Labapalooza: What Happens When Students Return to In-Person Laboratories After Taking Laboratories Online for a Year?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person undergraduate chemistry laboratories at North Carolina State University were not available to students during the 2020–2021 academic year and were replaced with online laboratories. With the return to in-person laboratories in the fall semester of 2021, there...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of chemical education 2022-07, Vol.99 (7), p.2733-2737
Main Authors: Del Negro, Lori A., Gallardo-Williams, Maria T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analytical chemistry
Chemistry
College students
Colleges & universities
COVID-19
Laboratories
Online instruction
Organic chemistry
Pandemics
Self evaluation
Students
Teaching methods
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Summary:Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person undergraduate chemistry laboratories at North Carolina State University were not available to students during the 2020–2021 academic year and were replaced with online laboratories. With the return to in-person laboratories in the fall semester of 2021, there was widespread concern among the faculty that chemistry majors might struggle with the application of concepts and techniques that they learned online in the in-person lab environment. An event to bring students back to campus for a day was designed by the faculty in charge of teaching organic and analytical chemistry laboratories with extensive input from students. Participants were asked to choose the lab techniques that they wanted to review, were given agency to choose the day and time of the gathering, and were encouraged to suggest a name for the event. In this paper we describe the outcomes regarding student choices, participation, and self-assessed efficacy before and after testing in person the lab techniques that had been learned online.
ISSN:0021-9584
1938-1328
DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00141