Teacher training as a starting point to support the initial challenges of emergency remote learning - case study

The COVID-19 Pandemic affected institutions, students, and faculty around the world. As if it wasn’t already evident that technologies were gaining more space on the educational policy agenda, the decision by governments to close educational institutions made it imperative to move to online using distance learning strategies, mainly technological solutions. In this paper, we analyzed an online course created to help Portuguese teachers from different educational levels. This course aimed to support teachers transitioning from face-to-face to online and provide them with an experience as distance student. The information shared by participants, as well as satisfaction questionnaire allowed us to realize two things. On one hand, that the difficulties experienced in Portugal are similar to those identified in previous studies, on the other hand to identify specific needs by education level. We conclude that pedagogical training on distance learning methodologies and hybrid contexts is emerging, should be continued and should integrate governments and educational institutions’ strategy.