Evaluating student perceptions of lecture and laboratory delivery methods in the remote/online chemistry classroom: A departmental survey

Online teaching and learning are becoming increasingly prevalent within all levels of our education systems. Online teaching and learning have now become part of a continuum, from the use of online technology within traditional classrooms, to courses that blend online and in-person learning, and to fully online delivery. As such, as chemical educators, we must uncover the best practices of online chemical education.

Present literature focusing on best practices for online chemical education is limited and heavily focused on the switch to remote learning in the Spring of 2020 due to COVID-19 and the subsequent challenges faced by students (equity, access, technology). Our study aims to expand the current literature for best practices in online chemical education by focusing on which teaching strategies within current, remote delivery chemistry classes, are perceived by students to provide the most value within their learning experiences.

Students’ perceived value of plans related to the delivery of lectures, tutorials, and laboratories, as well as various teaching strategies and assessment methods, were determined via anonymous surveys. Surveys were delivered to students registered within at least one of the 11 remotely delivered Fall 2020 chemistry course offerings, once at the outset of the course and once within the final week of class.

For lecture delivery methods, students indicated a preference for asynchronous videos (62% of respondents) to synchronous lecture delivery (38%), but if given the choice, say that a mix of the two methods would actually be most beneficial to their learning. Synchronous class components were seen to provide a sense of "normalcy" and real-time interaction, while asynchronous lectures provided individual flexibility to the learning experience. It was clear from both the start of term and end of term surveys that students highly value their time in the lab and recognize its hands-on skills building nature. For students who experienced remote labs, 73% indicated the remote experience was less valuable than their previous experiences of an in-person counterpart. Similarly, over 49% of students believe there are no truly meaningful replacements for in-person labs. For alternative lab activities, most students indicated a preference for video recorded laboratory experiments (29%) over online simulations (19%) or being provided only mock data (3%).