COVID-19 pandemic student engagement strategies for materials science and engineering courses

In immediate response to the COVID-19 health emergency, the Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE) department at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State)—similar to most educational institutions around the world—followed health experts’ advice to quickly pivot from in-person instruction to remote instruction in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus. This means all learning activities that have conventionally taken place in classrooms, such as lectures, seminars, and laboratory practices, were adjusted accordingly during the academic years of 2019–2020 and 2020–2021;the modification of teaching methods started in March 2020.