Discussion-Based Labs

 
        The Main Idea
        This page is based on the following section, about reflection activities, quoted from Aesop's Activities: Teaching for Goal-Directed Education:

        A goal-directed approach to instruction has two main components: activities that promote educationally useful experience (as discussed above), and (in this section) methods that help students learn more from their experience — and remember what they have learned, and transfer this knowledge to new situations — by directing their attention to "what can be learned" from each experience.  How can a teacher do this?  By using reflection activities that encourage students to think about what they are doing and why, about the possibilities for learning.
        According to Webster's Dictionary, reflection is "a fixing of the mind on some subject; serious thought; contemplation."  A teacher can encourage reflection with activities that are explicit or implicit.  In an explicit reflection activity, a teacher directs attention to what can be learned, and explains why a student should want to take advantage of this valuable opportunity.  In an implicit reflection activity, a teacher directs attention to a learning opportunity by a request for action, such as discussing a question, that shifts a student from a minimally aware "going through the motions" mode to a more aware "active thinking" mode.

        Here is a practical application of reflection,

        Using Discussions to Stimulate Thinking
        While serving as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Wisconsin, I tried a teaching experiment in the second semester of a physics course.  Instead of the traditional method used in the first semester, with students writing a lab report that isn't graded until the lab is over, we converted the writing into talking.
        Although the specific technique described below — using a grid to provide structure for a lab — was a new idea for me, it is just a variation on an old theme.  The general strategy of using discussions to stimulate active thinking is common in education, so you probably have experience (as a student or teacher, or both) with this approach to learning.
        To prepare for a Discussion Based Lab you split a lab into parts and develop mini-activities (observations, data analysis, calculations, questions about concepts,...) for each part.  During the lab, when students working in a group finish the activities for Part 1 they call you over to discuss what they have done.  When everyone is satisfied that the discussion is over, you make an X in one cell of a discussion grid (shown below for Group C) and they move on to Part 2.  When a group has X's for each part of the lab, they are free to leave.

        Discussion-Based Labs are especially valuable in goal-directed education when a teacher designs activities that lead to achieving educational goals, as outlined in Aesop's Activities for Goal-Directed Education.
 

 
        The rest of this page discusses actual benefits and potential (but perhaps not actual) disadvantages.

        Actual Benefits (for Students and Teachers)
        Most students enjoy these labs because — in contrast with their first-semester traditional lab in which they write reports and get feedback that is not very detailed and is delayed — now they get thought-stimulating feedback that is detailed and immediate, while they're doing the lab and are actively thinking about it.  Due to this constructive feedback and their increased interactions with the teacher and with each other, the students learn more and they have more fun.
        For similar reasons, these labs are also educational and enjoyable for the teacher.  My own learning and fun increased due to the discussions, and because the time I would have spent on a boring, unpleasant task (grading lab books) was invested in a productive activity (preparing for labs) that was intellectually stimulating and enjoyable.  During each lab the teaching was more effective and satisfying because it was easy to give students the immediate, customized, detailed feedback that, as a conscientious teacher, I wanted to provide.  With a no-grading policy, during our discussions I could focus my total attention on teaching (rather than judging), and students could focus on learning rather than being judged. {teacher vs judge}  This produced a learning environment that was very effective, in many different ways.  For example, I could ask and answer any question freely, thinking only about what was best for the students.  When I did decide to withhold information (by asking a question instead of giving a direct answer) my only motivation was pedagogical, and the purpose was to challenge students, to make them think, to let them play a more active role in their own learning.  I never had to worry about whether I was "giving away too much information" (to one group but not others) about a question that later would be used to assign a grade for the lab.  It was a very freeing experience for me and for my students.

 
        Potential (but not actual?) Problems
        In this section, two questions are discussed, to show why potential problems may not be actual problems.

First,
        Labs that are discussion-based (DB) are an effective way to provide frequent reflection activities, to produce more learning and more fun for students.  But if the quality of their lab experience depends on interactions with a teacher, what happens when students get a teacher with less ability, experience, or motivation?  { note: In the rest of this section, some comments are oriented toward a large college course in which labs (and discussions) are taught by many different TAs, but these comments may also be useful — with appropriate "personally customized modifications" by the reader — for teachers who are totally in charge of their own course. }
        I'll begin by describing my own experience, before moving into generalizations.
        I'm fairly shy in many situations, but I enjoy thinking and talking about ideas.  For me, DB labs make interactions with students much easier, more enjoyable, and more effective for teaching.  Why?  If there is no "reason" to talk with students, and everything depends on my own social intuitions and actions, I often find it difficult to achieve a balance between ignoring students and bothering them with too much attention.  But with motivation provided by the grid, which must be filled with Xs before they can leave the lab, students initiate conversations.  And our discussions have a clear intellectual focus: their own experiences and "what they can learn" about chemistry concepts and thinking skills.  Usually, talking about these topics is interesting and educational for all of us, and it also leads to small-talk that produces social and emotional bonding, both student-teacher and student-student.  DB provides a useful organizing structure for interactions that lead to learning and to an improved rapport between everyone in the learning community that we're building.
        Consider four types of teachers in DB labs: ... [The original full-length page explains why DB is not a disadvantage for students with any of these TAs.] ...
        In a course with many TAs, will all students have teachers who are equally good in DB labs?  No.  There will be variations in lab, with or without DB, just as there are variations in discussion sections.  But the main goal should not be consistency, which can never be fully achieved.  It is much more important to ask a pragmatic question:  Will "the greatest good for the greatest number" be promoted by discussion-based labs?

Second,
        At the end of a lab, a discussion grid that is totally filled with Xs provides no basis for distinguishing among students when assigning lab grades.  Is this a significant problem?
        If labs are part of a course (instead of the entire focus of a course), what are the options for weighting the lab grades within the course?        Compared with traditional grading policies, labs could be assigned:  1. more weight,  2. the same weight,  3. less weight,  4. no weight.   { Yes, #4 is an option.  In four semesters of teaching physics in two different courses, I never assigned a lab grade, and this seemed to work fine. }   DB labs can be used with any of these grading policies.  But my experience indicates that DB is more compatible, both philosophically and practically, with 3 or 4.
        What are the connections between external accountability, motivation, and learning?  If lab grades are weighed less heavily, as in Options 3 or 4, will this hinder learning?  Maybe.  Or maybe not, because:
        When a lab is closely integrated with a course, the exams can be designed to test the scientific concepts and thinking skills that are being learned in labs.  Or there can be separate exams for the lab, as discussed below.
        There can still be external accountability, even with a policy of "no official grading."  Just let students know that labs will affect their course grade negatively if they skip labs or are uncooperative in attitudes or actions, or positively if they do noticably good work in labs, especially if they are on a borderline between grades.  { In my experience, most students have been consistently cooperative and attentive.  Although external compliance does not guarantee full internal attention, it is an encouraging indicator. }
        Internal motivation can exist without external accountability.  During DB labs I emphasize that, for students who will be rewarded for thinking in their professional careers (and in life as a whole) there is a high intrinsic value in learning how to think more skillfully.  Internal motivations, which result in a pursuit of goal-directed intentional learning for long-term personal gain, are probably not correlated with grading policies.  { I'm not sure about the correlations, although there is some research showing that external rewards and internal attitudes can be inversely correlated, due to "cognitive dissonance" reasoning that occurs due to a desire to be internally consistent as an integrated whole person. }  Of course, the intrinsic value of learning should be strongly emphasized, no matter what grading policy is adopted.

        TEACHER vs JUDGE:  When I'm grading part of a lab, it's difficult to be fair to all students — by providing equal information about a question that will be graded — and also provide optimal teaching.  For example, if I see a pair of students doing something wrong, should I ask them about it and (with some mixture of questions, hints, and explanations, aiming for optimal "coaching") help them understand what they were doing wrong and how to think about it in a better way?  Or should I let them continue doing it wrong so I can take points off during the lab report, which they'll see the next week when their "teachable moment" is far in the past?  My instincts as a teacher are to teach NOW, during the lab while they're thinking, deciding, and doing, but if I'm also a judge this is more difficult and my effectiveness as a teacher is diminished.

        { In the original full-length page, the section above continues with a discussion of possibilities for grading labs including the "separate exams" mentioned above. }   With a careful, creative design of instruction, we can maximize the benefits of DB and minimize the disadvantages that could occur but (with good design) probably won't occur.

After writing this page, I've thought about creative possibilities for "hybrid labs" with some goal knowledge (ideas and skills) being topics for discussions (that are minimally graded or are graded later) and some knowledge being "undiscussed" so it can be graded in traditional ways such as lab reports.   /   I haven't written anything yet about detailed applications of this idea, but the concept is fairly simple and you'll probably want to figure it out for yourself anyway.   :<)
 
 

this page is http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/teach/dblabs.htm

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