RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Teaching lessons learnt by civil-engineering teachers from the COVID-19 pandemic at the University of Burgos, Spain
A1 Revilla Cuesta, Víctor
A1 Skaf Revenga, Marta
A1 Espinosa González, Ana Belén
A1 Ortega López, Vanesa
K1 Ingeniería civil
K1 Civil engineering
K1 Enseñanza superior
K1 Education, Higher
K1 Universidad de Burgos
AB 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 classesswitched to online teaching. The recovery of face-to-face teaching after lockdown meantthat classes were taught with obligatory social distancing and the use of masks. Teacherswere therefore unable to interact with students closely, to perceive their facial expressionsduring class, or to conduct group work. The changes to civil-engineering teaching linked tothe COVID-19 pandemic and the lessons that civil-engineering teachers learnt from the newteaching scenarios are studied in this paper. The reflections of teachers throughout all threestages 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-endedquestions contributed to the identification of six major lessons: (1) asking questions andusing real-time quiz tools enliven classes and help to determine which concepts to emphasize for proper student understanding; (2) autonomous student learning can be promotedthrough the provision of supplementary documentation and the digitalization of solutions toclassroom 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 formof audio-recorded presentations enable their distribution, so that other students can alsolearn 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 withstudents; and (6) online continuous-assessment exams can promote better student learningpatterns and final-exam preparation. Nevertheless, these six lessons were drawn from theexperience 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 toanalyze the experience of civil-engineering teachers at larger universities and universitiesthat had longer periods of solely online teaching. A study of the level of implementation ofthe six aspects when the pandemic is declared over might also be worthwhile.
PB Public Library of Science
YR 2022
FD 2022-12
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10259/8015
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10259/8015
LA eng
NO Víctor Revilla-Cuesta is grateful for funding from the Spanish Ministry MCIU, AEI and ERDF [grant number FPU17/03374]. In addition, the authors would like to thank the University of Burgos for supporting this study through the funding program "Convocatoria de Ayudas a Grupos de Innovación Docente reconocidos para la elaboración de materiales docentes para los años 2021 y 2022" of which the researchers who conducted this study were beneficiaries. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Burgos
RD 10-may-2024