The suspension of face to face teaching caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has caused educators to consider how to deliver practical teaching to students without access to the equipment available on their campus. The department of Multidisciplinary Engineering Education at the University of Sheffield has invested considerable effort honing expertise in identifying the learning that takes place during practicals and the best methods to achieve it. 

We have developed a number of tactics for how to achieve learning outcomes when practicals need to be taught without access to the laboratories on campus and the aim of the playbook is to share some of this experience in a way that can be applied by engineering educators. It isn’t intended to be a silver bullet to eliminate all the detrimental aspects of being constrained to provide practical teaching without access to laboratory space. It's objective is to provide an opportunity to reflect on why we choose to include practical learning as part of an engineering curriculum and inspire alternative methods to deliver those learning outcomes that may not have previously been considered. 

Moving beyond the resource constraints of a pandemic, there will be opportunities to use the tactics of remote practicals to enhance face to face teaching in the lab. Space, staff time and specialist equipment are always costly and by thoughtful blending of remote and in-lab activities, the value obtained from limited student contact can be maximised.

The playbook is a work in progress. My intention is that it is updated regularly as we gain more experience of implementing remote practicals during the pandemic. If there aspects you would like to see covered, please e-mail.

Andrew Garrard

a.garrard@sheffield.ac.uk