A pandemic-resilient open-inquiry physical science lab course which leverages the Maker movement

TL;DR

This paper presents a resilient open-inquiry physical science lab course leveraging the Maker movement, which successfully transitioned to online learning during COVID-19, maintaining student engagement and research quality.

Contribution

It introduces a pandemic-resilient course design based on open-inquiry projects, Arduino tools, and flipped classroom methods, applicable beyond traditional campus settings.

Findings

All students completed successful research projects despite online transition.

Open-inquiry and Arduino use enhanced student engagement and research quality.

The course design offers advantages for future flexible science education.

Abstract

Without any major changes, a pilot version of a physical science lab course was able to continue when the COVID-19 crisis necessitated the abrupt suspension of on-campus education. The 'Maker Lab' course, in which students conceive and set up their own experiments using affordable microcontrollers, required students to follow the entire arc of an empirical research cycle twice. The decision for and facilitation of such open-inquiry projects was based on and warranted by the literature on teaching the process of experimental research and methods of scientific research. The flipped classroom approach was used, where contact time is devoted to discussions and the students' actual experiments were carried out independently at home or elsewhere without the in-person supervision of an instructor. Despite the COVID-19 measures, all students were able to produce interesting and successful research projects. While there were of course difficulties encountered due to the abrupt transition to online teaching, we found several counterbalancing advantages that bear consideration for inclusion even when all teaching activities can return to campus. We believe that three components in the design of the course were vital to the resilience of the course: the choice for fully open-inquiry projects, the decision to use Arduinos as measurement tools, and the flipped aspect of the instruction methods. We also include considerations for adapting these pandemic-resilient methods in other courses and programs.