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A Faculty Roundtable on Instructional Challenges during the Pandemic

This article highlights instructional experiences from various disciplines at SHSU during the COVID-19 pandemic. The serious global health threat has hit us hard, posing enormous challenges to the educators who had to switch to virtual and hybrid modes of instruction through major modifications of teaching methodologies, lab strategies, and even grading criteria. The authors of this paper participated in a series of roundtable discussions to share their course delivery experiences during the pandemic. We attempt to share our key findings, which may benefit other educators and help them adopt alternative instructional approaches in other institutions. Instructional challenges in a wide variety of courses such as Digital Electronics, Industrial Robotics, Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Software Engineering, System Modeling, Epidemiology, Human Diseases, Environmental Health, and Intermediate Business Analysis were mitigated using alternative or modified approaches. Hands-on and in-person learning activities (e.g., laboratory experiments and data analysis) were substituted by innovative strategies such as online exercises via simulation, statistical software, enhanced use of audiovisual tools, and synchronous and asynchronous online instructions. Instructors also reported more frequent troubleshooting experience while using blended formats of instruction. Several other sociocultural barriers of effective teaching were also noted. While individuals with children struggled to cope up due to school and daycare closures, individuals living alone struggled with depression and anxiety due to limited in-person interactions amid widespread stay-at-home order. The struggle was exacerbated for students who were tested coronavirus positive or caregivers for immediate family members. The pandemic also had a major psychosocial impact on individuals in academia who lost their loved ones or became unemployed. In a nutshell, both students and instructors were not able to perform their academic responsibilities effectively and had to sacrifice learning goals to some extent. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021