Managing Labs

Laboratory experiences in higher education cover a wide range of configurations, intended outcomes, and locations. This page is intended to direct you to ideas and resources you can use to plan your lab experience.

Modifications

Online

Guiding Principles

Below are guiding principles that are applicable to managing labs in all teaching delivery formats. For strategies for specific delivery formats, see the Teaching Format Modifications section on this page.

Focus on the End Goal(s)

Managing your course labs with outcomes in mind is important because it ensures that your labs are designed to help students achieve the specific learning goals you have set for your course, leading to better alignment with course objectives. This approach also enables you to create better assessments that measure student progress towards those outcomes, which helps to improve assessment accuracy.
Labs are unique in that your students are getting real-life, marketable skills to prepare them for further work in their field. IT's exciting to do hands-on work - lean into that engagement.

Prepare for the Class

Get a handle on the class

Make sure you know the format. Are you running the lab, or do you have TAs leading each section. How many sections are you responsible for?
Reach out to your lab manager to understand the protocols specific to your departmental labs
Digitize your safety agreement so students can submit it\
Some labs require

Course Structure

How many weeks? Often with labs, (similar to flipped learning) students need to
A common format is to set up

Canvas

Consider setting up a Blueprint course (link to Blueprint course)
Create rubrics so grading is standardized across your sections
(Meet with an Instructional Designer
Digitize your safety agreement

Set up a Blueprint Course

Run the Class

Weekly TA Meetings

Make sure to

During the Lab

Teaching Format Modifications

You may find managing a lab can differ between teaching formats. Below are ways in which you can adjust how you approach managing your labs for the various delivery formats that USU offers to their students:

Online

In a remote teaching environment, or with reduced access to laboratory space, certain activities may not be as doable as they would be in a face-to-face setting. However, there may be ways to adjust the activity to reach the same general outcomes, or slightly revised but equally important outcomes.

Example:

One USU teacher identified 3 main learning objectives for her labs: practicing the process of science from start to finish, communicating science through writing, and collaborating in the science process. Upon going remote, she recognized that the first two outcomes were achievable through modifications to her activities, and the third outcome could be modified to instead focus on research ethics.

Strategy:

List the outcomes you seek to achieve in your labs.
List additional outcomes your labs could achieve
If necessary, rank your outcomes by importance.
List a variety of experiences a student can have to acheive those outcomes.
Select the outcomes you will focus on and the experiences that are doable in the remote or limited access setting.
Refer to the links below, which provide various tactics and resources for making more experiences possible in a remote or limited access environment.
Get help from an instructional designer as needed.

Resources and Articles

From ASU: Remote Lab Strategies
From Dartmouth: Remote Lab Activities and Experiences
From University of Cincinnatti: Links to online lab resources
From the Chronicle of Higher Education: How to quickly (and safely) move labs online

Additional Resources

Need a consultation with an Instructional Designer? See CIDI's Contact Us page for contact details and appointment scheduler.