11/30/2020
Undergraduate students and professors return to the school gradually, in a hybrid format. Insper’s faculty and administrative staff work to ensure learning in this new social distancing stage.
This year has been marked by a series of changes, challenges, and novelties. The technology and digital tools were paramount for our classes to keep on happening, ensuring the students’ learning and keeping everyone connected, even remotely. We went through different moments of the pandemic, with actions designed to respond to each one’s educational needs.
In September, Insper gradually resumed face-to-face activities in the Executive Education courses and practical laboratory activities in Undergraduate Programs. Those, with all the adaptations and actions necessary to guarantee hygiene, health, well-being, and prevention against the new coronavirus. In October, we resumed classes at the Undergraduate and Graduate programs, with full attention to everyone’s health and well-being.
Within the new standards imposed by the new coronavirus, life in the hallways is slowly returning to the campus. It brings with it a new teaching format that ensures students’ effective learning and interaction between those in the classroom and those who keep on studying remotely.
For Paulo Souza Chade, a second-semester student of Mechatronic Engineering, meeting his colleagues again was very positive. “The return to school for me was great. I was able to meet the guys again, and we saw Insper having total safety measures”.
Technology allows hybrid classes
Professor Luciana Yeung, who teaches in the Economics program, went through the transition to remote education in March. She received positive feedback on Insper’s speed in organizing that complex process. However, for her and her fellow professors, the return to the classroom was the news most enthusiastically received. “It was like a return to my first-day teaching, a moment of anxiety but in a good way, with a lot of excitement,” Luciana recalled.
Also, the Professor’s classes are taking place in a hybrid format. It is part of an innovative initiative to get classes back to campus without exceeding people’s circulation limits. In this class-session model, classes take turns with part of the students studying in the classroom and the other part watching from home, live. “The infrastructure and technology are dazzling. The high-quality camera and audio system make it possible for the transmission quality to be incredible, even without a microphone. Moreover, when students speak from home, everyone listens to them very well,” comments Luciana.
Felipe Butolo, a student in the Business Administration program’s third semester, has also returned to classes in a hybrid format. “In hybrid class sessions, the image transmission is excellent and the audio too. So, both those in the classroom and those at home can easily watch the class session,” he said. For him, Insper was able to plan the return to face-to-face classes efficiently. “That, without losing in safety or quality for the students.”
On-campus safety and hygiene
For Isabelle Murollo, a student in the second semester of the Mechatronics Engineering program, the care Insper is taking had ensured greater safety in these first weeks of return. “We have alcohol gel everywhere, acrylic protective panels had been installed, and everyone is wearing a mask, so I feel pretty calm.”
Professor Fábio Orfali, from the Graduate Programs in Engineering, Economics, and Business Administration, also had experienced the transition to remote learning. Now, he is going back to face-to-face classes. For him, unlike the transition to online classes, the return to face-to-face could be done with much greater planning. “Although it is also a challenge to follow the safety protocol, we were already expecting this return, and the prospect of having the students back is thrilling.”
History of preventive actions
Still in March, with the increase in the number of covid-19 cases in Europe and the consequent universities’ transition to the remote model, Irineu Gianesi, Dean of Academic Affairs, and Guilherme Martins, Dean of Graduate Programs, called a meeting to prepare an action plan, in case it was necessary to make the same move at Insper.
In the early hours of the 11th to the 12th, already with more robust information and evidence of the increase in cases in Brazil, the decision was made to suspend classes. Also, a resumption was proposed from the 23rd onwards, already in a remote mode. This entire task force set up to act quickly was the subject of the webinar “From face-to-face to remote: The challenges and lessons learned from the migration of classes to a new model,” which can be watched here!
Since October 15, Insper’s Undergraduate Programs started the gradual resumption of face-to-face classes, following the Return Protocol drawn up by the new coronavirus prevention committee. It gives attention to health recommendations and our campus’s maximum capacity, which is 35% in this new social-distancing phase.
Over the past few months, in addition to waiting for the State of São Paulo’s official guidance, several studies, research, and analysis were carried out until Insper could reach a date for a safe and organized return. At this first moment, which started in October, the campus receives only 35% of the students. Changes will occur following the education and health authorities’ guidelines.
Exclusive content on the coronavirus
Besides the decision to transform the classes, there was a great dedication by Insper to strengthen the coronavirus effort. The institution promoted discussions and social activities aimed at facing the challenge of fighting and mitigating the pandemic’s impacts. Those contents and initiatives are gathered on this page of our website.