Improved Students' Performance in an Online Robotics Class During COVID-19: Do only Strong Students Profit?

Andreas Birk, Evelina Dineva

Abstract: Observations from the online teaching of a robotics class during the CoViD-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 also known as the Corona virus are presented. The online teaching of the course lead to an unexpected increase in the grade performance of the students – despite the fact that the exams were at the same level of difficulty as in the years before. There is some evidence that the asynchronous online teaching catered for some of the general interests and learning trends in generation-Z students. This paper addresses the question whether the general study performance of a student is a possible factor in whether the student profited more or less from the online version, i.e., whether there is a correlation between the improved course grade with the Grade Performance Average (GPA) of students.