Teaching labs during a pandemic: Lessons from Spring 2020 and an outlook for the future

TL;DR

This paper surveys lab instructors' adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic's shift to remote teaching, highlighting challenges, strategies, and lessons learned to inform future remote lab instruction.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of instructors' experiences and responses during emergency remote labs, offering insights for future implementation.

Findings

Various remote lab activities were implemented

Instructors faced significant communication challenges

Adaptations influenced future remote lab teaching strategies

Abstract

We report results from a survey of lab instructors on how they adapted their courses in the transition to emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this report is to share the experiences of instructors in order to prepare for future remote teaching of labs. We include summaries of responses to help illustrate the types of lab activities that were done, learning goals for the remote labs, motivations for instructors' choices, challenges instructors faced, and ways in which instructors and students communicated. This is a first step in a larger project as part of an NSF RAPID grant to understand what happened during the switch to remote labs and how it impacted teaching methods and student learning.