Priscilla Soulié, scientific collaborator at the Faculty of Medicine and Sciences of the University of Geneva, explains how she has adapted the histology labs in Biology (1st year of Bachelor's degree) in order to offer them remotely.

You will discover how she used the virtual microscopy site, so that her students could observe microscopic slices.

She also shows the methods she has chosen to motivate and supervise her students with the precious help of tutors.

Her assessment of this emergency remote teaching is nevertheless positive. Her approach having been acclaimed by the students, part of it will be kept when the students will be able to do face-to-face practical work again.

Jérémy Lucchetti, Professor at the Geneva School of Economics and Management explains how he switched to online teaching. As in his face-to-face lecture, he uses the online voting tool Pingo and the interactive whiteboard software OpenBoard combined with a tablet with a pen to keep the students' attention.

Prof Lucchetti found the Zoom videoconferencing software very intuitive and says he enjoys the collaborative features such as the chat and students’ ability to raise their hand virtually.

Regarding online exams, he raises three main aspects that require attention. The first is the time limit: if the exam is too short, it will generate stress for the students. The second is the reliability of the Internet connection, which can also be a major source of stress. The third is the risk fraud/cheating, which can be relatively elaborate and can lead to inequalities between students.

Jérôme Kasparian, Professor at the Faculty of Sciences explains how he switched to distance teaching making use of the video conferencing software Zoom, combined with the interactive whiteboard software OpenBoard, a tablet and a pen.

He applied the concept of "learning by doing" in order to fully master Zoom and its functionalities and was able to benefit from the shared practices and discoveries of his colleagues in real time. He also greatly appreciated the support and efficiency of the e-Learning center.

Prof Kasparian points out that because he was used to switching between different pedagogical devices during his lectures the classroom (slides, whiteboard, direct communication), going online was indeed a technical challenge. This multimodal set-up requires much more preparation time and increased concentration.

Lucie Mottier Lopez, professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences explains how she switched to distance learning.

Her in-class teaching approach is based essentially on collaborative inter-group work and regular assessment. One of the challenges she has been faced with has been to maintain this collaborative spirit. Indeed, she found that the students were not especially comfortable with online collaborative tools such as SWITCHdrive, OneDrive, and Google Docs and used more traditional communication channels, such as groups on social networks.

Prof Mottier was initially very enthusiastic about the pedagogical innovations that could be drawn from this experience. However, students regularly expressed concerns of overwork to her, which made her reconsider and adapt her approach to the situation. In order to motivate the students, she had to be more proactive, more personally active and make her teaching approach more explicit.

Daniel Schneider, Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, teaches at the TECFA unit (Educational Technologies).

Part of his teaching was already delivered online or in a blended learning format, but he had to adapt some courses that normally require full days of face-to-face teaching. In order to reduce the time spent on Zoom, he chose the flipped classroom pedagogical approach. To improve remote students' project management, he used Kanban board.

And to help his colleagues cope with the crisis, he set up an emergency distance learning portal on his wiki.

Cecilia Mornata, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, explains how she used the pandemic to adapt her pedagogical approach.

Her approach involved altering and reinforcing her pedagogical use of the flipped classroom on Moodle. Regarding the challenge and the importance of student engagement within a remote learning set up, she insists on the fact that instructors must take adequate time to articulate the learning objectives in such a different context, as well as being clear on the workload and degree of involvement that is expected from the students.

In terms of student supervision, the challenge has indeed been to be able to support them effectively. Dr Mornata calls our attention on the need of finding balance between not leaving students feeling alone and not doing the work for them.

Aurélie Picton, Professor at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, explains how she switched to distance learning making use of the emergency distance learning portal developed by one of her colleagues and the pedagogical training provided by the University of Geneva.

To do so, she has reinforced her pedagogical use of the flipped classroom on Moodle by creating interactive videos, combined with exercises and questions. The synchronous classes she gave via Zoom then consisted mostly of discussions with students.

In order to support and motivate students, she would send them a weekly email with the objectives, reminders of the Zoom sessions and the forums of the week.