Reflections on Multimodal Delivery of a Laboratory Course for Nonscience Majors and Opportunities for Improved Student Engagement

A rudimentary level of scientific literacy is necessary in the general public. At the undergraduate level, this literacy can be achieved through general education courses offered in areas of natural sciences. Over the past several years, practical courses have been developed to make the teaching of chemistry concepts in the laboratory more interesting and appealing to nonscience majors. This article provides insights and reflections from teaching a general education, liberal arts chemistry course at a private university using different teaching delivery modes during a pandemic. Specifically, the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed faculty to deviate from the traditional face-to-face delivery and explore the use of virtual delivery, experimentation at home, and hybrid instruction to meet learning objectives. The article reflects on the lessons from this experience to improve course delivery and student engagement in science laboratory courses for nonscience majors.