Online analytical chemistry lab at Union College: Exploring solutions and assessing data

Analytical Chemistry, a required course for sophomore and junior chemistry and biochemistry majors, is taught in the spring trimester at our institution, a liberal arts college that ordinarily prohibits online instruction. The course includes three classroom meetings and two three-hour laboratory sessions per week. In mid-March 2020, due to the global pandemic, the administration announced that the spring term would be taught entirely online. Our initial reaction was that we could not possibly design a fully online laboratory experience on such short notice and, therefore, would have to cancel the course. Upon further reflection, we made the decision to move forward, offering a synchronously taught full-length laboratory component that included (1) rigorous data-analysis exercises based on experimental results obtained by students in previous offerings of the course, (2) new assignments focused on collaborative reading of literature and critical analysis of the presentation of quantitative data in published journal articles, (3) development of hypotheses and evaluation of those hypotheses using relatively large data sets, and (4) a focus on improving students’ scientific writing skills through a variety of assignments, including a poster presentation on a multi-week project. Although it is unlikely that, post-pandemic, we will ever teach the laboratory portion of the course in an entirely online format, we took several lessons from the experience that will inform subsequent offerings of this course and may be of interest and applicability to faculty at other institutions.