Abstract:

Many university systems were forced to commit to remote or partially remote learning due to the COVID-19 sanitary situation, in order to reduce face-to-face teaching and learning risks. This paper shows the methodology used to reduce the face-to-face learning in the laboratory sessions of the Meteorology-Climatology subject taught, as a compulsory subject, in the second year of the Degree in Environmental Sciences offered by the University of Valencia, Spain.

Previously to the COVID-19, the teaching methodology involved guiding students to carry out hands-on practicals in pairs at laboratory, after explaining instrumentation and methodologies during the sessions. After the confinement, the face-to-face learning was reduced to 50 % in order to reduce the rate of students at laboratory (from 16 students working in pairs to just 8 students working individually per session). Laboratory practicals were conscientiously redesigned for it. Following the flipped classroom methodology, the explanations of the lab practicals were provided as audiovisual materials to students before the laboratory sessions. These materials were generated using the record screen facility of Microsoft PowerPoint. For that, a complete PowerPoint presentation for each lab practical was first made, including: the objectives, photos and description of the laboratory instrumentation, experimental methodologies, data acquisition and processing procedures, and results (with possible associated discussions) to be included and described in a report of the lab practical. Second, templates of spreadsheets were prepared for processing the data acquired during each practical. Third, we recorded videos explaining both the presentations and the data processing with the templates by using the mentioned record screen facility. After editing the recorded videos, they were uploaded to the MMedia videostreaming multimedia server of the University of Valencia, as a service implemented in the Virtual Classroom application for providing learning materials to students. The template and the link of the MMedia video for each lab practical were provided to the students at least one week before the corresponding laboratory session. The laboratory learning was evaluated through the laboratory reports delivered by the students one week after each of the practicals performed during the course.

With this methodology, the face-to-face sessions were reduced to 50 %, in which the 8 students that attended per session were well-spatially distributed in the laboratory to reduce personal contact. Students were encouraged to prepare the practical sessions by watching the videos through the MMedia service before attending the face-to-face sessions, in which students just acquired experimental data corresponding to two practicals per session using the laboratory instrumentation. The processing of the data and the preparation of reports, following the video explanations, were carried out by students as non-face-to-face learning activities.

Keywords:

Covid-19, partially remote learning, laboratory, flipped classroom.