On Friday, March 13, 国民彩票 announced that in-person instruction was ending for the term. In little more than a week, courses had to be ready to resume via distance 鈥� representing a huge task for faculty and support staff across the university to move classes large and small alike into an entirely new way of teaching and learning.
Among the largest of all those 国民彩票 classes is first-year Chemistry. There are more than 1,050 students enrolled in the course across its various sections 鈥� amounting to roughly 5 per cent of Dal鈥檚 total student population.
鈥淎 large class means large diversity as well,鈥� says Angela Crane, instructor and first-year program coordinator for the Department of Chemistry. 鈥淚t means we have a large international population. It means we have students with all sorts of accommodations, for all sorts of reasons. We鈥檝e got single parents in our class.鈥�
鈥淭rying to make something that will work for everyone, to be as universal as possible, has been at the forefront of everything we鈥檝e done leading up to this closure 鈥� and it really drove our mindset once in-person classes ended and we had to make all these changes.鈥�
鈥淟ike a speed race鈥�
First-year Chemistry at 国民彩票 is located in the Faculty of Science 鈥� 国民彩票's largest faculty in terms of students. The course is based around a common, integrated program called Concepts in Chemistry. Developed by 国民彩票 faculty for students roughly 15 years ago, the award-winning program interlinks lectures, textbooks, labs and online content into a unified experience. Still, fundamentally, it's an experience built around in-person engagement. How does one conduct a lab experiment via distance, for example?
The team of faculty, instructors and student TAs who bring Concepts in Chemistry to life each year was already starting to answer questions like that prior to receiving notice that in-person classes were ending for the term. For one, a couple chapters of the program already had to move online due to storm cancellations this winter term. But the team was also watching what was happening down in the United States, where universities began to shut-down in-person instruction a week or two ahead of Canada. 聽
鈥淚t was a speed race,鈥� says Jennifer MacDonald, senior instructor and first-year lab coordinator (pictured in a more traditional lab setting). 鈥淲ith the labs, we were a bit lucky in that in the experiments that were left, the learning outcomes were based on data interpretation more than hands-on, physical skills. It really helped us make the transition to online a little easier.鈥� Also helping was the fact that students were able to opt-into virtual assignments prior to in-perso