Synthesis of Research Findings
10 Guiding principles for learning in the laboratory
This Perspective shares 10 guiding principles relating to university laboratory education, drawing on research over the last decade. Written with an audience of practitioners in mind, the Perspective aligns with the congruence framework, so that the 10 principles consider all aspects of the laboratory curriculum: design, teaching approaches, and assessment approaches, and additional contextual factors relating to teaching context: backgrounds of students and their support, and overall laboratory organisation and management. After discussing the rationale for each guiding principle, examples of approaches are given from recent literature along with prompts to help enact the guiding principle in practice.
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The principles are:
- Create laboratory environments that are accessible and conductive to learning
- Ensure coherence with intended learning goalse among the professional learning community for staff involved in teaching laboratory classes
- Incorporate pre-laboratory activities so that students can prepare for learning in a complex environment
- Design scenarios to promote dialogue
- Include tangible opportunities for students to learn about safe and sustainable practices
- Model modern sientific work practices through facilitation of group and interdisciplinary work
- Embed opportunities for creativity and open experimentation
- Implement a variety of assessment types to align with intented learning goals
- Establish common formal and informal feedback protocols and opportunity for students to use feedback to inform future approaches
- Provide a mechanism by wich students can document and showcase their learning
