Friday, July 18, 2014

Tech Trends


As a science teacher, the advent of virtual laboratories for student use was the tech trend in the 2013 K-12 Horizon Report that I felt compelled to explore.  Few web-based advances have greater potential to re-shape how science is taught than virtual laboratories.  The benefits of inquiry-based labs and activities are myriad: student engagement and accountability levels skyrocket, as do understanding and familiarity with the science process.  The drawbacks, however, are significant enough to prevent most science teachers from adopting an inquiry-only approach in their classrooms.  Most notably, learning this way is costly, as supplies need to be continually restocked and replaced to allow for more student experimentation.  Even with unlimited resources and support, the time-intensive nature of inquiry-based learning requires teachers to “cut back” in other areas of their curricula to accommodate it. 

Virtual labs have the potential to infuse science curricula with more inquiry-based learning opportunities without the negative side effects associated with their counterparts in the physical world.  Cost is no longer an issue, as students can test and re-test without straining the budget.  Second, the time-intensive aspect of inquiry-based investigation is mitigated, as virtual labs are much more efficient and can be conducted in much less time than “wet” labs in the physical world.  Third, the ability to test a large number of variables multiple times more closely approximates what scientists actually do on a daily basis, making some aspects of virtual labs more authentic than the traditional, hands-on weekly science labs that only allow for limited testing.  Finally, virtual labs allow students to conduct experiments that simply aren't possible in K-12 classrooms (e.g. nuclear reactions, cloning, quantum physics, etc.). 

I’ve incorporated online simulations into my classes in the past, but not full-scale virtual labs.  Simulations allow students to manipulate variables in a system to determine cause and effect relationships.  However, the ability to collect data is often non-existent or limited with most simulations, as is the degree to which students can “experiment.”  Virtual laboratories, on the other hand, are much more complex interfaces that empower users with more operational freedom: students have the ability to plan and conduct scientific investigations that generate high-quality data to be analyzed.  The kind and number of decisions students must make closely approximate those in a “wet” lab, thus requiring students to think and act more like scientists. 

The links below represent my first attempt at providing a virtual lab experience for my AP Chemistry students.  After exploring many websites, I settled on a virtual lab produced by the ChemCollective, a project in the National Science Digital Library.  It is designed as a review activity to be conducted at the beginning of the year for my AP students.  It reinforces and extends previous knowledge about reaction stoichiometry.  The activity has three parts:

1. A student handout, which provides the context for the virtual lab as well as a place for them to write a procedure, record and analyze their data.  This handout will be submitted back to the teacher electronically.

2. An instructional video, which shows students how to use the virtual lab.  To do this, I made my first screencast video (with screencast-o-matic).  The link for this video is also embedded within the student handout.

3. A follow-up survey, which collects data from students about their experience using a virtual lab.  The link to this survey is also embedded in the student handout.

References

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Estrada V., Freeman, A., & Ludgate, H. (2013). NMC horizon report: 2013 K-12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

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