Escalando la enseñanza de programación en tiempos de pandemia: desafíos y oportunidades

Abstract

En el marco del proyecto de Inteligencia Artificial Interdisciplinaria de UNSAM se lanzó, enmarzo de 2020, la materia Programación en Python. La pandemia de COVID-19 nos tomó porsorpresa y esa cursada se transformó en virtual. Para el segundo cuatrimestre ya contábamoscon experiencia y capacidad de previsión lo que permitió cambiar radicalmente el enfoque del curso, y llevar adelante una completa virtualización de la metodología pedagógica. Esteescrito relata la experiencia de docencia a distancia detallando herramientas y resultadosobservados en un curso con cientos de alumnos de grado y posgrado, de Argentina y delextranjero. Culmina discutiendo sobre necesidades pendientes y posibilidades a futuro. Enparticular, si bien la pandemia de COVID-19 ha destrozado muchas de nuestras mejorescostumbres y prácticas, también ha acelerado una verdadera disrupción pedagógica generandonuevos espacios para la labor docente, que pueden aprovecharse para dictar cursos máshorizontales, federales e inclusivos.

In March 2020, within the interdisciplinary artificial intelligence project from UNSAM, “Python Programming” was launched. COVID-19 pandemics surprised us and we were forced to transform a previously course thought as face-to-face into completely virtual. For the following semester, we were already experienced and with sufficient prevision we were able to completely change the focus of the course and adequate it to the new conditions. We managed to accomplish this by adding teachers from different disciplines which led us to successfully provide a completely virtual pedagogic methodology. This text resumes our virtual teaching experience detailing our pedagogic approach and observed results in a course with hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students from Argentina and abroad. We end with a discussion on pending needs and future possibilities. Although the COVID-19 pandemics has trashed our best practices and customs, it has also hastened a true pedagogical disruption creating new spaces for teachers that should be seized for more horizontal, federal and inclusive courses.