Distance Teaching in Chemistry: Opportunities and Limitations

Abstract

Remote teaching in the tertiary education sector is a relatively common practice, and the implementation of digital solutions in chemistry teaching offers many new opportunities and tools. A survey was conducted after 3 months of emergency remote teaching linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and showed that half of the students estimated it was difficult to study remotely, and reported they had to invest more time compared to classroom teaching, which led to a drop in motivation. Professors also noted that the time necessary to invest in order to produce digital teaching content was enormous. Massive open online laboratories (MOOLs) and process simulators are interesting tools, but practical lab work and related know-how cannot fully be replaced by digital techniques. Finally, it appeared that the professor–student interaction is very important in the distance-learning process, and that a high level of pedagogical (inter)activity is mandatory to maintain motivation and better quality of teaching and learning.

Chemistry Teacher Reflections of Online Teaching Platforms in Malaysia Secondary Schools during COVID-19 Crisis

“…24 Improving the communication among teachers and students, especially let all students know all of them are required to get used to the new teaching and learning normal, is another issue that teachers ought to pay attention, by doing so, chemistry or other subject teachers may conduct clear instruction practice. 5,25 This study also confirms that specific web conferencing platforms, such as Google Classroom, appeal to the students more and are helpful in their chemistry learning environment caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. 26 Teachers' feedback in this study indicates that the transition to online education was successful, albeit somewhat challenging.…”

“…Besides searching the suitable technological tools, the current research also discovered that teachers per se should timely conclude their online teaching and learning management system in order to modify their teaching strategies. , and this is also mentioned by Guo et al and Domenici . Improving the communication among teachers and students, especially let all students know all of them are required to get used to the new teaching and learning normal, is another issue that teachers ought to pay attention, by doing so, chemistry or other subject teachers may conduct clear instruction practice. , …”

Navigating the interlanguage space: Chinese international students’ perceptions of a virtual chemistry laboratory course

“…Drawing on the K-12 literature, researchers in higher education have noted similar challenges with the ''high linguistic demand'' of many terms used in chemistry and argued for tailored pedagogical strategies to address specific challenges, including factors such as context, semantics, and dual representations, that ELLs may face (Pyburn et al, 2013;Vladus ˇic ét al., 2016;Rees et al, 2019). Among others, one proposed strategy is the use of metacognitive scaffolding, or repeated practice, across multiple contexts (Rees et al, 2019), as well as teach-backs, in which students explain how they solved a particular problem to another student (Mercier et al, 2021).…”

Chemophobia cured by chemists: chemists as children of the Sun

“…Obviously, he did not succeed in his effort, though his ill-considered statement fuelled the negative attitudes toward chemistry leading to a shortage of qualified chemists, creating an obstacle to the scientific research underpinning technological innovation. This situation is not helped by the fact that chemical education is under threat from the lack of qualified teachers [ 10 ], the negative effects of the epidemic [ 11 , 12 ], and possible self-imposed restrictions on laboratory teaching [ 13 ].…”