This session will provide a snapshot of the ways that online laboratory science courses have opened up opportunities throughout the world. Best practices will be explored, along with approaches that reach beyond the “traditional” to embrace diversity in its varied forms. High quality educational programs, delivered remotely, can serve as a catalyst to stimulate interest in multiple career options.
This presentation will review the current state of online laboratory science course delivery and suggest future directions in the rapidly changing environment. Lessons learned and best practices will be explored, reaching beyond the traditional student to promote and celebrate diverse communities. Students who may have previously been excluded by the constraints of time, distance, family or work obligations can now be a vital part of the classroom and contribute rich, robust life experience and cultural perspectives to courses while widening their career options.
Key lessons learned and best practices identified during the first Sloan C/Online Learning Consortium Online Science Learning Mastery Series designed and moderated by Dr. Jim Brown, a pioneer in developing online science courses, will be discussed. State-of-the-art methodology for teaching science totally online, including the laboratory component, will be detailed. The pros and cons of providing laboratory experiences through virtual laboratories versus through "wet labs" will be highlighted. Dr. Brown will discuss approaches to transform current or future online science laboratory courses into creative, engaging, and highly motivated learning communities that attract new online learners.
The 5Es instructional model of science, Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend (or Elaborate), and Evaluate will be summarized, and can be employed to foster Faculty-Student Engagement. First, the student's interest is piqued and they become personally involved in the lesson. In the exploration stage students have the opportunity to become directly involved with scientific phenomena and materials. Then, learners begin to communicate and explain what they have learned followed by expanding or extending the concepts addressed. Finally both students and teachers evaluate and assess the learning via project and problem-based learning products, models, performance tasks, journals and/or lab reports.
Features of commercially available online labs will be discussed. Numerous strategies for reaching students with different learning styles will be demonstrated such as the strategic use of short videos to illustrate key laboratory techniques, use of peer coaching, virtual lab partners, student photography/videography to demonstrate laboratory experiments, online field trips, gaming, use of social media for building community, tips on finding and engaging "lurkers," and using interactive multimedia and the latest in instructional technology. All of these are designed to reach out to diverse communities and offer students from across the globe engaging, participatory experiences.