Thursday, October 27, 2011

Clear Learning Outcomes

[Author's note:  These subjects have been taken from the goals in America's Lab Report, a groundbreaking report from the National Research Council.  The text and images explain how authentic online science lab experiences meet those goals.]

Design of lab includes clearly stated learning outcomes.
sample goals and objectives
sample activity plan header
Every one of these virtual labs has a full activity plan to support teacher and curriculum writers. The first image above is the header for the plan and includes the purpose and goals of the lab for use by the teacher. The second image is taken from an introduction to one of the lab units and will be seen by both students and teachers.

© 2012 by Smart Science Education Inc., U.S.A. www.smartscience.net

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Mastery of Subject Matter

[Author's note:  These subjects have been taken from the goals in America's Lab Report, a groundbreaking report from the National Research Council.  The text and images explain how authentic online science lab experiences meet those goals.]

Enhance student understanding of specific scientific facts and concepts and the way in which these facts and concepts are organized in the scientific disciplines.

example experiment showing mastery of subject matter, wqrm up example experiment showing mastery of subject matter, quiz
example experiment showing mastery of subject matter, vocabulary
In order to use science lab experiences to aid subject matter mastery, labs must have supporting material that helps students. At the upper left, you can see a reduced image of a warm up page. This page includes a brief description, goals and objectives, and a series of questions designed so that students begin to think about the topic and, possibly, to challenge their preconceptions. At the upper right is the beginning of a post-lab quiz that helps students to consider the science investigated with the experiments. Students can review their experimental work and support materials during this quiz.
The lower image shows the vocabulary and scientist mini-biography taken from the same Cell Respiration lab. The vocabulary list links to a hyperlinked list of all words related to this lab.
Not shown above is the Procedure page, which has additional background material on this lab, a procedure discussion when warranted, and information on errors, graphs, apparatus, units, and more. Also not shown are the fully worked out solutions for all quiz questions and the Solution Strategy page that explains principles in more detail and provides some sample worked-out problems.
All of this material creates a greater mastery of the science illustrated by the experiments being performed by the students.

© 2012 by Smart Science Education Inc., U.S.A. www.smartscience.net

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Definition of "Laboratory Experience"

Definition of a Laboratory Experience


"Laboratory experiences provide opportunities for students to interact directly with the material world (or with data drawn from the material world), using the tools, data collection techniques, models, and theories of science."

This definition forms the critical basis for all of the goals specified in America's Lab Report according to Prof. Susan Singer, the lead author of the report. All data from science labs must originate in the material world. That definition does not provide for data that originates from a programmer's pencil: simulations.

Simulations can have pedagogical value, but this value does not include substituting for true laboratory experience no matter how well designed or well integrated the simiulation is.

I will be providing examples of online activities meeting the goals of America's Lab Report that all use data that originates in the material world. In some instances, the online activities have been augmented by hands-on experiments that provide another dimension of experience to students.

© 2015 by Smart Science Education Inc., U.S.A. www.smartscience.net
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