How to Give Lab Instructions Students Actually Remember
I sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher to them.
I was explaining a lab for Beer’s Law and how to calculate the equilibrium constant for the creation of FeSCN2+. It is a multiple phase lab. First we collect classroom data with known concentrations of the red ion to create a concentration vs absorption graph. Then students do their own experiment and utilize the Beer’s Law graph to determine concentrations at equilibrium. I found myself saying “and don’t forget” repeatedly.
I will give you one guess about what they did. Go ahead. Guess. THEY FORGOT!
These were good AP students that really wanted to do things right. In fact, they have to because they compete for their lab grades. And yet they struggled to handle the huge information dump at the beginning of lab.
I tried it differently this year, and it made me think about how I run my labs. I created a shorter thought cycle: anticipation, instruction, application, interpretation. Repeat.
Anticipation: Prime the pump the day before
The day before the lab, we were working on some equilibrium practice problems. I made sure that the last problem that we completed was using the formation of FeSCN2+. I explained the color change. I asked some leading questions about how students could tell which side the equilibrium lied just by looking at it. I primed their pump thinking about the system.
Instruction: Give enough directions for one concept
On the day of the lab, I broke the lab instructions into phases spread out throughout the block period. I used to feel that this was inefficient, but after watching the performance yesterday, I am convinced it is more efficient. I gave them instructions on the reaction and how we were going to collect class standard data. Period. Then they did it and recorded their methods in their digital notebook.
Application: Do the achievable thing
The students headed to the lab to collect the standard shared data for the class. They each did the one thing that had been instructed. They completed it faster and with fewer errors.
Interpretation: Give enough time to understand what preliminary data means
After the class collected the standard data, they came back to their desks and produced the graph. My AP students have done the plot, trendline, equation process enough that I don’t have to hold hands much. After they completed their graph, I displayed one of the student graphs on the board and gave the class an opportunity to think about what it meant. Is it reasonable that the line has a positive slope? If I gave them a concentration of the red ion, could they estimate the absorbance? And then the big question. If they were to obtain a solution of unknown concentration, could they calculate it precisely using the absorption from the class graph? The answer was overwhelmingly, yes.
By splitting up the instructions and preliminary data analysis, the students were able to interpret what they were doing much better. While it originally felt like handholding, now I see it as simply giving their brains time to think. I didn’t answer any of the guiding questions. They did. And they were all in the same mental space together at the same time. That strengthened the classroom conversation. Often in the past, the fast kids and the slower kids were in such different places they couldn’t really ask each other questions.
Now it was time to loop back to instruction and start the cycle over.
Instruction: Complete the inquiry part of the lab
I gave the basic instructions for the inquiry portion of their lab, and they were off and going.
The end of this equilibrium lab is for the students to mix different concentrations of reactants and then calculate the Kc. The big takeaway from the lab that I want from them is that Kc doesn’t change based on starting concentration. I also want them to be familiar with utilizing Beer’s Law. They also need to be able to manipulate ICE boxes.
All of those goals were reached. But because I separated them in time, giving instructions in small doses, the kids retained what I was saying, thought more deeply about the interpretation, and asked way fewer dumb questions throughout the lab.
By creating a cycle of anticipation, instruction, application and interpretation that was shorter, all my goals were reached more efficiently. I wasn’t handholding. I was giving their brains a chance to succeed.
And in that process, I began to sound a little less like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
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