Narrowing awarding gaps: the contributory role of policy and assessment type

Awarding gaps between various groups of students persist across the Higher Education sector, yet the responses designed to address the contributors remain localised. The sudden spread of COVID-19 led to various responses across the University sector creating an unprecedented natural experiment and offering the opportunity to compare outcomes from these measures with prior cohorts. This study seeks to investigate the effects of two COVID-19 interventions on students' performance in the Business and Management discipline at a UK university. The specific COVID-19 measures considered here are the move to online assessments and the new grade policy to ensure the pandemic did not affect students' outcomes adversely. We use a Kernel Propensity Score and a Quantile Difference in Differences models to estimate the treatment effect of the two COVID interventions on the treated group, namely term two students' performances of the academic year 2019/20. Our results indicate that the effects of both COVID interventions supported the outcomes of international students, thereby narrowing the awarding gap. Findings suggest firstly that institutional policies adopted in crises should seek to address potential adverse effects on student outcomes for the period of disruption, indicating that significant care should be taken in their drafting. The policy, in this case, was found to have achieved its aim. Secondly, the move to new modes of assessment combined with detailed briefings from faculty may have served to uncover aspects of the hidden curriculum for this group, contributing to a narrowing of awarding gaps between different groups of students.

Heading in the Right Direction? Examining the Relationship of Transfer Patterns and Income Status on College Student Outcomes.

Given the prevalence of transfer activity, education stakeholders must understand how transfer may be associated with student outcomes. Such knowledge is critical, as the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn have impacted college enrollment and student transfer behavior. Relying on a sample of 6510 undergraduate students from BPS:12/17 data, we conducted analyses using multiple regression to examine the relationship between student transfer direction and two student outcomes: time to degree and cumulative loan debt. Further, we analyzed whether these relationships varied by income status, using adjusted gross income (AGI) as a proxy. We found that transferring from one postsecondary institution to another may extend time to degree by one academic semester and result in increased student loan debt, with these findings varying by income level.

Increasing access for biochemistry research in undergraduate education: The malate dehydrogenase CURE community.

Integrating research into the classroom environment is an influential pedagogical tool to support student learning, increase retention of STEM students, and help students identify as scientists. The evolution of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) has grown from individual faculty incorporating their research in the teaching laboratory into well-supported systems to sustain faculty engagement in CUREs. To support the growth of protein-centric biochemistry-related CUREs, we cultivated a community of enthusiastic faculty to develop and adopt malate dehydrogenase (MDH) as a CURE focal point. The MDH CURE Community has grown into a vibrant and exciting group of over 28 faculty from various institutions, including community colleges, minority-serving institutions, undergraduate institutions, and research-intensive institutions in just 4 years. This collective has also addressed important pedagogical questions on the impact of CURE collaboration and the length of the CURE experience in community colleges, undergraduate institutions, and research-intensive institutions. This work provided evidence that modular or partial-semester CUREs also support student outcomes, especially the positive impact it had on underrepresented students. We are currently focused on expanding the MDH CURE Community network by generating more teaching and research materials, creating regional hubs for local interaction and increasing mentoring capacity, and offering mentoring and professional development opportunities for new faculty adopters.

Using Mixed Exam Methods to Enhance Students Learning for Electronics Courses

This paper presents several non-traditional exam methods that serve both introductory analog electronics and advanced electronics courses in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) department at the University of Evansville (UE). The study is focused on classes from Fall 2019 - Fall 2020. Despite the COVID disruption in 2020, students' outcomes and final course survey indicated that these methods enhanced their understanding, promoted their interest and motivation in transistor topics. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Work-in-progress: Identifying unit operations laboratory curriculum needs

A knowledge gap exists between what is taught in the undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum and what is needed in terms of knowledge, skills, and attributes for industry. ABET has worked towards characterizing curriculum needs by specifying seven student outcomes that were developed by their more than 2,200 experts from academia, government and industry. While useful in curriculum assessment, these outcomes are broad and do not provide details about what should be incorporated into specific courses. The National Science Foundation and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers surveyed 507 individuals from industry and academia to identify more specific skills needed for graduates going into industry. In addition to process safety and process dynamic knowledge, results suggested the need for skills in communication, critical thinking, teamwork, leadership, open-ended task analysis, problem solving, and time management. These skills are often taught through the unit operations laboratory. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty were forced to evaluate the learning outcomes of unit operations laboratory courses, allowing them to think more explicitly about how to address those gaps identified through the previous study. Moving forward, faculty have the opportunity to redesign the course to meet the needs of industry. Surveying unit operations laboratory stakeholders will offer a more targeted approach to making the necessary changes in course content. This includes surveying 1. Faculty on their perceptions of the key learning outcomes of the unit operations laboratory, 2. Industry on the knowledge, skills and attributes that should be taught in the laboratory, and 3. Students on what gaps exist in the chemical engineering curriculum that could be filled by the laboratory. The results of these surveys will provide information that will help balance the breadth and depth of content necessary while incorporating updates to address stakeholder needs. This work-in-progress paper will detail the development of these three surveys. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Global Projects: An Initiative to Train Chemical Engineering Students in Global Awareness

The United Nations General Assembly established a set of 17 goals in 2015 known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They inspire concerted efforts around the world to be accomplished by the year 2030. Goal 17, “Partnerships for the Goals”, embraces the fundamental strategy to achieve all the goals by the effective collaboration of all nations, institutions, organizations, and individuals. It relies on extensive global awareness as the fundamental ground to build the recognition of diversity and inclusion;striving to consider every perspective in our shared world. Academic institutions, particularly colleges and universities, should take leadership roles in educating the upcoming generation of professionals and leaders to accomplish this mission. Engineering schools and departments are required to demonstrate these as educational outcomes for their students. Specifically, Student Outcomes 2, 3, and 4 of ABET Criterion 3, all involve awareness, communication, and consideration of global contexts. This is critical to address the Sustainable Development goals as the students make up the future workforce in charge of advancing technical solutions for a better and sustainable world. This paper discusses a three-year experience in the Chemical Engineering Department, with the participation of 162 college students, in 33 projects, as a curricular requirement for a capstone course. The project provided a unique opportunity for students to become acquainted with problems around the world and to challenge them to consider multiple solutions. Student teams collaborated with foreign organizations (in the country they chose to address a problem) to analyze and propose solutions for challenges in that country. Activities are organized during the entire semester following project management techniques. They include an early presentation of the proposal, a scheduled progress report presentation, a poster, and a final presentation. Foreign partners are asked to provide their reflections on the experience. All classmates review and peer grade every deliverable from other teams. Students evaluate their teammates' performance and provide a self-assessment of their individual experience at the end of the course. A ChE Global Day was held at the end of the semester to display the posters and presentations to a broad audience with the support of university offices and centers focused on global experiences and international relations. Students earn up to 10% of the definitive grade of the course for these global engagement projects. This approach has proved to be fully sustainable, and with an overwhelming satisfaction of all the participants. It is important to note that the incorporation of a virtual platform during COVID-19 and the continuous monitoring and coaching by the instructor are producing best practices to foster communication between students and stakeholders. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Enduring Pandemic Impacts on Capstone Course

The capstone experience at the University of St Thomas (UST) is a two-semester course integrated across four disciplines: mechanical, electrical, computer, and civil engineering. Within the course students design, analyze, finalize, and verify a company sponsored project. The results of projects are presented at a design show open to the public at the end of the second semester. Historically, the purpose of the show was three-fold: 1) provide an opportunity for students to highlight their work to the broader community, 2) demonstrate students' ability to communicate with a range of audiences (ABET Criterion 3, Student Outcome 3), and 3) demonstrate how their designed system meets the requirements of their customer (verification of requirements). Due to COVID limitations on group gatherings, this show could not be held in person in 2020 or 2021;however, the purposes of the show still needed to be met. Therefore, the design show was reimagined in 2021 to require each team to virtually present a short video of their work and briefly answer audience questions. This reimagined design show meant that teams presented their work serially to a general audience with an 8-minute time allotment for each presentation. The audience composition and the time limitation meant that only goals 1) and 2) could realistically be met with a design show. As a result, goal 3) was set up as a brief standalone technical meeting for faculty reviewers that focused on reviewing each requirement and how it was verified. After completing the design show and the verification presentations, we compared student outcomes and informally surveyed faculty, sponsors, and students for their impressions of the modifications. The use of a video to convey the student work was universally popular. Faculty found that the material in a video was concise and clear, students appreciated viewing each other's videos, and sponsors were excited at the opportunity a video offers them to share the student work more broadly within their organizations. The verification review also received positive feedback from both faculty and students. Separating the verification review allowed more focused discussion on how students met the sponsor need and produced improvements in some student outcomes. In addition, a separate presentation simplified preparation for students and provided clearer grading criteria for faculty. These modifications allowed the purpose of the design show to be met and had unexpected benefits for team sponsors and the university. As a consequence, we will continue to require student video creation as we return to face-to-face instruction and will continue to hold a separate verification presentation to demonstrate project completion. The videos will be used during the in-person design show and as supplemental material for sponsors, design reviews, and the school of engineering. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Applying a Collaborative Online International Learning Experience (COIL) during two Undergraduate Environmental Engineering Courses in the US and Mexico

The ability to communicate effectively and to work in multidisciplinary teams with individuals from diverse international backgrounds are some of the student outcomes that need to be met by academic programs seeking accreditation by independent organizations such as ABET. International course collaborations able to fulfill these goals are challenging under regular conditions, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the migration to virtual learning in both Mexico and the United States presented an opportunity to test multinational collaboration during a regular course context. In the Fall 2021, we piloted a month-long collaboration between two engineering courses at Rice University (US) and Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico). This collaboration was designed to meet the two student outcomes stated above in the context of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 using COIL. A series of activities were designed to promote student reflection on topics such as the cultural, social, and technical factors related to the design of a rainwater collection system. Examples of these activities include discussion sessions prompting the exchange of ideas by students from both institutions, and mutual evaluation of their rainwater harvesting designs. At the end of the collaboration, the students completed a survey reporting their understanding of the current global water crisis, the challenges to provide sustainable solutions, and their perception of the collaboration. Due to differences in both courses, such as accessibility and quality of internet access, the personal goals of the students and the language barrier, the authors obtained mixed reactions from the students to this collaboration. Most students reported that this experience was positive, provided new knowledge and an opportunity to develop their international collaboration skills;only a few students reported no positive outcomes. Although this first collaboration proved to be satisfactory for both students and instructors, it also provided several learning opportunities, such as forming smaller work groups to allow the students to connect at a more individual level, providing TAs to be present in every discussion room to encourage participation of all students, and emphasizing the need for more cultural awareness, such as the fact that some participants are not having these discussions in their native language. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.

Flipped Classroom to increase the Student Success in Manufacturing Courses

Delivering hands-on design and manufacturing courses is challenging in several lecture and laboratory settings. This type of instruction is even harder lately due to higher education institutions' strict COVID-19 policies and procedures, since offering the courses in on-ground settings is not a possibility. One method practiced by a high number of educators to meet course learning outcomes and ABET student outcomes is to implement the Flipped Classroom technique. In a Flipped Classroom, course lectures and laboratories are provided to students earlier than the class time. Then, class times are used to provide more practice and content so that students can learn more in their regular lectures and lab hours. This paper reports the structure of a few Flipped Classroom courses from a diverse group of institutions and the evaluation results received from these courses. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Enhancing Post-Covid Student Proficiency and Confidence in Using Laboratory Test Equipment

Because of the Covid-19 Pandemic during academic year 2020-2021, many of the classes and laboratories in our undergraduate Electrical Engineering (EE) program were conducted remotely, making tremendous use of videoconferencing technologies such as Microsoft Teams, and simulation engines such as National Instruments' MultiSimTM. As we began to move back to “in person” learning for the Fall of 2021, our EE faculty observed some early weaknesses in student achievement of ABET EE student outcome #6 (an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions). We found that while students demonstrated excellent proficiency in using modern tools such as MATLABTM and MultiSimTM (which had been used extensively during remote classes), they appeared considerably weaker in making independent measurements using laboratory hardware such as oscilloscopes, dynamic signal analyzers (FFT analyzers), RF analyzers, and even commonly used voltage and current meters (which had not been used much during remote learning). Here we highlight specific student shortcomings we observed in laboratory skills as students began their in-person lab experiences during the Fall 2021 semester. We then discuss our approaches to remedy these shortcomings during the Fall 2021 semester to improve student confidence and proficiency in the use of laboratory instrumentation. We also highlight the improvements we saw in achievement of ABET student outcomes. While computer simulation has its place in undergraduate education, practical testing and measurement of electronic systems does require physical measurement and interaction using modern test equipment, and we identified some areas for timely improvement. Our focus in this paper is on improved student performance in using laboratory test equipment in Linear Circuits and Antennas courses. In the Linear Circuits course, students use the Oscilloscope and Dynamic Signal Analyzer to identify the characteristics of several op-amps and circuits (e.g, op-amp open-loop frequency response, gain-bandwidth product, slew rate, output impedance, closed-loop frequency response of an inverting amplifier), and in the in the Antennas course students use the RF analyzer to characterize the behavior of RF circuits, transmission lines and antennas. We show how our increased emphasis on lab skills for the Fall 2021 semester, coupled with unique assessment tools, significantly improved achievement of student outcome #6. More specifically we share the successes we experienced in using oral individual quizzes during lab meetings, group classroom quizzes, individual student observation of setup and measurement, and adding questions related to lab skills and experiences on hourly examinations. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Impact of COVID-19 on Capstone Projects Outcomes

Capstone Projects, CTC 490, is a mandatory course for all Civil Engineering Technology students during their senior year. This specific course is designed to apply cumulative experiences gathered from wide range of courses in the curriculum. The students analyze and design real life civil engineering project, write a written report followed by an oral presentation. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, student learning outcomes were significantly disrupted as the plan of study changed to online mode from March 2020. The purpose of the current study is to document the students' learning experiences of the capstone design course during the pandemic year. As the course is so comprehensive in nature, wide range of student learning assessment is possible from this course. Data were collected from Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semester to assess the student outcomes in the category of communication with the teammates, fulfill roles and responsibilities, and listening to the teammates. The scales of one to four (1-not acceptable, 2- below standards, 3- meets standards, 4- exemplary) were chosen so that the instructor had a clear view to make a decision whether the expectations were met or not. The measure of successful performance in each attribute was achieving a score of 3 or 4. A benchmark of 70% was selected to gage the level of success. The results showed that the student outcomes were impacted most in the communications category. The level of success in the capstone rubric were documented and connected with the related program outcomes of the ETAC/ABET criteria. Outcomes of this study will be helpful in planning to teach such kind of course in situation like pandemic or other situations out of our control. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

The Impact of e-Learning Systems on Motivating Students and Enhancing Their Outcomes During COVID-19: A Mixed-Method Approach.

e-Learning is a key strategy in the course of higher education to improve the results of the educational process and stimulate student motivation. The COVID-19 pandemic imposed on Algerian universities to adopt e-Learning systems to search for effectiveness and efficiency of academic approaches. This paper seeks to remedy these problems by analyzing the impact of e-Learning systems on student motivation and outcomes. A mixed-method approach was used in the data analysis. We conducted the study as a survey, with data being gathered via questionnaires distributed to 398 students. The questionnaire includes open questions that were qualitatively analyzed using content analysis with Nvivo, besides Likert scale questions were quantitatively analyzed and modeled using Structural equation modeling (SEM) with Amos to accomplish the path analysis of the research model. The results of the study showed that student motivation (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction) and student outcomes (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) are significantly affected by e-Learning systems (Technical and electronic requirements, personal requirements, perceived value, and credibility of e-Learning). The key findings are discussed, and they provide recommendations for future research.

Digital Divide in Education during COVID-19 Pandemic

This study aims to examine the impact of digital divide on student outcomes using primary data. We used a sample of 233 secondary school students in the rural area of Sabah, Malaysia, during the COVID-19 pandemic from October to November 2020, about six months into student mandatory online learning. A random sampling method was employed in data collection using online questionnaire. This study adopted the two-step least squares method. We specifically measured students’outcomes based on their perspectives of online class effectiveness and student financial constraints to attend these classes. The findings proved the existence of digital divide among students in rural areas. Specifically, the students’ low level of online learning attendance produced positive and statistically significant effect on their perspective of the effectiveness of online learning. In addition, the availability of digital devices at home significantly influenced student decision to take part-time jobs in order to help them purchase these devices to enable them attend classes. The findings suggest that there exist digital access barriers among students in rural areas during the pandemic. The study implies that the government or policymakers need to effect strategic intervention such as digital endowment to ensure that the digitally disadvantaged students are not left behind their peers. © 2021 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.

An Exploration of Student-Tutor Interactions in Computing

As enrollments in computing courses have surged, the ratio of students to faculty has risen at many institutions. Along with many other large undergraduate programs, our institution has adapted to this challenge by hiring increasing numbers of undergraduate tutors to help students. In early computing courses, their role at our institution is primarily to help students with their programming assignments. Despite our institution offering a training course for tutors, we are concerned about the quality and nature of these student-tutor interactions. As instruction moved online due to COVID-19, this provided the unique opportunity to record all student-tutor interactions (among consenting participants) for research. In order to gain an understanding of the behaviors common in these interactions, we conducted an initial qualitative analysis using open coding followed by a quantitative analysis on those codes. Overall, we found that students are not generally receiving the instruction we might hope or expect from these sessions. Notably, tutors often simply give students the solution to the problem in their code without teaching them about the process of finding and correcting their own errors. These findings highlight the importance of tutoring sessions for learning in introductory courses and motivate remediation to make these sessions more productive. © 2022 Owner/Author.

The Impact of Remote Pair Programming in an Upper-Level CS Course

Pair programming is an active learning technique with several benefits to students, including increasing participation and improving outcomes, particularly for female computer science students. However, most of the literature highlights the effects of pair programming in introductory courses, where students have different prior programming experience and thus may experience group issues. This work analyzes the effect of pair programming in an upper-level computer science course, where students have a more consistent background education, particularly in languages learned and coding best practices. Secondly, the effect of remote pair programming on student outcomes is still an open question of increasing importance with the advent of Covid-19. This work utilized split sections with a control and treatment group in a large, public university. In addition to comparing pair programming to individual programming, results were analyzed by modality (remote vs. in person) and by gender, focusing on how pair programming benefits female computer science students in confidence, persistence in the major, and outcomes. We found that pair programming groups scored higher on assignments and exams, that remote pair programming groups performed as well as in person groups, and that female students increased their confidence in asking questions in class and scored 12% higher in the course when utilizing pair programming. © 2022 ACM.

Post COVID-19 Macrotrends in the Pedagogical Practice of Professors

The temporary lockdown of Educational Institutions provoked scenarios of emergency against the Global Crisis of the COVID-19. Which global macrotrends can be applied in the context of a Post COVID-19 pedagogical practices? Three categories were identified: I) Global macrotrends related to the Education Sector;II) The Post COVID-19 pedagogical practice, as a role assumed by the professor involved in the different education spaces (academicist, technological, cultural interpretative, socio-critical and socio-formative);and III) Student Outcomes (SOs), the accreditation model. Global macrotrends were selected to be applied in the post COVID-19 pedagogical practice that contribute to accomplishment of SOs and were consequently classified into three areas: i) Crosscutting Macrotrend (public awareness), ii) the Macrotrend of Post COVID-19 pedagogical practices (Disrupting Education: the assessment of progress, harnessing innovation, multiple senses, co-creation, instant entrepreneurship, the User Experience business-focused model approach for education, and gamification), and iii) the Macrotrend of Support (Networking & Technology). © 2020 for this paper by its authors.

Cultivating leadership: Coaching, supporting, and developing schools leaders in the Medford public schools

We know that school leadership really matters. More specifically, school leadership really matters in improving student outcomes. Given this impact, districts must consider how they prepare their school leaders to lead for improved student outcomes. In a 2021 report furnished by the Wallace Foundation, in addition to citing the critical importance of strong principal leadership, the report cites the development of principals as potentially a district's strongest lever in improving student outcomes (Grissom, Egalite, Lindsay). If principals really matter and how principals are developed really matters, then how does a district best lead this work? How can a district best support, coach, and develop principal talent to improve student outcomes? Furthermore, how can a district do this during the midst of a global pandemic, especially when it requires a complete shift in how things have been done for decades?The Superintendent of the Medford (MA) Public Schools charged me with developing a strategy and plan for how district principals are coached, supported, and developed as a way to ultimately improve student outcomes. This Capstone chronicles the development of a new, three-pronged approach that utilizes 1:1 instructional coaching, communities of practice, and a designated space for operational issues to improve the effectiveness and collaboration of district principals. This Capstone analyzes the process of leading change during the time of COVID-19 and in a context entangled in the status-quo. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

IN-CLASS AND ONLINE TEACHING OF MATHEMATICS – A COMPARISON OF STUDENTS’ OUTCOMES AT THE MIDTERM EXAMS

The paper describes the results of the case study where the students’ outcomes in the mathematics midterm exams were compared regarding the type of teaching method used during the course: in-class or online. In the analyses, various factors such as prior knowledge of math from secondary school, engagement in learning activities, and success in e-lessons were taken into account. The results of the case study could not confirm any significant difference in the average outcomes of students from both groups. We can therefore conclude that the type of teaching method (in-class or online), as well as the method of knowledge examination, have no significant impact on students’ outcome. Furthermore, the results also showed that the students who took the course online expressed a higher level of engagement in comparison to those who participated in class. Their greater engagement in learning activities can be explained through the fact that the online course took place during lock-down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovenia. Namely, the strong lock-down measures disable the students to perform various extracurricular activities, which can result in their stronger motivation to perform study activities on a regular basis. © 2021 Samo Drobne – Lidija Zadnik Stirn – Mirjana Kljajić Borštnar – Janez Povh – Janez Žerovnik

Comparing Student Outcomes From Four Iterations of an Engineering Learning Community

This Complete Evidence-based Practice paper evaluates the impact of learning communities on the academic success of first-year engineering students. The Engineering Learning Community (ELC) at a large urban university is a program that purposefully recruits talented high school applicants with financial need. The ELC enrolls these applicants into cohort-specific sections of classes and provides mentoring and additional resources for the students' first year of college. The results of the first three years of the ELC program were presented at ASEE 2020. Currently in its fifth year, the ELC program has undergone numerous revisions and improvements based upon student and faculty feedback, best practices, and increased financial resources. The main feature of the fourth year ELC program is the addition of up to $20,000 in scholarship from a S-STEM NSF award. Another significant change in the fourth year is the re-design of the mentorship program. COVID-19 hit in the second semester of the fourth year of ELC and added its own challenges to the program. The impact of COVID-19 on the students' response to the pandemic has been studied as well. To take a first look at the efficacy of the ELC program over four iterations, grade point averages (GPAs) of ELC students from each cohort were compared. We hypothesize that students from cohort 4 will have the highest overall GPA given that they have accessed the most recent iteration of the ELC, which includes scholarship funding, improved student-to-mentor ratios and a newly redesigned special topics course. Analysis of Variance of GPAs reveals that cohort 4 has a significantly higher GPA after one year in the ELC than cohorts 2 and 3, but no significant differences between other cohorts were found. Further analysis shows no significant differences in high school GPA between the cohorts, indicating that the improvements in cohort 4 are not due changes in recruiting practices. Additionally, ELC cohort 4 showed greater academic resiliency during COVID-19 than their non-ELC counterparts, as revealed through statistically significant lower utilization of the modified grading policy, as well as higher observed completion rates in Spring 2020. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

Achieving Capstone Design Objectives During Necessitated COVID-19 Online Teaching

A capstone course is usually the peak experience for students in most engineering education programs. In addition to any specific learning objectives, capstone courses provide students with the finishing touches needed for fielded practice, the opportunity to boost their confidence, and the platform to demonstrate the attainment of the program student outcomes. Depending on the program and discipline, engineering capstone courses usually take the form of open-ended design projects that integrate and synthesize what students have learned through the academic program in a team setting experience. As defined by ABET, “Engineering design is a process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs and specifications within constraints. It is an iterative, creative, decision-making process in which the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources into solutions. Engineering design involves identifying opportunities, developing requirements, performing analysis and synthesis, generating multiple solutions, evaluating solutions against requirements, considering risks, and making trade-offs, for the purpose of obtaining a high-quality solution under the given circumstances.” Considering the importance of capstone courses to program accreditation, learning objectives and outcomes that are aligned with the ABET engineering design definition should be established and achieved. This paper discusses and addresses the achievement of the learning objectives and student outcomes of a capstone courses, aligned with the ABET engineering design definition, during the online teaching format necessitated by COVID-19. Based on the experience with the online format, project-based engineering capstone courses could be successfully taught in the online format. However, there few issues that must be addressed for achievements of the course learning objectives and attainment of student outcomes. While some of these issues are directly related to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and not necessarily to the online format, addressing these issues is necessary for successful online capstone experience. To demonstrate the achievements of the course learning objectives and attainment of student outcomes by addressing the online format issues, some examples of students' engineering capstone project work are presented. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021