Assessment of Technological Setup for Teaching Real-Time and Recorded Laboratories for Online Learning: Implications for the Return to In-Person Learning

摘要

Lab-based learning is an essential part of any undergraduate chemistry curriculum as it incorporates necessary and required hands-on experiential learning. However, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students are learning from home, rendering laboratory instruction a particular challenge. Options for educators include third party virtual and prerecorded materials, athome laboratory experiments, and original prerecorded and real-time instruction. Here, we report the assessment of a variety of technological setups for real-time and prerecorded original content looking at a variety of audio and video sources as well as one-camera and two-camera options. We intentionally selected equipment that we had readily available and ensured our recordings were as close to the student experience as possible by recording via a secondary computer signed into an online learning platform. Upon a survey of a small group of students at Quest University Canada, we found that 72% of students preferred a two-camera setup using a smartphone to film the instructor as a whole and a web camera to provide a close-up view of the chemistry taking place. This setup was used for a diversity of real-time and prerecorded experiments delivered remotely at Quest University including titrations, basic synthetic reactions, and purifications. For two of the experiments, a titration lab and a synthesis and purification lab, we assessed the ability of different remote learning options to meet pre-COVID-19 learning outcomes. Real-time, digital laboratory instruction is clearly the most effective. In addition, we suggest scenarios where using digital techniques may create efficiencies in laboratory teaching upon the return to on-campus learning.