Educational transformations in Higher Education secondary to COVID-19; teacher's role

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic generated transformations in the educational sphere; especially in higher education. The virtual class system was established for which university teachers had to go through an intensive process that allowed them to face the challenge of virtual education and continue with the teaching-learning process in Ecuador. Objective: to determine the opinion of university students and teachers in relation to the importance of teacher preparation as a basis for educational transformations in Higher Education. Methods: a basic, descriptive research was carried out, which included 108 university professors and 487 university students belonging to the medicine and nutrition careers of the Faculty of Public Health of the Polytechnic School of Chimborazo. Results: The main results include that 80.56% of the teachers had not received previous training and 73.15% had no previous experience in the use of virtual environments. 84.27% of students believe that teacher preparation influences the quality of virtual teaching activities and 57.02% considered that there is a need to improve mastery of virtual environments. Conclusions: The preparation of teachers in the management of virtual environments constitutes a fundamental element to achieve the success of virtual education; it´s considered necessary to maintain a training program that allows consolidating knowledge and acquiring new skills and abilities in pursuit of quality online education.