Dear TBLers
We are implementing TBL in various Chemistry undergraduate courses. A
key issue here is the integration of lab works. We understand lab
sessions can be great application activities. At the same time, the
process urges to re-frame the real goal of lab sessions (demonstration
of "natural laws", learning activities, training of lab skills,...?).
And the organization of sessions must be completely reshaped.
In one case, we adapted our traditional lab works to TBL applications,
using essentially the same material and reagents. For example, one
session was about acid-basis titrations of solutions. Before, the
students used to follow a recipe. Now, they don't know the concentration
of one solution, and teams have to find it using the titrations. The
evaluation of the team is based on the result -- how close it is to the
real concentration.
A problem we face on reshaping lab sessions as TBL applications is about
creating lab activities for teams of 6-8 students. Students
traditionally work in groups of 2-3, because no more than that can
perform the same task simultaneously! To overcome it, we could divide
tasks by team members, but that would loose the "team driving force" of
TBL... At the same time we want that all students are trained on all
techniques... In the above-mentioned case, each team was divided in two:
each sub-team had to validate the results of the other, and the whole
team had to arrive at a final team answer for the concentration.
In some courses (e.g., organic synthesis) we very much emphasize the
training of individual lab skills. A proposal for TBLing lab sessions is
that each student (or pair of students) is assigned the task of
performing the synthesis of the same product, and teams have to deliver
the maximum possible amount of bulk product (resulting from the
individual contributions). The team will be evaluated on the basis of
the amount and purity of the product they deliver. In this way, team
members would be encouraged to cooperate to achieve the maximum possible
yield and purity. During the process, and at the end, the whole team
would have to make decisions about which contributed products are
excluded if their purity is not good enough.
I'd be grateful if you could comment on these issues, come up with new
ideas for TBLing lab sessions, and send me examples of implementing lab
works as TBL activities.
Joao
--
Joao Aires de Sousa
Departamento de Quimica, Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia,
Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Tel: (+351) 21 2948300 x10907 Fax: (+351) 21 2948550
Email: [log in to unmask]
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