COVID-19 has thrust educators into a period of uncertainty, complicating conventional ways of teaching and learning. We suspect that the pandemic has magnified the challenges that some high school teachers already experience, particularly when they are the sole chemistry teacher at their school. The pandemic has likely inhibited collegial interactions and access to professional development (PD). Our reflections from redesigning a face-to-face PD program to one that is remotely delivered provide recommendations that advance PD accessibility and interactivity to mitigate isolation and other longstanding challenges teachers may face. In this article, we discuss how the cognitive learning model informed emergent teaching practices that guided the transformation of the PD’s implementation for 20 high school chemistry teachers. Our reflections on the PD’s strengths, areas for improvement, and insights alongside participant feedback provide enduring guidelines for fellow teacher educators. Specifically, we forward the importance of conceptualizing theory-informed design principles first, and then modifying the delivery with appropriate tools and technologies. As PD facilitators, we also draw attention to the necessity for flexibility. Remaining open to adaptation during implementation is crucial to advance teacher learning and engagement. We hope our process for how and why our PD program was redesigned will inspire future teacher educators to explore new, postpandemic ways of maximizing high-quality PD experiences.

In an increasingly online world, multimedia content for instructional use in chemistry is abundant. It can be difficult to discern a good resource from a poor one, even if the chemistry content in the video is accurate (which it may not be). Sound chemistry content alone does not guarantee that the videos were made with best principles in mind according to evidence-based research. Multiple authors have proposed guidelines for multimedia use and learning which are supported by research in cognitive and educational psychology. Herein we used Mayer’s Multimedia Principles (MMP) to evaluate instructional chemistry videos across three topics (Chemical Bonding, Acids and Bases, and Intermolecular Forces) from multiple YouTube content creators (51 in total). We found that most videos included extraneous images and sounds which may be distracting to the viewer, in direct violation of Mayer’s Coherence principle. For the three chemistry topics under study, no statistical differences were found in their adherence to MMP. However, there were significant differences regarding the use of extraneous images and sounds when disaggregated by content creator. This work has implications for both teachers and learners of chemistry in selecting multimedia that is cognitively supportive to learning.