#DavidsonTrue: Transitioning to Remote Teaching while Maintaining Our Values as a Liberal Arts College during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in March led Davidson College to move from face-to-face classes and laboratories to mostly synchronous Zoom meetings. Prior to COVID-19, the majority of our faculty and students had little experience with remote instruction. With only 5 days to develop a plan, we revisited our individual and department learning goals and worked collectively to help each other redesign and redeploy our courses. In this reflective piece, we provide examples of how each member of our department collaborated with our students to ensure a relatively smooth transition to remote teaching across our entire curriculum while maintaining inclusive excellence. Specific strategies for adapting class meetings, assignments, assessments, additional support, and labs are provided along with select examples. Common themes across the curriculum included increased flexibility, the desire to maintain community, and the need for additional academic, technical, and emotional support. We hope our reflections will be helpful to our chemistry colleagues as we move into the uncertainty of the fall semester.

Adapting Undergraduate Research to Remote Work to Increase Engagement

“…Several recent publications highlight creative solutions to teaching laboratories, including course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), during pandemic-related remote teaching (6,7). Solutions implemented in project labs and CUREs included pivoting to data and statistical analysis, modeling and simulations, experimental design and troubleshooting, and literature searching (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). Although there is no virtual substitute for learning hands-on laboratory skills, research skills and practices can be taught without access to ''wet'' laboratories.…”

Teaching Instrumental Analysis during the Pandemic: Application of Handheld CO2 Monitors to Explore COVID-19 Transmission Risks

“… 1 − 5 The common challenge of retaining student interest and engagement in the course material was exacerbated by the practical hurdles presented by the pandemic, particularly for inherently hands-on laboratory work which was transitioned to a remote format. In some cases, laboratories were replaced by recordings 1 , 2 or virtual simulations, 6 − 8 while others designed at-home experiments. 9 , 10 Thoughtful implementation of these nontraditional laboratory experiences can effectively engage students and achieve learning outcomes.…”

Assessment à la Mode: Implementing an Adaptable Large-Scale Multivariant Online Deferred-Grade Exam for Virtual Learning

“…The transition online forced the educational community to create protocols for online examinations quickly and was met with varying degrees of success. Complicating the matter, online examinations meant providing safeguards against new possible avenues of academic misconduct. , Educators reported noticeable increases in academic misconduct with online exams during the transition. , Many universities switched to open resources or open notebook exams in order to negate the effects of cheating on exam performance. − However, given student access to online services which answer chemistry questions for students, educators cannot be sure that the work submitted by students was created by the students, as noted by Clark and co-workers . Other universities decided to proctor exams using Zoom or use oral examinations, but for medium to large sized universities with hundreds to thousands of students enrolled, these creative solutions would not be possible. ,, Herein is reported an online examination protocol, called assessment à la mode (adaptable large-scale multivariant online deferred-grade exam), which was found to be both robust against cheating and well-received by the students enrolled in the course.…”