The emergence of COVID-19 has forced universities to move from face-to-face  to remote training practices, causing teachers and students to learn to cope in largely unfamiliar learning environments and dynamics, which has required them to deploy cognitive and emotional skills (Bisquerra, 2018). A great number of studies and reports published in this regard (Abd-Elhafiez & Amin, 2021; Area, et al., 2020; Cabero & Llorente, 2020; Müller et al., 2021) offer descriptions and measurements that focus on methodological, technological or institutional aspects, but little light is shed on the socioemotional issues that involves remote teaching and learning processes. This issue becomes relevant due to the role it plays in student engagement, commitment, motivation and performance in learning environments with technologies (Ferres, 2014).

In this behalf, several contributions show the positive impact of the warmth of interactions both on the classroom climate and on the level of participation, engagement and learning outcomes (Álvarez, 2020; Gabelas et al., 2012; Juan, 2014; Martínez, 2017). This brings out the importance of the emotional bond or relational factor in creating a classroom climate that is warm, welcoming, safe and respectful of diversity (Martínez, 2017). In the case of ICT-mediated environments, the emotional satisfaction and pleasure perceived by students in the activities and forms of work, facilitates their commitment and satisfaction with what they do (Agbanglanon & Adjanohoun, 2020; Area et al.,2020; Khan et al., 2021; Cabero & Llorente, 2020). In this way, the socio-emotional commitment of students to their educational context is highly relevant, since emotions and the level of commitment derived from them play a fundamental role in learning, influencing self-regulation, motivation, participation and academic performance (Cabero & Llorente, 2020; Mega et al., 2014; Sánchez & Duarte, 2020).

Concerning this framework, in the following study the research question is, what innovations and uncertainties have  professors faced when implementing virtual classes during the pandemic?

To answer this question, a hermeneutic-interpretative approach was used methodologically with a design based on self-reports of 34 professors from the Faculty of Education of a university in Valparaíso, Chile.

The results show, on one hand, that the most significant uncertainties are linked with socio-emotional aspects, related  to the difficulties experienced in relation  with their students during synchronous classes such as  switched off cameras, the lack of students effective communication and participation as well as students mental health issues. Along with teachers' doubts about how to support them. On the other hand, the main innovations have been deployed to promote learning support that is adapted to the different contexts in which students live and which has involved the search for new methodological strategies, the readjustment of class designs and ways in which the students are the center, and the incorporation of technological applications for their emotional support.

We discuss the scope of these immaterial and relational aspects in influencing the remote Classroom climate, the lack of attention to them in the university context prior to the pandemic, and the opportunity for the socio-emotional dimension to be incorporated as a concern and improvement of university teaching.

Using a hermeneutic-interpretive approach, 34 narrative self-reports were collected from professors who teach in a Faculty of Education at a university in Valparaíso- Chile. Each requested self-report had to describe the main innovations implemented and uncertainties faced during remote teaching in pandemic times. These self-reports were collected between July and August 2021. Subsequently, a qualitative content analysis was used to develop a matrix of categories that were grouped according to the saturation of the codes and organized around meta-categories related to aspects and qualities that characterize the challenges faced by teachers in classroom interactions. The Mural application was used to support the visualization of these relationships.

The challenges posed by the pandemic to the studied professors ranged from the technological-didactic to the socio-emotional sphere. This, as a result of the uncertainty caused by attitudes such as low participation, or students practices like keeping their cameras off, for which the teaching responses, used prior to the pandemic, were insufficient or inefficient. This situation made it necessary to pay attention to other aspects, such as the socio-emotional dimension or variable caused by the remote modality and the pandemic context. In this perspective and considering what emerged in the self-reports along with teaching decisions (strategies, use of ICT), stands the need of the implementation of innovations that, incorporate a socioemotional dimension to promote remote learning situations that implies an affective digital proximity (Bisquerra, 2018). In other words, there is the need for teachers to "see their students emotionally", which entails a different and transversal way of approaching teaching, emphasising good communication, empathy, caring, humour, deep knowledge of each one, inclusive practices, optimism, warmth and a formative style in everything that is fostered, modelling with their actions the fundamental emotional competences for a positive classroom climate. Based on this, it is necessary to re-signify the importance of these immaterial and relational aspects in the configuration of designs and practices mediated by digital technologies in remote modalities, and how the design of virtual learning environments must incorporate activities and modes of interaction that includes a digital emotionality for training. In this sense, it also becomes relevant to include the socioemotional dimension in the preparation of university teachers to teach remote classes.

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