General chemistry, CHE 101, at Hampton University is an undergraduate course designed to meet curriculum requirements for nonscience majors. The four-credit course consists of a lecture and a laboratory, taken concurrently. The lecture consists of three 50 minute or two 75 minute sessions, and the laboratory consists of one 3 hour session every…

Many STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines require a two-semester sequence of introductory college chemistry, which are thus critical gateway courses to a variety of majors. Recognizing the benefit to educators of a structure of content learning across the chemistry curriculum, in 2012, the American Chemical Society…

In this mixed-method study, we investigated whether the use of a web-based inquiry science environment (WISE) unit would improve the knowledge integration (KI) of middle school students with no formal school-based prior experience with inquiry instruction. A unit on heat and temperature that reflected KI principles and processes was designed and…

We present an accessible implementation of augmented reality projections for the depiction of complex structures and motifs, including atomic orbitals and elemental allotropes. The utilization of a free, cross-platform-compatible, online database of these structures provides the access route for closer examination, either via augmented reality or…

The COVID-19 lockdown in Australia forced Bond University to transition from their normal face-to-face delivery mode to a remote delivery mode during the first trimester of 2020. In this communication, we discuss the experiences in transitioning to an online teaching model, and we discuss the challenges faced and the outcomes achieved. We reflect…

Information overload and limited laboratory time usually result in students focusing mostly on procedural tasks to get the results, rather than being engaged with what they are doing. Moreover, traditional laboratory curricula rarely provide students opportunities to repeat experiments. This study presents the design of a web-based application…

Today's educational challenges necessitate the creative use of digital technology to adapt an effective pedagogical approach in chemistry teaching. While various visualization tools have been developed to improve visual-spatial skills, previous studies on digital technology interventions provide limited findings and show moderate effects on…

The 'Moss Safari' activity was developed to assist with knowing which organisms to look for when observing a drop of water squeezed from moss for the first time. In this case study, the activity was introduced online to 34 trainee science teachers. This was followed by a post-session questionnaire evaluating their experience of the Moss Safari.…

The purpose of this parallel convergent mixed methods study was to characterize organic chemistry students' expression of electron-pushing formalism skills who had participated in peer-led team learning (PLTL) and cyber peer-led team learning (cPLTL), a synchronous online version of peer-led team learning (PLTL) workshops. A new electron-pushing…

Field trips are a common activity for instructors to engage students and give them a first-hand understanding of a subject, especially in environmental chemistry. However, the planning and execution for a field trip is logistically challenging and demanding of human and material resources. Here, we demonstrate the conduct of a virtual overseas…

Video learning holds an important place in modern STEM classrooms, but more improvements to the learning experience are needed. In order to introduce active-learning components into assignments, questions are often deployed alongside videos. Unfortunately, many students tend to skip videos entirely and solely answer questions, bypassing valuable…

Although the potent effects of cation-p interactions for stabilizing protein structure and binding ligands to proteins have been reported in the chemical literature for over two decades, there are no undergraduate biochemistry textbooks covering this important noncovalent attractive force. In an attempt to remedy this situation, this primer…

The Next-Lab project provides free web-based resources supporting teachers in enhancing students' learning experiences. By including online laboratories, experiments otherwise difficult or impossible to perform are facilitated (e.g. crashing meteoroids into Earth). This article briefly presents the project and opportunities offered to teachers and…

As digital educational media use becomes more widespread, an opportunity exists to develop new methods to present abstract ideas to provide a more meaningful learning experience. Drawing from psychology and dynamic visualization research, new interactive tools can be thoughtfully designed but it is also necessary to establish how these media are…

The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest turned education on its head this quarter. To keep students engaged, a plethora of techniques were employed, ranging from synchronous lectures and activities via the Zoom platform to the asynchronous online discussion board Piazza. Consideration of students' nonacademic struggles also…