ABSTRACT
This paper is in response to the article entitled "Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review" by Zacharia et al. (2015). In their review, Zacharia et al. (2015) adopted de Jong and Lazondo's (2014) framework of five inquiry phases for online labs: orientation, conceptualization, investigation, conclusion, and discussion. Zacharia et al. reviewed the literature on Computer-supported Inquiry Learning (CoSIL), and identified best practices for each phase. They concluded, for example, that the orientation/conclusion/discussion phases received the least amount of guidance, while there were many more tools and strategies for providing guidance in the conceptualization/investigation phases. In this paper, we adopt the same inquiry framework as Zacharia et al. (2015) and report strategies that we learned from STEM faculty about how they supported and guided virtual student lab-based learning in these five phases during the recent COVID-19 shutdown. While Zacharia et al. identified tools and processes for enabling all five inquiry phases, add additional practical examples of faculty implementing these phases online as part of COVID-19 emergency remote teaching, and we provide insights for extending the 5-phase framework for future research.
ABSTRACT
Adapting to remote laboratory instruction as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic put chemistry instructors under a great deal of pressure. This extraordinary context may have forced instructors to make instructional decisions that were inconsistent with their espoused beliefs about teaching and learning chemistry, resulting in a feeling of deep pedagogical dissatisfaction. In this commentary, the author will describe the instructional decisions made relative to a large general chemistry laboratory course, and reflect on the degree of alignment between the instructor's beliefs and practices in two iterations of the course during the pandemic.