The COVID-19 lockdown in Spain caused abrupt changes for students following the Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Burgos when face-to-face classes
switched to online teaching. The recovery of face-to-face teaching after lockdown meant
that classes were taught with obligatory social distancing and the use of masks. Teachers
were therefore unable to interact with students closely, to perceive their facial expressions
during class, or to conduct group work. The changes to civil-engineering teaching linked to
the COVID-19 pandemic and the lessons that civil-engineering teachers learnt from the new
teaching scenarios are studied in this paper. The reflections of teachers throughout all three
stages of the pandemic (pre-pandemic and lockdown, during lockdown, and post-lockdown), and the qualitative and mixed analysis of their responses to a survey of open-ended
questions contributed to the identification of six major lessons: (1) asking questions and
using real-time quiz tools enliven classes and help to determine which concepts to emphasize for proper student understanding; (2) autonomous student learning can be promoted
through the provision of supplementary documentation and the digitalization of solutions to
classroom exercises; (3) virtual site visits and real visual examples interspersed with explanations bring concepts closer to their real applications; (4) the delivery of projects in the form
of audio-recorded presentations enable their distribution, so that other students can also
learn from them as well as the students who created them; (5) online videoconferences,
adapted to the concepts that are addressed, facilitate fast and flexible communication with
students; and (6) online continuous-assessment exams can promote better student learning
patterns and final-exam preparation. Nevertheless, these six lessons were drawn from the
experience of teachers at a small Spanish university where the period of solely online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic lasted only four months. Thus, it would be interesting to
analyze the experience of civil-engineering teachers at larger universities and universities
that had longer periods of solely online teaching. A study of the level of implementation of
the six aspects when the pandemic is declared over might also be worthwhile.
