Adoption of the Online Platforms Rain Classroom and WeChat for Teaching Organic Chemistry during COVID-19

In response to China’s Ministry of Education’s directive for “postponement of school without suspension of learning” to combat the spread of COVID-19, we commenced online classes at Shandong University. Teaching in an online environment presented a number of challenges in comparison with face-to-face instruction. A key question raised about online learning is its effectiveness in comparison with traditional instruction. In this paper, we describe a number of new pedagogical models of online teaching of organic chemistry based on the Rain Classroom and WeChat platforms and examine the design, implementation, and evaluation of online teaching modules. Lessons learned from our practice are presented to provide guidance to interested educators for future online teaching.