Revisiting Distance Learning Resources for Undergraduate Research and Lab Activities during COVID-19 Pandemic

The rapid transition in teaching format due to COVID-19 gives rise to many challenges, especially for research and lab activities since they may require a different approach with more constrained resources compared with lecture-based courses, in which various virtual communication platforms have now been employed. As essential parts for students active learning, effective strategies to perform undergraduate research and lab courses during the current circumstance need to be carefully designed. To address this challenge, we have revisited different distance learning resources and implemented four critical methods in undergraduate research activity in our research groups, including question-driven literature review, visualizing experiments from virtual scientific resources, performing safe and simple home-lab experiments, and learning new computational tools. These approaches provide versatile opportunities for remotely engaging students in research and lab activities besides just participation in group meetings and scientific webinars. We believe insights gained from revisiting and implementing these resources could have a long-term positive impact for improving teaching and mentoring infrastructure for undergraduate lab activities post-COVID-19.