Education and innovation: impacts during a global pandemic in a higher education institution

Research background: At the beginning of the year 2020, there was a shift in strategies and instruments in a short period of time, to respond to a situation of impossibility of face-to-face teaching. Thus, it is essential to reflect on an educational challenge, whose impacts continue on a global scale.Purpose of the article: The present article aims to analyse how the pandemic situation has been influencing education and learning in Higher Education.Methods: Having as context a higher education institution located in the municipality of Porto, a case study was developed that analysed teaching and learning methodologies applied throughout the 2019/20 academic year. For this research, a qualitative methodology was used, with semi-structured interviews with five teachers and opinion essays from nine students, with fourteen participants. The analysis was carried out using the Nvivo software, triangulating the perceptions of the two groups of interviewees.Findings & Value added: The results allow us to conclude that the participants are aware that collaborative work and the use of appropriate technological resources were essential to ensure teaching and distance learning, including the evaluation process, despite mandatory confinement. Globally, the perceptions of the emergence of a new educational paradigm are confirmed, based on the massive use of technological resources, which propelled the innovation of the teaching and learning process. Nevertheless, both groups recognize that distance learning impoverishes the fundamental interpersonal dynamics in Higher Education.