COVID-19 caught everyone by surprise, and the situation quickly escalated from epidemic to pandemic. By February 21, 2020, the first positive case was reported in Lebanon, and following that, by March 12, 2020, the decision to close all educational institutes was put into effect. Online learning is not an approved form of education in Lebanon, which meant that none of the Lebanese universities was prepared to make a complete shift from face-to-face learning to online learning. Immediate actions were taken at the Lebanese International University starting at the level of the University Council, all the way to the level of individual departments. The approach of the Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences is best described as “break barriers, build bridges, and launch transitions”. An initial assessment of strengths and weaknesses helped the department develop a model of online learning that took advantage of the readily available online tools (e.g., Google Classroom) while modifying the format of content delivery and assessment with the minimal potential for disruption by inadequate Internet, interruptions in electricity, and limited access to expensive hardware and software. A SWOT analysis of the model was done based on the survey that was given to the chemistry instructors in the department while taking into consideration the emails and comments received by students.

Educational games are effective learning tools frequently used to motivate students and enhance their engagement in the learning process. Using these games in challenging courses, such as organic chemistry, creates a more engaging and studentfriendly learning environment that can enhance students' learning. Drawing organic compounds and representing them in different forms is among the early skills students are urged to master in organic chemistry; therefore, failing to achieve this goal negatively affects the students' performance throughout the semester. ChemiPuzzle is a digital jigsaw puzzle consisting of pieces with atomic and bond symbols, developed to assist students in assembling the Lewis structure of organic compounds. ChemiPuzzle, Google Slides, and a free online buzzer tool were used to create the competition game that targeted multiple educational objectives and key concepts such as bond-line structures and condensed ones, formal charge, constitutional isomers, and resonance contributors. Evaluation of the pre-and postassessment results revealed a significant enhancement in one of the learning outcomes (resonance vs constitutional isomers), and a less significant change has been detected for the others since the preassessment results for these questions were already high. Students' evaluations of the different game's aspects were positive and highly encouraging, and this prompted us to convert ChemiPuzzle into an online tool that can be freely accessed and used in different learning activities.

Different molecular representations are usually used to depict the three-dimensional (3D) structure of organic compounds. Mastering the skill of interconverting one form into another is essential for students to ensure success in organic chemistry. The traditional and recently developed methods for completing such interconversions that rely on 3D visualization of 2D paper (screen) structures, absolute configuration assignments, or multistep drawings that require 3D visualization are often time-consuming and difficult, especially for students with 3D visualization difficulties or a certain level of aphantasia, thus turning organic chemistry into a hurdle in their academic pathway. Given the importance of this topic and its impact on students’ understanding of organic chemistry, the Arrow-Rotation-Method (ARM) has been developed to interconvert zigzag structures and Fischer projections in a few simple steps that require only 2D visualization. A quantitative approach was used on a group of students enrolled in an introductory organic chemistry course to evaluate the time efficiency and usefulness of the new method. The results indicated that ARM significantly improved students’ performance in completing the various interconversions compared to the traditional methods and proved to be more student-friendly, time-efficient, and accurate, especially for compounds with multiple chiral centers. ARM was also successfully used to sketch the structure of complex compounds with multiple chiral centers upon conformational change.