STEM Digital Education During COVID-19 Pandemic: Student’s Perspective and Future Actions

Abstract

Technological advancements have been playing a big role in the development of education to be more optimized and student-tailored. This paper studies how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted STEM education. It provides a comprehensive overview of digital teaching approaches in the areas of teaching methods, assessment techniques, digital tools, and equipment used for supporting those in an online environment. It locates trends, pain points, and innovative solutions that emerged in the response of European STEM Universities to the pandemic, reporting the students’ perspective on it, through interviews and workshops in 47 European STEM universities.

The paper concludes by stating best practices and recommendations for an effective and digital-enhanced learning experience, to inspire educators. It also advises actions and techniques that university management can take to support educators with achieving proficient digital education, thus setting another step towards rethinking higher education in a post-pandemic world.

Appendix A: Overview of Universities

University name	Country	Number of participants
Mediterranean University of Albania	Albania	14
National Technical University of Athens	Greece	12
University of Aveiro	Portugal	10
University of Belgrade	Serbia	12
Transilvania University of Brașov	Romania	17
Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava	Slovakia	12
Université libre de Bruxelles	Belgium	10
Polytechnic University of Bucharest	Romania	4
Ghent University	Belgium	6
KU Leuven	Belgium	6
University of Lisbon	Portugal	10
UC Louvain	Belgium	8
University of Novi Sad	Serbia	10
University of Porto	Portugal	13
University of Zagreb	Croatia	12
Number of universities	Distinct countries	Total (average) number of participants
15	8	147 (10)