As numerous varsity campuses remain closed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, educators must look for suitable digital tools to conduct lessons and engage learners online. In this report, we discuss how to structure the online lessons using the Community of Inquiry framework (CoI). The CoI was applied to the university elective course "Learning to Choose Better", taught by chemistry faculty. By using the appropriate digital tools in our course, we found success in achieving engagement, active learning, and team teaching. Until the world finds a resolution to the pandemic, online teaching will continue to be the new normal. Educators could view this time as a prime opportunity to experiment, innovate, and break new grounds in the realm of remote online teaching.

The current model of flipped classroom ensures that learning is not being restricted to the brick and mortar setting. Lessons can be conducted anywhere, anytime, as long as there is a good internet connection. Most of the flipped classroom and e-lectures are videos recording PowerPoint slides with a human voice as the audio instruction. In laboratory teaching, flipped pre-lab is not typical. The closest it gets is the filming of laboratory demonstration using a handheld camcorder. How can we captivate the audience in a manner that will make it an even more realistic demonstration? The application of a small device, GoPro camera, empowers the demonstrator to teach his students with a new perspective.T o date, there are numerous pedagogical methods concerning chemical laboratory teaching at the high school and college levels. As we enter the 21st century where the use of technology is omnipresent, education at the college level should not do away with tools that enhance learning. High-school students who enter the college chemistry laboratory for the very first time may be apprehensive toward handling apparatus and chemical equipment. The fear of operating laboratory equipment creates a potential danger that might impede student learning; watching a video from a first person perspective may ameliorate that fear. In my laboratory teaching, the flipped classroom method utilizing the GoPro camera was used to educate students on the background information on the experiments using a first-person (FP) technique. This unique FP mode allows one who is unfamiliar with the parameters of the laboratory to have a virtual pre-lab experience before they embark on the actual experiment. This mode of teaching has been implemented for an advanced organic synthesis laboratory.

Field trips are a common activity for instructors to engage students and give them a first-hand understanding of a subject, especially in environmental chemistry. However, the planning and execution for a field trip is logistically challenging and demanding of human and material resources. Here, we demonstrate the conduct of a virtual overseas field trip for 74 students with the use of a web-based virtual reality (VR) application. From the feedback after the virtual field trip, students reported general receptiveness toward such use of VR technology.

Visualization of three-dimensional (3D) elements has always played a huge role in chemistry education. At the same time, it is a challenge to teach with most representations being shown in two-dimensional (2D) media. With the recent rise of extended reality (XR) that includes virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) technology in higher education, attempts have been made at presenting 2D representations to students in a manner that is easier to understand. However, the effectiveness of said attempts has limitations. Our AR project has developed a free-to-use mobile application "Nucleophile's Point of View" (NuPOV) that aims to address these limitations. By allowing users to not only view chemistry concepts in an AR setting but also interact with them by hand, they are able to learn and understand at a deeper level through an individualized and selfdirected learning experience. Our study has shown that such an approach proved to be relatively well-received by students.

COVID-19 has besieged academic institutions worldwide. As countries closed their international borders and imposed lockdowns, faculty have faced unprecedented challenges in finding alternative modes of teaching and assessment as replacements for the traditional face-to-face classes. In this piece, we describe the journey of the chemistry instructors in managing and overcoming the disruptions we faced teaching a freshman organic course in the time of tight safety measures. We describe the change in assessment modes in our course and the impacts of such changes to our students’ academic performance and to our faculty’s teaching feedback ratings.