The Impact of Laboratory Exercises on Undergraduate Learning Outcomes in Online STEM General Education Courses Among Working Adult and Returning Students

Studies in online STEM education have shown the benefits of instructional platforms enhancing communication and students’ engagement. Despite the relevance of these platforms as communicative tools to support online learning, this instructional technology alone has limitations to ensure an equitable learning environment for online asynchronous students. Mathematics online education has been studied for decades; however, scarce research has focused on how the complement of an instructional platform and an instructional team may promote participation and enhance students' performance. In our study, we explored this connection in the context of an online asynchronous math course across eight semesters. We studied how students' participation and performance were influenced by the introduction of an instructional team followed by the use of Microsoft Teams. Our findings showed that the combination of these technological and human resources (Microsoft Team and an instructional team) favored online students over the main campus students enrolled in the course in the different areas studied. We hope our findings inform online math teaching to improve students' learning experience and provide new research opportunities to study the reasons behind the differences found in this study. Keywords: Mathematics Education, Learning Assistants, Online Learning, undergraduate.