Effective Virtual Teaching through the Interactive and Inexpensive Teaching Laboratory Data Management (TLDM) System

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted a significant number of on-campus and in-person activitiesto an online, virtual setting. This has caused difficulty in achieving the same learning outcomes in the absence of in-person interaction, particularly for lab courses. In 2014, the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at The University of British Columbia developed and implemented a Teaching Laboratory Data Management (TLDM) system to improve the delivery andeffectiveness of lab-based courses. The TLDM system guides students through experimental calculations and automates a significant amount of grading for instructors. The TLDM system aided the department to better adapt to online lab courses and was integral to the virtual instruction of lab courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through conducting surveys and group feedback sessions with students, teaching assistants (TAs) and instructors, we found that the TLDM systemhas been well received by all three groups of stakeholders for use in online lab courses, and provides several key benefits. Namely, it helps students understand the calculations involved in experiments and provides an effective substitute for in-person lab activities, while reducing workload for TAs and instructors. The TLDM system can potentially be a great tool to complementonline courses around the world in an inexpensive way.