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Teaching and learning |
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1.11
Demonstrating in laboratories and practical classes
Introduction
Practical skills are an essential part of competence in some disciplines.
As well as developing these practical skills, good laboratory and practical work also helps students develop expertise in critical enquiry, problem solving, experimental design, data analysis and presentation, and a long list of important academic and professional abilities.
Laboratories and practical classes can also help students to develop the kinds of practical intelligence so highly valued by professionals in many fields, and by those who employ them.
Bad laboratory and practical classes can be mind-numbing exercises in recipe following (complete with results-cooking) which turn students off practical work, or even off the discipline itself.
What will this "first word' do?
It will help you to plan and conduct laboratory and practical classes which contribute to the learning outcomes of the course, and which stimulate the development of many of the positive qualities described in the introduction. It will also help you anticipate and overcome some problems in laboratory work.
Before you start detailed planning of the laboratory or practical session
What is your role in the class?
Are you there to:
- plan and run the whole class? In this case you need to collect all the information and make all the decisions described here. Talk to the course leader, and to the person who ran it last time, and to the laboratory technician. (Always talk to the technician.)
- plan and run the class with others? Get together with everyone responsible for the class (again including the technician) and plan who will do what and when and how.
- support a lecturer running the class? You guessed - talk to them about what they want from you. They may want you to do some combination of:
- patrolling half the lab looking for and solving student problems;
- reporting back to the lecturer on difficulties and questions which the lecturer needs to address to the class as a whole;
- being the resident expert on some parts of the content or some of the equipment while they deal with the rest.
Whatever your role, you’ll need to obtain all the lab sheets lab, protocols, outlines, questions sheets and answers and safety guides.
What is the purpose of the lab or practical class in which you are demonstrating?
It may be:
- to improve students' understanding of the methods of scientific enquiry through experiments or problem-solving activities
- to help students to develop a range of skills such as measurement, observation, reasoning, working in teams, notetaking and presenting work in a written form
- to support learning in lectures and seminars.
As you'll remember, laboratories and practicals can require a lot of concentration by students on the details of the particular task. You can help students to stay in touch with the big picture, the overall purpose, as they work.
How will the lab or practical class be assessed? By when? By whom?
The course documents or lab guides should tell you. If you have some role in assessment, get hold of marking schemes and try to obtain examples of assessed work, to see what assessment methods, standards, types of feedback, etc, are normal for this laboratory or practice. You don't have to follow them slavishly, but you need to know what the norms are.
A personal checklist
Your lab and practical checklist will probably include some of the following items, and some others which are special to the particular laboratory and subject. Make your own checklist -- it saves you having to start from scratch every time.
| Towards a laboratory or practical checklist
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Things:
- course document;
- lab or practical briefing sheets or proformas;
- notes or handouts for associated lecture(s);
- equipment manuals;
- lab or practical safety regulations and guides;
- equipment;
- consumables;
- protective clothing and equipment.
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Skills:
- can you use the equipment?
- can you demonstrate the use of the equipment?
- could you do and write up the laboratory or practical yourself?
- do you know the safety drills?
- do you know the underlying theory?
- do you know what the main problems students had last year were?
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Some problems and solutions
Students working at different paces
Can students leave when they've finished, or can you give the quick students additional (optional?) tasks to develop further their skills, or can they help out others who are moving more slowly?
Students not completing the experiment before the end of the lab
Can they stay on? Is there staff cover for the lab? Can they return and complete later? Is there a set of results they can be given so that they can complete the write up and analysis (albeit of someone else's results)?
The ideal demonstrator
Students have identified nine important characteristics of good demonstrators (as reported at the Engineering Professors’ Council workshop on effective laboratory teaching).
- They mark fairly and without bias to individual students.
- Their marking is consistent with that of other demonstrators.
- They relate the laboratory work to professional practice.
- They show good knowledge of techniques and skills.
- They give clear explanations -- when asked for.
- They criticise constructively, with clear explanation of errors.
- They support students and help their self-confidence.
- They admit to their own mistakes.
- They are approachable by students.
Evaluating your laboratory class
You could ask students to respond to the following statements (perhaps with others which reflect your own particular concerns). Ask students to give one of five responses to each statement:
I fully agree (1), I somewhat agree (2), I neither agree nor disagree (3), I somewhat disagree (4), I completely disagree (5).
- The laboratory work was wellorganised.
- The demonstrations were clear.
- The pace of instructions was too fast.
- The demonstrator spoke too softly.
- There was enough use of teaching aids.
- Theory and practice were linked.
Conclusion
You almost certainly have some responsibility for health and safety in a laboratory. Make sure you know what your responsibilities are, and that you have the skills and knowledge to discharge them. You are very likely to be called on for technical advice and help from students. Make sure you have at least some of the necessary technical skills and knowledge to deal with these. ("First word" 1.7 makes suggestions on how to deal with student questions.)
The laboratory or practical class is also the place where students are inducted into the craft, the ways of working, the ways of practical thinking and problemsolving which characterise their discipline. They will learn as much from your approach to questions and problems and equipment as from your specific answers. In the laboratory or practical, model good practice in your disciplines, profession or craft.
Last modified: Friday, 24-Jul-09 09:29:26 BST