Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live, communicate, work and study. Given today’s situation, it is almost a certainty that distance and blended learning will become the new traditional teaching models.

In this paper we present the results from the survey among 10 teachers and 74 students regarding their opinion about distance and/or blended learning in the fundamental engineering discipline “Electrical Engineering” –Part I and Part II. The online survey was conducted within the framework of the project "New Trends in "Electrical Engineering” Training in a Pandemic", funded by Fund “Scientific research” at the Plovdiv University Paisii Hilendarski.

Results from the survey show that most students highly appreciate the quality of the online lectures but are not satisfied from the online laboratory classes. Both students and teachers think that the reduced number of face-to-face labs was not enough to develop solid practical skills in electrical engineering which will inevitably affect students’ future professional career.

In order to improve our curriculum in “Electrical Engineering” we also asked 55 first grade students to complete a preliminary questionnaire to identify their prior knowledge and expectations of the course. The results show that students expect more practical oriented teaching process. All of them prefer hands-on learning than theory based one.

On the basis of the surveyed students’ and teachers’ responses, the project team will develop the educational technology for distance and/or blended education in "Electrical Engineering” to make the training more effective, efficient and flexible in a pandemic context.

Keywords:

Electrical engineering, distance learning, blended learning, pandemic