Smooth Transition from Face-to-Face to Fully Online Classes

The Covid-19 pandemic had great impacts on the global higher education system. Most schools around the world have temporarily been closed in an attempt to stop the spread. In addition to transitioning from traditional face-to-face classes to hybrid or fully online classes, universities are also facing many challenges due to the economic degradation while seeking for ways to support their students, lecturers, professors, and employees. At the same time, students, lecturers, and professors need to quickly adapt to distance education since it is the most effective tool in keeping student retention and maintaining access to learning currently. It is true that distance education proposes challenges such as student interactive, technology issues, sense of isolation. It also raises doubt about satisfying the core reason of college or university experience in which students would like to enjoy each other 's company in many ways including social gatherings, sororities, fraternities and clubs. However, distance education offers accessibility of time and place, affordability, efficiency, and most importantly, stops the spread of Covid-19. This paper describes my real experiences and my teaching approach for fully online classes at the Electrical Engineering department of California State University Long Beach. It discusses how I achieved a successful transition from face-to-face education to fully online education, and how I overcame the difficulties of distance education by improving interactivity and engagement, maintaining academic integrity, and encouraging community building.