Ideas for supporting student-centered stem learning through remote labs: a response

Abstract

This paper is in response to the article entitled “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review” by Zacharia et al. (2015). In their review, Zacharia et al. (2015) adopted de Jong and Lazondo’s (2014) framework of five inquiry phases for online labs: orientation, conceptualization, investigation, conclusion, and discussion. Zacharia et al. reviewed the literature on Computer-supported Inquiry Learning (CoSIL), and identified best practices for each phase. They concluded, for example, that the orientation/conclusion/discussion phases received the least amount of guidance, while there were many more tools and strategies for providing guidance in the conceptualization/investigation phases. In this paper, we adopt the same inquiry framework as Zacharia et al. (2015) and report strategies that we learned from STEM faculty about how they supported and guided virtual student lab-based learning in these five phases during the recent COVID-19 shutdown. While Zacharia et al. identified tools and processes for enabling all five inquiry phases, add additional practical examples of faculty implementing these phases online as part of COVID-19 emergency remote teaching, and we provide insights for extending the 5-phase framework for future research.