Leveraging Undergraduate Learning Assistants to Engage Students during Remote Instruction: Strategies and Lessons Learned from Four Institutions

As chemistry courses across the country transitioned to remote instruction during the Winter/Spring 2020 term because of the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching teams with undergraduate Learning Assistants (LAs) faced unique challenges to maintain active, collaborative, and inclusive class experiences. While technology access and limitations presented challenges, the technology available through learning management systems, group text-based messaging apps, and video conferencing enabled instructors and LAs to offer synchronous sessions during normally scheduled class time, delivery of asynchronous content, and continued student support. In this article, the collective experiences from general and organic chemistry courses taught with LAs at four institutions are described. Challenges, successes, and lessons learned at these institutions are summarized based on four themes: technology with general remote learning, changes in course structure teaching with LAs, changes in the ways LAs interact with instructors and students, and changes in the lives of the LAs. In many cases, LAs were essential to student success in these novel learning spaces.