Has this ever happened to you? You come up with a great idea for a lab. You can see how much the kids will learn by applying the concepts. You test it for yourself after school. You spend a couple hours writing the lab report. You are sure it is perfect. You are excited to watch the lab in the hands of the kids. And… it’s a total flop. There are instruction steps missing. Their data tells them that absolute zero is approximately 802 K (this was actual data from an experience this week). You are left thinking of all the things that could have been accomplished during those hours of preparation. It’s frustrating. But I think I have a solution.
Don’t do that. Insightful, right?
The more years of teaching that I notch on the calendar (at this writing, I am wrapping up year 22) the more license I give myself to fail forward in front of the students. Here is what I mean. It is OK to try something new with the students as guinea pigs and then make the decision to invest time. Let me give you the example from this week.
I teach three levels of chemistry: regular chemistry, honors, and AP. The regular and honors are the same track, I just prep the honors kids to flow straight into AP, whereas regular chem is generally the final chemistry stop for those students. I frequently use the same labs with the two classes and chase deeper application, more precise mathematical modeling, or an increased level of inquiry for the honors kids.
I am teaching the gas laws and have done a lab where we attempt to extrapolate the value of absolute zero by relating the temperature and volumes of a gas. I have done this lab a bunch of different ways. This year, I decided that a cool way to differentiate the two classes would be for the honors class to correct for the water vapor pressure in the system. I had taught them mathematically how to do it the day before, so why not use it in the lab. But I didn’t have a writeup. So instead of spending hours making a new writeup, I didn’t. Here is what I actually did.
1. Pull out materials, set on lab cart.
2. Draw lab map on board.
3. Collect data on the board as their “assignment”.
That’s it. I knew that if my new lab worked, then it would become worth investing the time into writing a new lab report. But in order to get to that point, I had to make a conscious decision.
“It will be fine if this fails to do exactly what I want.”
And guess what? It is fine, because it failed to do exactly what I wanted. The kids followed the instructions on the board. They made the excel models of the data. They experienced how volume and temperature are related. And their final answers sucked. In fact, the moment I decided to scrap this method was when I saw a very studious and serious student walk to the board to show his estimation for absolute zero. 802 K. He wasn’t joking. Something in the way that we were collecting data sent his lab off the rails. It was good for a laugh, but inside I knew that I would not be writing this lab up. And that is just fine.
The benefit from developing your labs this way is that you get to tailor the lab experience exactly the way you want the students to experience it. When the lab works out, and so many of them do, you will be able to write a more thorough and deeply impacting lab for your students. The lab will be in your voice. The lab will include equipment and chemicals that you know you have. And the future generations of students coming through your class will be blessed by the fact that you took a risk once and put yourself out there. You learned something valuable from a group of students that will make the learning of the students in the future all the more rich.
And no, I don’t have a writeup I would be willing to share for this lab. But I will in the future. And it will be great. It just needs one more year of refinement…
I do feel I need to end with a little disclaimer. I am not suggesting that you “wing it” with chemicals that you are not familiar with. I would never endanger the kids by giving opportunity to make a chemical mistake that could harm them. I don’t relax cleanliness, safety, or disposal protocols. I am merely talking about taking common chemistry practices and making them your own.
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