EXPERIENCES FROM TEACHING LIVE ONLINE CHEMISTRY SUPERLAB CLASSES

Abstract

The aim of this workshop is to share the good, the bad and the frustrating experiences from the transition to the online chemistry laboratory environment during COVID-19 restrictions. Semester 1, 2020, was going to be an extra exciting and stressful one for me, because Edith Cowan University Joondalup campus opened brand new state of the art science superlabs and my two first-year chemistry units were the first units to run in the superlab environment. There was also additional stress, because after a 2-year trial, I was finally going to implement electronic lab books to both undergraduate chemistry units using Surface Go computers for each student in a 96 superlab capacity. Many months of planning, preparation and organisation resulted in a rather smooth deployment of the OneNote program to all 350+ students and a relatively disaster free transition to the superlab environment, and just as I thought there was nothing to be stressed about……….... on the 23rd of March we were instructed by the University to move all lab classes to the online environment. Luckily for me, that transition was relatively seamless, because of the decision to implement electronic lab books using the OneNote program. My main goal was to try to make the transition from on-campus learning to online learning as smooth and stress free as possible for the students. I was very concerned that my students would find it challenging to learn chemistry without doing laboratory work, which is an integral part of studying chemistry. I wanted to maintain the online lab class environment as realistic as possible, exciting and engaging, and I think I managed to achieve that to some extent. How???? All will be revealed in the workshop. I would also like to use this workshop as an opportunity to share other’s experiences and tribulations with transitioning to teaching chemistry lab classes online this semester.