LAUSR

In March of 2020, as New York City was becoming the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 3 authors, members of the Chemistry Department at Queensborough Community College—City University of New York, had 1 week to move their 13 lecture and laboratory sections of 4 different first-year undergraduate courses plus 2 active undergraduate research programs online. Students—some of whom live in the areas of New York City hardest hit by the pandemic and/or are employed as essential workers or caregivers or were learning in a challenging environment—attended synchronous and/or asynchronous lectures and laboratories for the second half of the semester. Five percent of the 262 students in their classes were unable to complete the semester for undetermined technology, access, or personal reasons. While the authors feel that a redesign of the laboratory experience is necessary to satisfy general education outcomes if online laboratories are to continue in the long term, lecture students performed well post-transition. Students whose performance was 5–12% lower on exams in Spring 2020 than Fall 2019 (pre-COVID) performed 12–25% better following the transition to online learning, although academic integrity remains a matter of great concern. The authors caution that the crisis-response distance education offered in the second half of the Spring 2020 semester was only that, and further effort will be necessary as online learning continues. The prior online experience of the faculty members varied, but all found it both a stressful transition and a valuable exercise in altering their pedagogical approaches for the future.