A New Take on Student Lab Reports

Autor/in	Hazzard, Edmund
Titel	A New Take on Student Lab Reports
Quelle	In: Science Teacher, 81 (2014) 3, S.57-61 (5 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0036-8555
Schlagwörter	Science Instruction; Laboratory Experiments; Pilot Projects; Computer Software; Secondary School Students; Writing (Composition); Reports; Trend Analysis; Graphs; Science Experiments; Teaching Methods; Instructional Effectiveness + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Teaching of science; Science education; Natural sciences Lessons; Naturwissenschaftlicher Unterricht; Laboratory work; Laborarbeit; Pilot project; Modellversuch; Pilotprojekt; Sekundarschüler; Schreibübung; Abschlussbericht; Berichten; Trendanalyse; Grafische Darstellung; Teaching method; Lehrmethode; Unterrichtsmethode; Unterrichtserfolg
Abstract	The written lab report--a concise and accurate accounting of an experiment, including a summary of the procedure, presentation of the results, reasoned analysis, and thoughtful explanation--is essential to the scientific endeavor and a key expression and product of inquiry. Generally, however, students and teachers dislike these reports, the former for needing to write them and the latter for needing to read them; but suppose an alternative reporting strategy existed, in which: (1) teachers review a report in a few minutes and quickly gain insight into student thinking; (2) answers tend to be substantial rather than minimal; and (3) student teams enthusiastically tackle the task of composition spontaneously cooperate in: (a) generating the report; (b) verbalizing and discussing the content and arguing about the most accurate way to describe the experiment; (c) readily put forward explanations of the results in some depth, whether or not scientifically accurate; (d) easily refer to data in table or graphical form; and (e) comfortably produce reports even if less confident as writers. The Concord Consortium, an education research group, observed all of these virtues to various degrees when students created short, non-editable screencasts (i.e., digital video recordings of computer screen images that include audio narration) to report on their computer-based science labs. In this article, the authors share their encouraging preliminary observations and suggest that further exploration of this tool could yield exciting results for science teaching. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	National Science Teachers Association. 1840 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA 22201-3000. Tel: 800-722-6782; Fax: 703-243-3924; e-mail: membership@nsta.org; Web site: http://www.nsta.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10