Reflections throughout the COVID-19 Lockdown: What Do I Need for Successful Learning of Engineering?

Abstract

The intention of this study was to identify the elements that engineering students consider fundamental for successful learning on engineering courses. The aim was to provide generic guidelines suitable for any engineering course with which the teaching may be adapted in the light of comments from students, while student learning improves. The abrupt transition from face-to-face to asynchronous online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted reflection among students on both teaching methods. Students were invited to evaluate each method through a survey of open-ended questions, identifying useful elements for their learning. The survey was repeated over nine weeks, to obtain the views of students after they had accepted the change and had critically analyzed how to improve online teaching. A cross-coded qualitative and mixed (word counting) analysis showed that the explanation of engineering concepts should be organized, hierarchical, repetitive, and exemplified. Furthermore, the teacher should link all the activities and projects to the concepts explained and quickly solve any doubts that they raised. As a consequence of the online teaching resulting from COVID-19, the need of independent student learning and peer support was also very evident. Teaching functions are essential on engineering courses, as teachers have to explain the overall concepts carefully, identify the key concepts, and demonstrate their industrial and professional applications. Furthermore, teaching methodologies that balance these aspects with autonomy and peer support for learning on engineering courses should be promoted.

Educating Future Agricultural Engineers at the University of Burgos, Spain, through a Service-Learning Project on Rural Depopulation and Its Social Consequences

“…The need to know these aspects was due to the fact that for a novel teaching experience to be successful, the first thing that must be awakened is the interest of the students. They are expected to learn not only from the aspects developed in class or the compulsory subjects forming part of the teaching experience [3], but also through self-learning by themselves [22]. The teachers' assessment of this aspect was positive, highlighting the independence and good communication of the students during the S-LP and their greater involvement as the S-LP progressed.…”

“…Open-ended questions were chosen so that both students and teachers could reflect on whatever they considered relevant. The questions were prepared on the basis of the research experience of the authors of the study [4,22] and on other similar studies [37,38].…”

“…And an agricultural engineer designs crops to provide food and infrastructures that develop the rural environment and improve rural living conditions. This perception is also not helped by the high number of concepts that have to be explained on technical university courses [22], generally of a very varied nature that are hardly conducive to focusing this type of activity on a specific social issue [23,24].…”

Industrial Processes Online Teaching: A Good Practice for Undergraduate Engineering Students in Times of COVID-19

“…One of the challenges of teaching in Chemical Engineering programs and related careers in times of the COVID-19 pandemic is training in industrial processes [11]. Online learning and distance learning are challenges for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) academic programs, with the additional difficulty of making changes overnight.…”

Frequency of use of online assessment by higher level teachers during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers at all educational levels were forced to observe distance learning platforms, without adequate prior training in their use (Revilla-Cuesta et al, 2021). Consequently, this caused many teachers to feel stress, frustration, and impotence in the face of not knowing how to handle the platforms to interact with their students (Navarro-Espinosa et al, 2021).…”