Abrupt disruptions to academia, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020, have brought unprecedented challenges in teaching, yet it has brought many lessons, driving the development of strategies in response to the crisis. The general chemistry laboratory course is often considered difficult to teach, due to students' heterogeneous chemistry…

While project laboratories have become a staple in analytical chemistry courses, Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has forced many universities to adopt an online instruction model, which raises challenges in creating quality content that matches the learning objectives of the course. Here we describe the transition of an inquiry-based project lab from…

During the final week of winter quarter, the University of California, Irvine announced all exams would be online and the following quarter would be delivered remotely. This necessitated a course-wide common final with over 2000 students scheduled to be moved online. For the following quarter, the move to remote instruction included three…

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, an online inorganic chemistry course for engineering students was set up at Zhejiang University for the 2020 spring semester. In this study, we will be using this course as an example of how to offer efficient methods for online teaching in chemistry. Applications such as DingTalk, WeChat, and the Learning@ZJU Web…

With a sudden move to remote and online teaching due to COVID-19 pandemic, Organic Chemistry became more challenging for both students and educators with the emergence of new technological challenges and instructional strategies. The Organic Chemistry I class at SUNY Plattsburgh was shifted to an online learning model in an attempt to mimic…

In response to China's Ministry of Education's directive for "postponement of school without suspension of learning" to combat the spread of COVID-19, we commenced online classes at Shandong University. Teaching in an online environment presented a number of challenges in comparison with face-to-face instruction. A key question raised…

Against the background of many studies focusing either on scientific reasoning or views on the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI), the aim of this article is to present and empirically analyse a framework that associates these central science education constructs. Based on the idea of inquiry methods, the "ScieNo"-framework includes…

We present an experiment designed to hone the decision-making skills of (undergraduate) chemistry students by using aqueous crossed aldol reactions. Here, we present two simple crossed aldol reactions based on inexpensive and readily available materials: The condensation of vanillin and cinnamaldehyde with acetone. The procedure uses the variation…

Light is used ubiquitously across science and engineering to explore, characterise, understand matter, and catalyse processes. Relative to its utility in science and engineering, very little research has been conducted on how students develop an understanding of light-matter interactions, especially at the quantum level, which is necessary to…

The use of the flipped classroom approach in higher education STEM courses has rapidly increased over the past decade, and it appears this type of learning environment will play an important role in improving student success and retention in undergraduate chemistry "gatekeeper" courses. Many adopters of the flipped classroom structure…

Discipline-based educational research (DBER) has shown that three instructional techniques--Supplemental Instruction (SI), Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL)--can be effective ways of improving student performance in chemistry courses at the K-12 or college/university levels. The goal of this paper…

Advances in nanotechnology have drawn attention to nanotechnology education. The aim of this study is to determine awareness, exposure, and knowledge levels of science (physics, chemistry and biology) teachers about nanoscience and nanotechnology. Teachers (N=624) from secondary schools in Turkey comprised the working group. Descriptive methods…

The impression that many preservice chemistry teachers demonstrate issues in the application of their pedagogical content knowledge in teaching practice, especially in the area of fundamental chemistry topics, served as motivation for changes to the Chemistry Education 2 course curriculum. In order to stimulate pedagogical content knowledge, the…

Bringing design practices to chemistry education is gaining interest with recent science curriculum reforms emphasising design, and calls for integrated STEM education. Design is a central practice in the chemistry discipline, and could foster meaningful chemistry education. Although chemistry teachers are key in bringing design to chemistry…

Whether students view intelligence as a fixed or malleable trait (i.e., their "mindset") has significant implications for their responses to failure and academic outcomes. Despite a long history of research on mindset and its growing popularity, recent meta-analyses suggest that mindset does a poor job of predicting academic outcomes for…