For many years, Xavier University of Louisiana (Xavier) has been a leader in educating underrepresented minority students who successfully transition into postgraduate degree programs in STEM and eventually into STEM-based careers in research, healthcare, and beyond. Striving to meet the needs of women and minority students who continue to be underrepresented in STEM careers, the two-semester General Chemistry course at Xavier has been structured to incorporate elements of inclusive teaching that help students build self-efficacy in the sciences. Specifically, these elements include (i) course coordination that is guided by a customized text, (ii) a drill system that incorporates student collaboration and near-peer mentorship, (iii) peer tutoring, and (iv) intentional faculty advising with early academic alerts. While the course demands a high academic standard, General Chemistry at Xavier also incorporates sympathetic formative assessments that allow students to remediate errors in a peer-led environment. This paper details the inclusive approach of General Chemistry at Xavier and how the course helps students persist in the sciences through purposefully facilitating the construction of a community support network around all students in science.
A primary motivation for this study was to compare student perceptions and performance within a virtual learning environment to the traditional in-person learning experience for the General Chemistry II course taught during a 5-week summer session at Xavier University of Louisiana, a minority serving institution. The authors present quantitative and qualitative analyses including the comparison of student performance on exams during the COVID-19 remote learning experience with exam performance over a 3-year period of conventional in-person instruction. In this article, student grades, survey feedback, and learning outcomes are outlined. This study was performed to assist the faculty in improving and enriching the course content and its delivery, as they coped with the transition to a virtual learning environment imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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