This paper examines the pedagogical integration of Virtual Microscopes (VMs) in Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), to identify best practice and improve online pedagogy. It has captured the perspectives of 12 Health and Earth Science university teachers, through in-depth interviews, about the current integration of the VM in online teaching,…

Across the landscape of higher education, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused fundamental changes at a variety of scales. To understand which aspects of higher education instruction at the departmental (meso-scale) level were most and least impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, chairs of geoscience departments at public higher education institutions in…

Organic chemistry is a cognitively demanding subject with persistently low student achievement. This review aimed to identify instructional strategies and educational technologies used to improve learning outcomes in organic chemistry across educational levels and learning environments. A systematic review of 40 experimental studies (2014-2023)…

This research shows that improved scientific reasoning and application of concepts occurred when creating and viewing student-crafted digital storytelling projects. By utilizing digital storytelling projects to showcase course competencies in an undergraduate biology course, students were able to apply subject matter outside the classroom. In this…

Learning synthetic biology is often seen as a far distant possibility, restricted to those who have the privilege of an academic career. We propose a student-centered discussion group around synthetic biology, aimed at people from high school onwards with different backgrounds to interact and learn about synthetic biology. We developed a 14-week…

Online learning is a well-established and growing, yet controversial and widely criticized, component of higher education. In this study, in-person and online versions of an undergraduate introductory biology class were compared to determine whether the online version of the course promoted student performance as well as the in-person course.…

Communication skills are one of the abilities required for 21st-century learning. Students must consider communication skills in learning because they can guide students in conveying ideas effectively and interacting and collaborating with others. This study aimed to investigate the online reading-concept mapping-reciprocal teaching (REMAP-RT)…

Due to the concern for COVID-19, universities in Korea switched to online teaching in most chemistry courses in the spring semester, 2020. While online lectures have been available for a small number of courses in the previous semesters, it is unprecedented that most lectures should be given online. In this communication, we describe how higher…

A significant consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic in higher education has been the almost universal switch to a completely online modality of teaching. This work evaluates the efforts taken in teaching a freshmen general chemistry course at IISER Tirupati to students in India during the pandemic. Instructors used a multipronged approach to…

For years, hybridization in chemistry has been taught using static pictures and model kits. We decided to reimagine how students learn hybridization through the development of a mobile learning tool. The tool contains gamification features, such as achievements and progressive leveling that keep students engaged, while the mobile platform allows…

Chemistry laboratory experiments are invaluable to students' acquisition of necessary synthetic, analytical, and instrumental skills during their undergraduate studies. However, the COVID-19 pandemic rendered face-to-face (f2f), in-person teaching laboratory experiences impossible from late 2019-2020 and forced educators to rapidly develop new…

In March 2020, over the course of less than 2 days, the author's university went from business as usual to suspending classes until weeks later and then completing the semester online. The author reflects on the changes to the mode of teaching, use of technology, problems with academic integrity, and class engagement. The most problematic issues…

The COVID-19 pandemic presented numerous challenges for all levels of the education system. In March 2020, virtually all colleges and universities in the United States moved all instruction to an online environment as a result of the pandemic. While this posed challenges for all faculty, it posed a particular challenge for those faculty members…

This communication presents a partial historical summary of some of Iowa State University's Chemistry Department teaching response to the shift to online course delivery caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The observations reflect discussions between and informal surveys of an instructor cohort that impacted roughly 1200 undergraduate students. These…

UC Merced's upper-division analytical chemistry course has been modified to include a series of Jupyter notebooks intended to introduce chemistry students to the Python computer language. These Jupyter notebooks were designed to cover a wide variety of topics common to quantitative and instrumental analysis. Assuming no prior programming…