Resumen de Moving to Remote Instruction in Organic Chemistry II Laboratories
Jana Forster, Sachin Nedungadi, Michael Mosher
The Spring 2020 semester students were faced with the challenge of adjusting how they learned in the middle of the semester, as the situation changed from instructors holding group office hours and study sessions for the upcoming midterm exams to faculty and students scrambling to gather their belongings before the impending lockdown. Immediately before spring break, instructors and students were notified that all classes would be moving to a remote-teaching model for the remainder of the semester. While the move was challenging for lecture courses, moving the second semester of organic chemistry laboratory proved to be a daunting task. The process was made simpler by considering ways to reduce the cognitive load on our students. The laboratories would focus on the major student learning outcomes, and the existing classroom management system (CMS) would be used to provide online worksheets, quizzes, and discussion boards. Specific focus was directed to compound identification using spectroscopy and the physical components of the laboratory setting. Here we present the method that we employed and the results of transitioning our organic chemistry laboratory to an online platform. Additionally, we provide some recommendations to instructors faced with making this transition in the future.
