Physics Laboratory is a laboratory course, taking place at the Physics Department at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (OF FMF), University of Ljubljana, for undergraduate students of Physics at OF FMF, first year students of Chemical Engineering at FKKT, and second year students of Practical mathematics at the Mathematics Department at FMF. Students in this course work in laboratories to obtain practical laboratory skills as well as skills in measuring and analyzing data. Current laboratory exercises are by design traditional laboratory exercises, in which students follow the so–called “cook–book” instructions. As many researches show traditional laboratory instruction is not suitable for obtaining the necessary scientific competencies, schools and universities across the globe are starting to transform laboratory work towards more active laboratory designs. At FMF such redesigns started in 2017 with the Physics Laboratories for non–physicists. Until now, one laboratory unit has been redesigned. I focused on redesigning one additional laboratory unit, following newer trends in laboratory work designs. The new design is based on ISLE (Investigation Science Learning Environment) laboratories, where students design their own experiments to tackle the given problem. In the designing phase I also designed an open–ended experimental problem for a Project Laboratory, an elective course for first– and second year Physics and Mathematics students, where they work in groups to find a solution to the given problem. Using both theoretical and practical data I gathered on the topic, I designed a new laboratory unit on the topic of spectroscopy, called Colour Image. I analysed both the traditional and the redesigned laboratory unit though audio and video data analysis. The analysis showed that in the redesigned laboratory unit, students devoted about 20 % of their research time to “sense–making”, while in traditional setting that amount was closer to 3 %. Less time was spent on “non–related activities” with the redesigned laboratory unit than it was with the traditional instruction. I also researched how much scaffolding is needed for the best version of laboratory reports. I analysed time used for writing, amount of interaction with the lab supervisor on writing the report, and the final result. I compared three different options, all having the same base instructions. First group was given scarce scaffold, second no scaffold, and third one no scaffold and self–assessment rubrics. Research shows that the last two are optimal for report writing, with rubrics showing more potential of improvement through time. The new laboratory unit therefore enables students to better obtain scientific skills through more sense-making and higher degree of motivation.
|
