Geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering education during the pandemic

Jiang, N.-J. et al. (2021) Geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering education during the pandemic. Environmental Geotechnics, 8(3), pp. 233-243. (doi: 10.1680/jenge.20.00086)

Abstract

This paper reports the impact of COVID-19 on the practice and delivery of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering (GGE) education modules including lectures, lab sessions, student assessments, and research activities based on the feedback from faculty members in 14 countries/regions around the world. Faculty members have since adopted a series of contingent measures to enhance teaching and learning experience during the pandemic, which includes facilitating active learning, exploring new teaching content related to public health, expanding e-learning resources, implementing more engaged and student-centered assessment, and delivering high-impact integrated education and research. The key challenge faculty members are facing appears to be how to maximize the flexibility of learning and meet physical distancing requirements without compromising learning outcome, education equity, and interpersonal interactions in the traditional face-to-face teaching. Despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic, this could also be a good opportunity for faculty members obliged to lecture to rethink and revise existing contents and approaches of professing GGE education. Three future opportunities including smart learning, flipped learning, and interdisciplinary education are identified. The changes could potentially provide students with a more resilient, engaged, interactive, and technology-based learning environment.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Gao, Dr Zhiwei
• Authors: Jiang, N.-J., Hanson, J. L., Vecchia, G. D., Zhu, C., Yi, Y., Arnepalli, D. N., Courcelles, B., He, J., Horpibulsuk, S., Hoy, M., Takahashi, A., Arulrajah, A., Lin, C.-P., Dowoud, O., Li, Z., Gao, Z., Hata, T., Zhang, L., Du, Y.-J., Goli, V. S.N.S., Mohammad, A., Singh, P., Kuntikana, G., and Singh, D. N.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Infrastructure and Environment
• Journal Name: Environmental Geotechnics
• Publisher: ICE Publishing
• ISSN: 2051-803X
• ISSN (Online): 2051-803X
• Published Online: 19 March 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 ICE Publishing
• First Published: First published in Environmental Geotechnics 8(3): 233-243
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher