The extended confinement imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns resulted in the imposition of online education for two years. Many students experienced their transitions to higher educative levels during this time, surely losing some academic learning as a consequence. On the other hand, this context could have promoted different types of competencies, until recently not explored, as a function of students’ personalities or academic profiles. Physics teaching is among those areas which have changed from its traditional methods during this period. The return to school during the ‘New Normal’ has resulted in certain concerns about students’ adaptability due to their possible lack of learning over this time. We analyse, in the current research, the transitions of three generations crossing several pandemic stages during their time participating in university physics courses during the first year, a common entry point for engineering programs. In addition, we analyse several academic traits as causal factors of academic success in order to understand how performance could be affected during online education and during the ‘New Normal’. The results highlight a general high level of adaptation for the most of the students, but still, some of them were affected in terms of the functioning of their learning styles or regarding their personality profiles. Notably, no meaningful losses were detected among the last transition; instead, several interesting aspects were found relating to academic profile appearing to have an effect on the students’ performance during the first transition to online education, and then during the second transition back to face-to-face education in the ‘New Normal’.

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Post-COVID-19 Transition in University Physics Courses: A Case of Study in a Mexican University

Behaviorism vs. humanism: Two contrasting approaches to learning theory.

Despite the difficulties faced during Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also true that such a situation has left a series of learnings that educational institutions around the world should capitalize on. Under this scenario, interest arose in studying three delivery modalities (face-to-face, hybrid, and remote) at the university level, aiming to compare the students’ learning level and their perceptions of each delivery modality. The present study was developed in a private university in Mexico, following a quantitative methodological approach involving 360 students and 14 professors from various schools and geographical locations. Data were collected through pre-and post-tests and a perception questionnaire for students. Findings suggest that the students’ learning level in every modality varies by school and that students positively perceive the three delivery modalities, albeit identifying factors that foster and hinder their learning process in each one. The results of this study contribute to strengthening the research field on teaching during ERT, allowing educational institutions to make better decisions regarding the quality of the educational offer.

Comparative study between delivery modalities in higher education during emergency remote teaching due to COVID-19

The COVID-19 confinement has represented both opportunities and losses for education. Rarely before has any other period moved the human spirit into such discipline or submission—depending on one’s personal and emotional points of view. Both extremes have been widely influenced by external factors on each individual’s life path. Education in the sciences and engineering has encountered more issues than other disciplines due to specialized mathematical handwriting, experimental demonstrations, abstract complexity, and lab practices. This work analyses three aspects of science education courses taught by university professors in a collaborative teacher cluster, sharing technology applications and education methodologies in science over three semesters when the COVID-19 lockdown was in effect. The first aspect was a didactic design coming from several educational frameworks through adoption or sharing. The second one was an analysis by discipline of multiple factors affecting student engagement during the health contingency. The third analysis examined the gains and losses in our students caused by the university closure and the pandemic’s intrusions. The report explores the correlations of the exiting student perceptions with their academic performance in the courses and survey results about the impact of decisions or happenings during the crisis. This work’s value lies in the lessons for the future of education concerning the teacher dominions of didactic design, support, and collaboration in a broader sense than only for teaching.

Marco Enríquez-Flores

Papers

Lessons in the Use of Technology for Science Education during COVID-19 Age under a Teachers’ Collaboration Cluster