How COVID-19 Disrupted Our “Flipped” Freshman Organic Chemistry Course: Insights Gained from Singapore

COVID-19 has besieged academic institutions worldwide. As countries closed their international borders and imposed lockdowns, faculty have faced unprecedented challenges in finding alternative modes of teaching and assessment as replacements for the traditional face-to-face classes. In this piece, we describe the journey of the chemistry instructors in managing and overcoming the disruptions we faced teaching a freshman organic course in the time of tight safety measures. We describe the change in assessment modes in our course and the impacts of such changes to our students’ academic performance and to our faculty’s teaching feedback ratings.