Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Escape a Remote Virtual Stereochemistry Lab Together

Abstract

The quest in the “Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Which Chiral Drug Is the Fairest of Them All?” escape room activity was to find an enantiomer drug that cures a “sleeping sickness”. Based loosely on the story of Snow White, first-year pharmacy student pairs had 50 min to solve gamified stereochemistry quizzes (tasks 1–4), collect four letter clues to unlock the final puzzle, and escape the lab. The escape room activity was held after a synchronous instructor-led lab briefing. Guided by the revised Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, the synchronous practical session leveraged a combination of three online platforms: Miro Board, Quizizz, and Google Forms in the Cisco Webex virtual environment. The Cisco Webex’s breakout room feature helped facilitate teamwork and communication during the escape room game. Students’ responses during the debriefing session indicated enhanced students’ interactions and remote learning experiences throughout the virtual stereochemistry practical during the COVID-19 pandemic.