Lessons Learned From Hybrid Face-to-Face and Virtual Teaching of Various Industrial Engineering Courses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract This paper discusses the challenges encountered and lessons learned from teaching various undergraduate and graduate-level industrial engineering courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. A large public university in Texas offered over 50% of Fall 2020 classes on a hybrid model. In this hybrid model, instructors provided face-to-face lectures to the students physically present in their classrooms while live-streaming and video-recording their lectures for both the synchronous and asynchronous delivery to the rest of the students. To accommodate different student needs and motivate student learning, instructors had to employ a mixture of instructional methods and adapt them flexibly. This paper aims to share experiences organizing the hybrid classes and lessons learned from such adaptations during COVID-19. The hybrid model posed some unique challenges for instructors concerning 1) the appropriate allocation of attention to both in-person and virtual classrooms as well as teaching materials, 2) the simultaneous management of questions asked in both classrooms, and 3) the multi-modal organization of in-class activities originally developed to be used only in the in-person classrooms. The hybrid model also inherited some prevalent challenges from distance learning for students concerning delayed feedback from instructors, difficulty concentrating on the course or taking quizzes and exams, insufficient interaction with peers and instructors, and technical issues. We learned the following lessons from the current hybrid class environments. Instructors need to 1) facilitate more frequent and informal communication to provide feedback; 2) establish virtual breakout rooms for small group discussion; 3) familiarize themselves with the technical tools for virtual exams through mock-up tests. In addition, several existing dilemmas were exacerbated with distance learning: 1) Providing detailed slides is beneficial for note-taking and review but may hurt motivation in attending the real-time lectures with decreased motivation in distance learning; 2) Highlight on the lecture or slides' essence is beneficial in clarifying the learning objectives and preventing students from being overwhelmed. Still, it may also lead to skipping the "unimportant" parts if students watch the lecture's video instead of attending real-time. We believe these challenges and adaptations would be generalizable to other institutions, as the persistent COVID-19 pandemic situation requires immediate and cross-institutional preparation efforts.