Science Labs for Diverse Non-Major Community College Students: Equitable Strategies Developed During the COVID-19 Pandemic That Promote Student Engagement, Science Interest, and Science Identity

Science laboratory classes for diverse, non-major students at an urban community college are often times their first hands-on laboratory experience. The move to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic forced these classes to be taught in synchronous online settings and highlighted the need to adopt a more student-centered approach to best serve these students. We re-designed our college’s geology and plant science courses to adopt instructional approaches and pedagogies to support student learning and growth in an online setting and found that these changes vastly improved our courses. Strategies included making the courses and learning materials highly organized and self-contained and breaking instruction into segments of activity and discussion. We used place-based and culturally responsive pedagogies to allow students to connect the course materials to their local environments and celebrate their cultural diversity. We also changed our assessment to support engagement and participation. We continue to adopt these strategies in our classrooms today.