Teaching organic nomenclature for pharmacy students: Adapting a course to online mode during COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: Due to the confinement of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational centres have remained closed, transferring the teaching process to online mode, thus adapting infrastructure, methodologies, and the university community. Objectives: This work aims to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies in learning organic nomenclature and seek student opinions about committing fraud in organic chemistry course assessments in the online mode in the pharmaceutical career. Methods: The methodologies used allowed the students to understand and apply the organic nomenclature rules, using online collaborative guides and crosswords worked in synchronous classes, previous reading, and the collaborative asynchronous creation of informative files for the recognition of heterocyclic compounds and formative assessment. All assessments were applied in three-people groups in the synchronous classes. Finally, an anonymous survey was administered to know the student perception of the possibility of fraud during the course. Results: A substantial improvement (from 47.7% to 80.5%) was observed in the application of IUPAC rules for organic compounds. Of the students who responded to the anonymous survey, 81% reported that the methodology used decreased the opportunity to commit fraud during assessments.