Online learning of physics during a pandemic: A report from an academic experience in Italy

The need for online learning, as a consequence of the social distancing imposed by Sars-Cov II, has opened a new window on teaching physics in academia. Frontal lectures have left space for online teaching, teachers have been facing with a new way of spreading knowledge, adapting contents and modalities of their courses. Students have coped with a new way of learning physics, which relies on free access to materials and their informatics knowledge. We investigated on how online didactics has influenced lecturers' teaching of physics and students' assessments, motivation, and satisfaction in learning physics during the pandemic in 2020. The research involved bachelor and master students attending the degree course in Physics and lecturers of the Physics Department at the University of Cagliari. The Multivariate ANalysis Of VAriance (MANOVA) supported significant mean differences concerning gender and university level with higher values for girls and master students in almost all variables investigated. Correlations showed that student-student, student-teacher interaction, and the organization of the courses are significantly related to satisfaction and motivation in learning physics. The results of this study can be used to improve the standards of teaching in Physics at the University of Cagliari. © 2022 Societa Italiana di Fisica. All rights reserved.

Online learning mediated by social teaching platforms: an experience from a flipped undergraduate physics course in renewable energies

Active learning strategies and information technology-based pedagogies are perceived as beneficial and their use and development in academic courses is fast increasing. Faculties can use them to design courses that are challenging and fresher, creative, and meaningful for students, to meet students' needs and to promote the learning of contents in a social environment, fostering cooperation and the exchange of ideas among peers. Among the active learning strategies recently developed, the peer-instruction and the flipped classroom are prominent in this field. It has been shown that these practices help students in their understanding of contents and consequently in reaching better results in final exam scores. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 has forced classes in many academic institutions to move to remote teaching under emergency conditions and has deprived students of much of their social interactions. We show here an experience on applying online learning mediated by social teaching platforms and flipped classroom concepts to an undergraduate course on renewable energies provided amid the Covid-19 pandemic at the Physics Department of the University of Cagliari (Italy) in 2020. The constraints of forced distance learning have been turned into an opportunity to test an alternate course format in a complete online environment. An analysis on students' feedback about our learning method has been performed by a post-diagnostic satisfaction questionnaire, indicating an overall positive effects of active learning strategies in the students' learning experience. The analysis of their achievements during the course provides confirmation for the positive outcome and shows that the flipped classroom architecture is as robust as the traditional methods when facing the constraints of remote learning.

A Review of the Teaching Modalities Chosen by Faculty During the Global Pandemic

Universities, worldwide, are managing their course offerings during the coronavirus pandemic in different ways and numerous factors are considered when selecting an appropriate teaching modality. In this paper, a research question is posed as follows: how do faculty members prefer to teach during the pandemic and what are the implications? Data is provided from the engineering and computer science faculty members at The University of Texas at Dallas, where faculty are individually offered a choice among five different teaching modalities. The results are used to quantify our faculty's selection and explain reasons for selecting a particular teaching modality. The required preparation, and the support offered by the university to the faculty during the pandemic are also addressed. Half the faculty, who taught virtual classes, consider the student's performance on assessments comparable to the performance of students during previous semesters when the class was given in-person. A quarter considers the student's performance better and a quarter considers it worse. Beyond the pandemic, the majority of the engineering and computer science faculty prefer flexibility between the classroom and remote teaching. Otherwise, they prefer teaching in the office over working from home. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021