Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Chapter 19 Laboratory Instruction: Ensuring an Active Learning Experience “Lab teaching assumes that firsthand experience is superior to other method of developing the same skills” (pg. 277). Like all types of effective instruction, labs should be student centered, engaging and involve active learning strategies. Svinicki and McKeachie discuss how to facilitate this in chapter 19 of their book, McKeachie’s teaching tips (2014). There are a variety of styles of laboratory instruction, including expository, inquiry, discovery, and problem based learning (PBL). In brief summary, expository is a convergent style, with a “cookbook” approach of following the given instructions and finding the correct answer.. Inquiry has no predetermined outcome, and students are allowed to formulate problems. Discovery, also known as guided inquiry, has a prescribed outcome, with students design and input. The final category is problem based learning, commonly known as PBL, where students generate their own questions and conduct an authentic investigation. These categories are original to Domin, 1999, but referenced in the Svinicki & McKeachie text. Further, the chapter talks about convergent assignment labs with one right answer versus divergent labs which are open ended and allow interpretation. Another comparison is a “wet” lab, with hands on experiments and student data collection, contrasted with a “dry” lab, in which students receive the data but do not actually do the experiment. Their task is to interpret and analyze that data. There are advantages to each, according to the research. A final category for labs is studio instruction. This is a hybrid method combining lab and lecture in the same place, to allow for real world experiences connection to the academic instruction. This chapter is practical for anyone who teaches. It includes a brief discussion of how labs fit not only into traditional science courses, but that a lab can be diverse and can fit into other subjects as well, including but not limited to history, math, and writing. I feel it’s important to note that hands on labs are typically effective methods of instruction for minority students. “Seymour and Hewitt (1977) showed that the most effective way to improve retention among women and students of color, and to build their numbers over the longer term, is to improve the quality of the learning experience for all students – including non-science majors who wish to study science and mathematics as part of their overall education.” (pg. 284) Having taught middle school science for a number of years, I have first-hand experience with each of these lab types. I personally prefer the wet lab over the dry, because I feel students learn more when they are doing the experiment, but I also understand the need for dry labs if there is a time constraint or the amount of data to be collected is quite large, or the lab is extensively time consuming. Additionally, safety must be considered, and a dry lab allows for mistakes without harm. The use of technology in either is motivating to students, and allows for ease in data collection and analysis. I had not considered the divergent versus convergent lab style, and doing so now can see value in both. Sharing the knowledge of those who came before is important, to build a foundation on which to further explore. But fostering creativity and exploration in a unique individual is critical. I believe these can be combined, by scaffolding labs and lessons.
2 Comments
11/5/2015 05:37:11 pm
Do you consider the Level 1 or Level 3 field experience to be a form of laboratory learning? Why or why no?
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Denise Donahue
11/12/2015 06:35:09 pm
I consider both level 1 and 3 to be forms of lab learning as defined by Svinicki and McKeachie. We predict, participate in hands on learning, observe, collect data, analyze and reflect.
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