Check out this week’s featured presentation by Christina Ellis and Elizabeth Gildersleeve:
Teaching Chemistry Online During Covid-19: Strategies Explored and Lessons Learned
Christina Greer Ellis. Professor and Program Manager of Chemistry; Baltimore City Community College: dellis@frederick.eduÂ
Elizabeth Gildersleeve. Frederick Community College: egildersleeve@frederick.edu
https://www.slideshare.net/secret/zZJvvGvtzzF0uO
An overview of the challenges faced and the solutions developed when the pandemic unexpectedly shut down on-campus learning in March 2020 at Frederick Community College (FCC) was offered. The focus and efforts were on rapidly developing effective online learning strategies for General Chemistry II, and Organic Chemistry I and II. The course format chosen was online structured remote (SR), to resemble on-campus classes.
A major goal was to develop virtual labs asap that would hopefully provide the level of learning similar to on-campus labs. The realization that the virtual lecture sections came with their own challenges soon surfaced, and required innovative strategies to foster participation, learning and support. Challenges and benefits of teaching in the SR format via Blackboard Collaborate was discussed.
Resorting to videos for supplemental learning and for demonstrating actual lab experiments greatly improved the virtual lecture and lab experiences, although choosing videos to meet course needs was exhausting. FCC purchased access to JoVE videos, and those were supplemental with a variety of videos on YouTube: Professor Dave, Crash Course, TED Talks, etc. The availability of online videos increased over time, requiring constant updating of courses.
The success and failure of an assortment of resources and strategies were included, which may help others in the future.