“The possible within the impossible”: senses attributed by university teachers related to emergency remote education

Abstract

The study aimed to understand the senses attributed to the emergency remote education (ERE) by university teachers. The data collection used online questionnaires applied at the time when higher education institutions were discussing the implementation or experiencing the first experiences of the ERE. Using meaning core, the analysis sought to apprehend the teachers’ movement in relation to the object of study, approaching the zones of sense present in the reports and revealing their determinations. It was possible to see that, at that moment, the teachers had not yet internalized ways of teaching and assess learning in the new format and, for the most part, attributed the sense of discomfort to the experience, indicating a reduction or absence of one or more conditions for the teaching and learning to be effective. The only sense of well-being found was that of caring for the collective health (his and others’). The highest volume of answers associated the ERE with the loss of references; pedagogical unpreparedness; intensification and work overload; objective conditions (social, technological or access) that are inappropriate or non-existent, especially for students; and to pedagogical (im)possibilities, describing it as a model that intensifies inequalities, that could increase precariousness and dropout in higher education, but, on the other hand, considering it as the only possible alternative for maintaining ties with the students. A small number of teachers suggested the sense of challenge and learning, associating the ERE to the modernization of teaching and the learning of new abilities.