Co-creating a Teaching Module on the Impacts of COVID-19 on Various Transportation Systems and Stakeholders

COVID-19 has affected all aspects of life, including how we travel. As faculty members responsible for teaching infrastructure courses across four universities, the authors collaborated on creating a teaching module addressing this critical issue. The module focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on different transportation systems from various stakeholder perspectives. The module was implemented in two universities (n = 25): Southern Methodist University (SMU) and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech, NMT) in fall 2020 and will be implemented again at other schools in fall 2021. This paper presents the results obtained during the first implementation of the COVID-19 teaching module during the fall semester of 2020 and addresses how instructors can enhance the module for future offerings. Findings from the module's implementation demonstrate increased knowledge and understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on different transportation systems from various stakeholder perspectives. SMU students' mean scores showed high post-evaluation scores, and NMT students' scores increased from pre to post evaluation. Additionally, the reflective writing assignment revealed students' awareness of various issues, including operational and economic impacts on operators and users. This paper offers contributions to our engineering community by focusing on lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience while providing recommendations for improving this co-create module.