Abstract
Most of the available information on studying under the challenging conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic emphasizes a variety of aspects on how to digitalize the whole teaching process. Thus, several useful and potentially game-changing strategies have been reported recently. In contrast to the digitalization of teaching, in this article, we focus on the reverse process: transitioning back to offline teaching, which is unavoidable especially for the acquisition of practical skills during chemistry studies. In this work, we describe our own experience acquired during the Organic Chemistry practical course at the University of Vienna, which was held in June 2020 and onwards. The article contains descriptions of precautions and measures that were taken, additional materials, and necessary changes made in order to safely continue on-site course teaching. We anticipate that this set of precautions can be used in an adapted fashion for any type of laboratory course. Further, we offer a critical analysis of students’ and instructors’ opinions concerning the changes and well-being during the course. Those opinions were collected via a detailed survey. From our experience, with careful planning and responsible behavior, a return to on-site education is possible and warmly welcomed by all involved participants. The detailed description of our course may also be useful for those who need to start a new organic laboratory course or want to improve an existing one.
Highlights
The current pandemic has had a large worldwide impact on education.1 Most lectures and seminars have been converted into online courses, with vast amounts of information and guidelines having been published on this topic.2−7 Since lectures and seminars are the main vehicles by which education takes place in all fields of study, information is available from many different sources
As it is a discipline that is critically dependent on experimental work, laboratory courses are an essential part of chemical education.13−15 This is especially important since the encountered challenges rarely start during the demonstration of a new technique but rather when gaining the first hands-on experience
The Advanced Laboratory Course in Organic Chemistry at the University of Vienna was carried out successfully during the COVID-19 pandemic, relying on several adaptations to ensure a minimal risk of infection
Summary
The current pandemic has had a large worldwide impact on education. Most lectures and seminars have been converted into online courses, with vast amounts of information and guidelines having been published on this topic.− Since lectures and seminars are the main vehicles by which education takes place in all fields of study, information is available from many different sources. A possible transfer of the oral exams to an online format was not realized since online exams would need to take place outside of the hours spent in the laboratory and in turn lead to increased working hours for both instructors and students Another reason for the invention of a new format was that online discussions about organic chemistry are not straightforward due to the difficulties that arise when drawing chemical structures especially in the case of comparatively inexperienced students. There is a short oral introduction on “where to find what” on the first course day and all locations of the necessary equipment and chemicals are presented It always takes time until the students remember where to find their materials. In our case, the performed changes were mostly wellperceived, which can be seen from the answers to the open question concerning changes that people want to keep in the future (Table 3)
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