25.6.2020 Categories: Blogs

How 3IN Alliance Impacted ISAVE’s response to Covid-19 Pandemic

ISAVE students sitting and walking together in the hallway

Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact worldwide in the education sector, revolutionizing the classic teacher-student relationship that was established during decades in all teaching cycles, including higher education.

Facing the new reality

Despite using some distance learning tools such as the Moodle platform for several years, ISAVE – Instituto Superior de Saúde woke up to a new reality in March 2020, when it was forced to implement the model of distance learning instead of presential learning due to Covid-19 pandemic.

In this regard, the 3IN Alliance has had a significant impact on the choice and implementation of the Zoom platform at ISAVE, since it is the platform used by many 3IN members.

Bridging the technological gap

Due to the 3IN Alliance, ISAVE decided to anticipate the implementation of the Zoom platform and streamline the use of the Moodle platform in the institution.

3 months later, the experience has been extremely positive for both students and teachers, having contributed to shorten the technological gap that separates ISAVE from the other partners of the European consortium.

New competences gained

In the future, ISAVE wishes to use distance learning platforms even more widely to attract more disadvantaged students from the country’s northern, more rural and less developed regions. At the same time, ISAVE also wishes to develop new educational offer, in collaboration with the partners of the 3IN Alliance, to attract foreign students from different latitudes in health care.

Finally, we believe that these new tools of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) helped ISAVE teachers to improve their teaching and enabled students to acquire new skills in an increasingly complex and more challenging job market.

About the author

Author: João Neves Silva

Work: College Professor at ISAVE Higher Education Institution in Healthcare, regent of the curricular units of Biophysics, Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Biostatistics, Introduction to Research, Applied Research, among others. Head of ISAVE’s research center – the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health Sciences (CICS). Vice-President of ISAVE’s Technical-Scientific Council (CTC). Responsible for the coordinating ISAVE’s RDI in the context of the 3IN Alliance project.

Educational Background: BsC in Applied Biology, MsC in Biophysics, PhD in Physics at Minho University, Portugal.

About the blog

3IN blog offers perspectives on Inclusion, Integration and Involvement. The writers come from the alliance of seven diverse higher education institutions across Europe, sharing a goal: a world where no one is left behind.

The core purpose of the 3IN Alliance, and our ambitious long-term objective, is to co-create an innovative European University. Read more from our website.