloaded more than 60,000 times. They launched a YouTube channel geared towards virtual teaching best practice that has received over a million views. The result has been unheard of, region-wide dissemination and collaboration.

Del Rosario University in Colombia already had infrastructure for online education, but few trained teachers. It quickly managed to train 1,500 teachers in five days on Zoom, an achievement that would not have even been contemplated before the pandemic. By the end of one semester 96% of its classes had been “virtualised” − even ballet.

They are using software for simulation, case analysis and other strategies to replace what was previously taught face to face to continue with degrees in medicine, physical therapy and others. New labs were designed around objects and materials found in many homes. They even dedicated the break between semesters to training and improving collaboration among teaching staff.

Such examples suggest that the pandemic has altered the disposition towards change in Latin America, contributing to a new internal institutional dynamic that would not have occurred in such a short time without it. The pandemic has provoked a lot of reflection, creativity and collaboration, but perhaps most important of all, an increased willingness to adapt. So you could say it wasn’t all bad.

Liz Reisberg is an international consultant working on projects related to the improvement of higher education. She has worked with governments, universities and NGOs throughout the world, with most of her activities over three decades focusing on higher education in Latin America.