Adaptation of Teaching Strategies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced drastic changes in teaching methodologies, shifting from in-person courses toward fully online platforms. This article presents teaching strategies used to modify two traditional face-to-face courses (Economics of Resource Use and International Agricultural Trade) and one synchronous online course with in-person review sessions (Quantitative Methods in Food and Resource Economics) into an entirely virtual setting. This article discusses the challenges of moving content online while maintaining interaction with the students. It also exposes significant factors that have become impending challenges for online instruction during the pandemic. This study also examines students’ perception of their learning experience. Using a paired comparison test, academic performance was evaluated before and during the pandemic, showing that teaching methodologies implemented in the three courses were able to keep students’ engagement throughout the spring semester. These methodologies sought to provide a personalized approach and keep students engaged in the lectures. Further, this study discusses the impact of the pandemic on the students’ perception of their learning experience.