Reflections on the Impact of COVID-19 on Pre-College Engineering Education: An Afterword to the Special Issue

Abstract

In our call for proposals, our aim was to explore and document how COVID-19 has impacted pre-college engineering education (Alemdar et al., 2021). During COVID-19, engineering pre-college educators quickly adapted to new learning environments and technologies for teaching and learning. It was important to document these adaptations and lessons learned in formal and informal learning settings. The papers that made up this special show how lessons learned during this challenging time can inform the future of precollege engineering education. The papers offer both theoretical argumentation and empirical evidence to support their answers to the question of how adaptations during COVID-19 impacted pre-college engineering learning. A recurring theme of these papers is that worthy pre-college engineering learning experiences are possible even during unprecedented times. In this paper, we reflect on the papers, their individual and collective findings, and we highlight the impact of COVID-19 on education.