Training STEAM Educators in the COVID-19 emergency situation: Redesigning teaching

With the irruption of the COVID-19, the Institute for Educational Sciences (ICE) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), specialized in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) educators' training, had to redesign its programs. This abrupt adaptation was conducted relying on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that faculty and students had not all previously handled. A comparison of students' opinions comparing pre-COVID face-to-face teaching and COVID distance teaching was carried out. Analyses show that eLearning during COVID has, in general, affected objectives, contents and pedagogical performance. Although participants value the efforts of the professors to adapt their teaching to a new situation, all indicators decreased, except in one program. Consequently, the ICE's programs need to be re-designed to meet their students' demands, as it is not enough to literally apply face-to-face teaching to a virtual distance environment. It is necessary to transform the educational practice, including diverse learning activities for competences achievement. Furthermore, the ICE, as a center specialized in teacher training, has a huge responsibility in helping UPM faculty to move forward, providing training in all the areas needed for a transition from face-to-face and blended Learning (b-Learning) teaching to its combination with bimodal synchronous teaching (d- Learning), as future generations will demand these multiple modalities.