Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered economic, sanitary, social, and educational crisis worldwide. The public educational systems of the Latin American countries have been the most affected due to the economic constraints this region faces. Unfortunately, the closure of the educational facilities has left 156 million of students out of the classrooms while the traditional higher education system was challenged to adapt from the face-to-face learning approach to the alternative virtual environment. The aim of this research is to assess the insights of a group of public higher education engineering students about the challenges, the advantages and the opportunities when ESPOL university deployed strategies to embrace the starting of the online education in Ecuador amid the harshest havoc of the outbreak. A survey was structured to obtain information about the negative and positive aspects of the online modality and the flexibility of the teaching staff in the virtual classrooms. Channels of communication were established with the student associations and the student chapters so that the authorities were able to address their concerns.

The results showed that 75% of the respondents did not engage in online education before, being reasonable for them to state their unpreparedness to the sudden shifting to the virtual platforms. Most of the students (61%) preferred the videoconference tool provided by the full-powered version of the Office software since it offered an organized manner to manage the classroom information. The main challenges encountered by half of the students were the internet connectivity issues, limited access to smart devices, inadequate spaces for studying and the electricity cut-offs. Also, the surveyees reported the virtual mode increased their workload substantially in comparison with the other environment. A minority (17%) remained positive that the online mode may allow them to improve their grades and most of them agreed the approval of the subjects was independent of the learning environment. The teaching support was a remarkable aspect as most of the students were trained to familiarize themselves with the videoconference tool, and 98% of the respondents agreed that the information to access their virtual classrooms was adequate.

Although advantages have been highlighted after engaging with the online education, it is relevant to propose strategies that can facilitate the adaptability of the students: (1) modulate the learning spaces and the virtual tools according to the learning styles of the students (2) the academic staff teacher should develop new competences in the virtual classroom as redesign the theoretical and practical courses; and (3) deploy tools that allow tutors to evaluate the tutees in both synchronous and asynchronous activities. From this “pilot stage evaluation”, the learned lessons should be shared in order to improve the learning experience of the engineering students.
 

Keywords:

engineering students, embrace, online education, adaptability, virtual classroom, Covid-19.