A little student gratitude goes a very long ways [teaching]

[rebeccmeister]

This semester I have been recording those pre-lab videos for my Animal Physiology course. Friday's video was really hard to record because I couldn't even manage to get underway with recording it until after 5 pm.

Before I can start recording, I have to go through and remember everything that's involved in orchestrating the lab, assemble the major pieces, and think through how to explain things to the students. I didn't have time to even edit the video until Saturday afternoon.

But then what the videos mean is that when students show up at the start of lab, they are prepared. They are so much more prepared than students were in the past when they just got a lab handout and were expected to read it in advance. Not only that, they are grateful for the videos, even when the videos aren't particularly entertaining.

The videos have also made it possible for us to be much more focused during our time together in the lab, so the labs run more smoothly.

What a relief.

Tuesdays are still very long, though.

Comments

[twoeleven]

Yay! Improvements in pedagogy and student learning! Go you!

[bluepapercup]

I'm sorry they're more work for you! However, I must say that as an undergraduate student I would have loved that for chemistry and physics labs. If I'd know what to expect I would have spent SO much less time trying to figure out what was going on and been able to get on with the business of the labwork itself instead of sitting there in the lab and reading the instructions ten times, feeling time-pressured and stressed.

[rebeccmeister]

The good news is, once I've made these I should be able to reuse them! So it's a good long-term investment.

And yeah, I think this is quite possibly an all-too-common experience with labs. This afternoon I asked students about them and they expressed the same sentiments.