The Impact of Strategies for Effective Engagement on Student Success Before and During COVID-19

Student engagement is an important and reliable indicator of student success. Pedagogical design of the learning environment therefore must be grounded in the theoretical framework of engagement. This paper provides details of technology-supported strategies for effective engagement and their impact on student learning that are based on theoretical elements of engagement. These strategies were implemented before and during COVID-19 in several introductory math and aerospace engineering courses at an HBCU. A total of 642 math students and 183 aerospace engineering students were impacted during the study. A pre and post design was used for measuring attitudinal changes of the participant students. A comparison of the impact of the strategies on attitudes between pre-COVID and during COVID is shared. The data was also analyzed based on the gender. Data analysis indicated that the approach was effective and had a positive impact on student engagement. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Strategies for Effective Engagement and Learning in the COVID-19 Environment

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the move from a traditional face-to-face classroom to a remote learning model. The success of the remote learning model is contingent upon several factors including appropriate learning materials. Instructors who were entrenched in the face-to-face teaching method had to make rapid adjustments to deliver learning materials and to engage students remotely. In contrast, instructors who had been using techniques to prepare students virtually before class time meeting were better positioned to pivot to the remote learning approach. The techniques and the materials developed by faculty from mathematics and aerospace engineering at an HBCU for effectively engaging students which include virtual pre-class preparation were adapted for the remote learning method during this pandemic. These techniques and materials were made available to faculty to assist their move from face-to-face to remote learning. The approach is shared in this paper. Math and aerospace engineering students' satisfaction with the approach was measured and the results are also included in this paper. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021