ABSTRACT
This qualitative study examines the student experience in a chemical engineering program at a large, public research-intensive university during the shift to remote teaching due to COVID-19. Data sources include a free response survey completed by 380 students and focus groups including 35 graduate and undergraduate student instructors. The most common challenge students identified was staying engaged in their studies, especially during class. Several instructional practices emerged that can transfer back to in-person instruction.
ABSTRACT
This communication provides an initial report of modifications of a pedagogically complex, large enrollment (>200 student), studio-based course in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to face-to-face delivery, course activities were identified as new, modified significantly, or relatively similar. Students were asked to rank eight activities in terms of their effectiveness to the development of their chemical engineering knowledge and skills. Surprisingly, students responded most positively to a new activity, "video worked examples," with over half the students selecting the highest ranking. Fourteen video worked examples were delivered during spring quarter 2020. First, an interactive lecture was delivered during the first hour of the scheduled 2 h class period and then students were directed to a video-recorded worked example that they would watch and submit a corresponding artifact of work that followed the video. The pattern of artifact submission changed over the term. The number of students who submitted the worked artifact before the content was presented in class increased as the term progressed, accounting for approximately one-quarter of the submissions toward the end. There appeared a relatively even distribution among the other seven ranked activities where students expressed different preferences, confirming that a diversity of activity modes supports student engagement.