Challenges for the Future of Education brought by the Pandemic: The Coppead Case

Abstract

This teaching case describes the process experienced by Coppead, one of the main graduate schools in business in Brazil, to adapt to e-learning. The change is driven by the social isolation adopted in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The case reports on the decisions that the faculty collegiate, led by the director Elaine Tavares, has needed to take to circumvent the quarantine and ensure teaching continuity at Master, Doctoral, and Executive MBA levels. The case discusses the main challenges during the transition, but most importantly highlights the strategic opportunities that this shift has offered for innovation in the coming years.

The Effects of Temporality on Students’ Bloomberg Certification Performance during COVID

“…The COVID pandemic provided major challenges for higher education as the teaching had to shift from a predominantly face-to-face approach to an online approach (Campos et al, 2021;Mousa, 2021). Several studies document the substantial COVID-related challenges that were faced by the educational systems globally and in different countries in different continents such as Australia (Hogan et al, 2021), Ecuador (Martinez et al, 2021), South Africa (Mhlanga & Ramoroka, 2021;Maluleka, 2021), and India (Khan et al, 2021).…”

“…For example, having to only use online educational services while traditionally teaching had a large face-to-face component posed substantial adjustment challenges. In addition to changes in course formats, students and professors were dealing with external factors exasperated by the pandemic, such as mental health issues, financial security, and home-life concerns (Campos et al, 2021). However, over time, the business schools and their respective professors and students also adjusted and became more comfortable with new processes.…”

Faculty experience and digital platforms in education

“…In education, the platforms broadened the ecosystem beyond the traditional players (i.e. schools, publishers, students, professors and companies) and enhanced the initiative of new participants, who in turn amplify, reinvent or create new products (Campos, Tavares, de Souza, & Marques, 2021).…”

Teaching COVID-19’s Impact on Businesses

“…Then, the interesting case of the Federal University of Paraíba (Teixeira-de-Carvalho, Dias, & Bispo, 2021) analyzes teaching virtualization while emphasizing the large-scale challenges of a federal university: calendar management under uncertainty, fragile faculty and students, and the differences between undergraduate and graduate courses. Finally, the invited case about Coppead UFRJ (Campos, Tavares, Chimenti, & Marques, 2021), complements the analysis of teaching virtualization, with a scenario analysis that allows revisiting an unprecedented crisis as an opportunity for learning and reflection to review teaching methodology in the long term.…”