Remote Teaching of General Chemistry for Nonscience Majors during COVID-19

General chemistry, CHE 101, at Hampton University is an undergraduate course designed to meet curriculum requirements for nonscience majors. The four-credit course consists of a lecture and a laboratory, taken concurrently. The lecture consists of three 50 minute or two 75 minute sessions, and the laboratory consists of one 3 hour session every week. The first 8 weeks of the 2020 spring semester were taught face-to-face (F2F), but this changed to remote teaching and learning for the remainder of the semester because of COVID-19. The university canceled F2F teaching in mid-March, and the students went home with the instructions that remote teaching would commence the following week. In the meantime, the faculty received a crash course on virtual teaching using a digital learning platform, Blackboard Collaborate, to engage and assess students during the remote instruction. Access to other audio/video communication platforms like Zoom was available to faculty. Remote teaching was provided synchronously during the normal class meeting, and the sessions were recorded for future review by students. This communication reports on challenges and lessons learned during remote instruction.