Transitioning to Remote Lab Instruction: A summary from Spring 2020 and a look to the future
Dr. Alexandra Werth
Postdoc, Department of Physics
University of Colorado
Due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities across the U.S. have rapidly transitioned to teaching labs remotely during the beginning of 2020. These unfortunate circumstances pose an opportunity to measure the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning in lab courses. We used a mixed methods approach (i.e., using both quantitative and qualitative methods) to identify and categorize the variety of strategies taken by instructors to enable students to access laboratory-like learning remotely. Through E-CLASS-P, a validated survey which assesses students views about their strategies, habits of mind, and attitudes when doing experiments in lab classes plus additional questions on students’ remote lab experiences, and an instructor survey, we collected thousands of student responses and over a hundred of instructor responses across the country. We will present our initial results, which identify the common themes, challenges, and successes that faculty and students faced and reflect on how this may inform best practices in remote lab instruction.
All interested persons are invited to attend remotely—email physics@nd.edu for information.
Originally published at physics.nd.edu.