Abstract:

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020 all educational institutions have been forced to move from face-to-face to distance learning. Given today’s situation, it is almost a certainty that distance and blended learning will continue during the 2021/2022 academic year. Keeping students engaged during the online learning is an issue of paramount importance. Educators should find best strategies, adapted for an online environment, to ensure that students don’t neglect their studies, to provide them with an opportunity to communicate effectively with their peers and teacher. This will lead to enhanced students’ performance and outcomes of the learning process.

In this paper we present the results from the survey among 11 teachers in engineering subjects regarding their experiences in distance learning. All respondents work at the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Plovdiv University Paisii Hilendarski. A semi-structured interview was used to gather information pertaining to the utilized platforms, teaching methods, tools for communication, assessment and perceptions on student engagement. Based on teachers’ responses a methodology to improve students’ engagement in online learning is proposed. The methodology contains guidelines (software platforms, hardware, instructional methods) to provide the three types of interaction that affect engineering students engagement in online learning–student-teacher, student-student and student-content interactions.

Keywords:

Student engagement, distance learning, engineering education, pandemic.