Posts tagged covid19

Blending Your Education: Lessons Learned During COVID

Article written by Naomi Wahls, Wiebe Dijkstra, and Martijn Ouwehand and published by EADTU as part of the EU project ‘Digitel Pro’.

Abstract

This article is a concise analysis of the current COVID situation taking into account the needs of teaching staff and support staff in an emergency situation (IO1) and conditions for change management (IO6) to the design and develop blended education. TU Delft is partner of the EU project ‘Digitel Pro’ in collaboration with DCU, KU Leuven, UOC, and EADTU. This is an analysis (a) completing the literature review from 2018 on and (b) refocusing the conclusions on the COVID 19 needs as the Digitel Pro partners have already made a comprehensive analysis for the EMBED project. Best Practices for Blended Learning during COVID times are still emerging. It is unclear if everyone truly uses the same definition for blended and hybrid teaching within the literature produced during COVID times because not all authors provide a definition in their articles. Some of the authors who published in 2020 and 2021 are completely new to online teaching. Although online education has been around since at least 2003, it is surprising to see authors mention that distance learning is still in developmental stages in 2021. Distance learning will continue to develop, however distance learning is well established as an educational mode with various formats such as online, blended, hybrid, and virtual exchange. Perhaps new during COVID times was that all courses had to face distance learning and prior to COVID, some educators could avoid online formats entirely. The original plan pre-COVID for implementing Blended Learning throughout an entire campus was realized in the document: Research report on state of the art in blended learning and innovation (Goeman, Poelmans, & Van Rompaey, 2018), found here: https://embed.eadtu.eu/results. This article expands on that Research report by explaining the COVID scenarios and what emerged as the secondary or emergency plan, as well as best practices noted by instructors for education during rapid changes for COVID restrictions.

Reference

Wahls, N. L., Dijkstra, W. P., & Ouwehand, G. M. (2022). BLENDING YOUR EDUCATION: LESSONS LEARNED DURING COVID. (v. 9.3.2022 ed.) EADTU. https://digitelpro.eadtu.eu/images/Blending_Your_Education__Lessons_Learned_During_COVID.pdf

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The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on a MOOC in Aerospace Structures and Materials

Article written by Ioana Jivet and Gillian N. Saunders-Smits and published in the Proceedings of the SEFI 49th Annual Conference.

Abstract

In March 2020 COVID-19 brought the world and with that aviation to a standstill. Also in March 2020, the third run of the DelftX MOOC Introduction to Aerospace Structures and Materials started on edX. This MOOC generally attracts a mixture of young aviation enthusiasts (often students) and aviation professionals. Given the large interest MOOCs have received as the pandemic hit, we investigate how the new global context affected the motivation and the way learners interact with our course material. For this project, we will use learning analytics approaches to analyse the log data available from the edX platform and the data from pre- and post-course evaluations of two runs of the same MOOC (2019 and 2020). With the insights gathered through this analysis, we wish to better understand our learners and adjust the learning design of the course to better suit their needs. Our paper will present the first insights of this analysis.

Keywords

MOOC, Aerospace Engineering, Learning Analytics, Lifelong Learning

Reference

Jivet, I., & Saunders-Smits, G. (2021). THE EFFECT OF THE COVID-19 PANDAMIC ON A MOOC IN AEROSPACE STRUCTURES AND MATERIALS. In H-U. Heiß, H-M. Järvinen, A. Mayer, & A. Schulz (Eds.), Blended Learning in Engineering Education: challenging, enlightening – and lasting? (pp. 258-267)

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Presentation

Presentation of the work of dr. ir. I. Jivet and dr.ir. Gillian N. Saunders-Smits at the 49th Annual SEFI conference held online from 13-16 September 2021 hosted by TU Berlin:

Shifting from Blended to Online Learning: Students’ and Teachers’ Perspectives

Article written by Esra Polat, Sonja van Dam and Conny Bakker and published in the Proceedings of the Design Society.

Abstract

The Covid-19 outbreak forced many universities across the world to transition from a traditional or blended format to fully online education. This paper presents a case study on the transition to an online education format for a circular design course. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a survey with 26 students and interviews with six course teachers. The findings revealed that students preferred the on-campus versions over the online course components. They indicated the perceived lack of motivation, lack of sense of community, and a high workload as influencing factors. Teachers indicated the lack of connection with students as a drawback to online education but identified advantages to their teaching and the student’s learning experience. Suggestions for addressing an optimal blended course format are provided.

Keywords

Design education, Online learning, Circular economy, Case study, Covid-19

Reference

Polat, E., Van Dam, S., & Bakker, C. (2021). SHIFTING FROM BLENDED TO ONLINE LEARNING: STUDENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES. Proceedings of the Design Society, 1, 2651-2660. doi:10.1017/pds.2021.526

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License

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.

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