As we all know, by making our course content more relevant – to our daily lives, to our local communities, to the global society, or to pop culture – students are able to connect to the course material more easily and thus get more engaged in the learning process. In this spirit, the National Center for Case Study Teaching in the Sciences offers almost 1,000 case studies in a variety of STEM disciplines that explicitly make the connection between real-world issues and the scientific content that is being taught. You can find some on human health and disease, environmental disasters, athletes and sports, bread baking, and a fight between a scorpion and a mouse (spoiler alert: the mouse wins). Case studies such as these can be applied to typical lecture courses, but what about lab courses? Ideally, lab experiments in biology, chemistry, and physics have some connection or relevance to the real world, but oftentimes these labs are “cookbook” in style and just give the facts of the experiment without making the experiment click with the students. After having taught human anatomy and introductory biology labs for 10 years, I have seen a variety of labs in both buckets. However, this summer in May 2023, I have the opportunity to create an extremely relevant and connected lab experience for students here at the Colorado School of Mines. We have a brand-new, fast-growing major on campus, Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering (QBE), which is similar to a typical four-year biology degree in biological concepts but then we kick it up a notch by requiring math up through and including differential equations, data analytics and programming with Python, and entrepreneurship. Another unique feature of our program is our summer field session course, which is a three-week, 40+ hour a week lab-based course that simulates a real-world work experience.   Our Plan for Creating a Timely, Relevant, and Engaging Lab Course With relevance in mind, my co-instructor John Spear and I are going to use the theme of plastic waste to introduce our students to laboratory methods and data analysis skills. Plastic waste is a major problem and traditional recycling efforts often fall short, so we need to think of new ways to tackle plastic waste and recycling. In this course, we are going to explore two biological approaches that have promise to address this global issue. First, our students will collect environmental soil and water samples from a mine in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and will be using genomic sequencing methods to explore bacterial species which might be able to “munch” on plastic. Second, with the help of Gregg Beckham at the National Renewable Energy Lab, our students will be designing and producing mutant recombinant enzymes in an attempt to engineer them to be more effective at degrading plastics. Both of these projects are real-world applications of students’ biological and technical skill sets, and both directly relate to the plastic waste issue that the world is facing. But we need to do more than just make the connection between the course content and a global issue. We need to have students talk about it and share it with the tools that they are used to using. To do this, over the course of the three weeks, students will take pictures, record videos, and interview themselves and each other (think of a super nerdy biotech version of the hit sitcom The Office) and stitch these together into a brief 4 to 5-minute video that they can share with the social media network of their choice. Full disclosure: I don’t have a TikTok account, nor do I want one, so the students are on their own if they decide to post there. There are only two rules with this assignment: have fun and no PowerPoint!   Relevance They Can Use to Communicate with Family, Friends, and Future Students Not only will the students be taking videos of their lab experience, but most likely when they are walking around campus or near our local creek, they will spot a plastic bottle or two on the ground that they can record and comment on. This assignment will give students an opportunity to document their lab experience in an accessible way and will allow them to share with their family and friends what kept them so darn busy for three weeks in the summer. The videos will also give us, from the program-perspective, a wonderful resource to share with future QBE students and to use for outreach to attract new students into our program. This is just one specific example of bringing explicit relevance to a biology laboratory course, but there are many ways to bring relevance to any course that you might be teaching. One simple way to do this is to search the news for some key words from a given lesson in your course and to see what stories are out there that tie into what you are going to be teaching. Or, you could consider using resources such as the National Center for Case Study Teaching in the Sciences that I mentioned above as a way to get inspired and to download actual lesson plans and materials that you can directly use in your course. In another more involved approach, you may be able to reach out to local companies, non-profits, or government organizations to explore potential tie-ins to your course material. No matter what approach you take, it is worth the time to add more relevance to your courses. Not only will students be more engaged, but you as an instructor will be engaged and refreshed, as I can certainly attest to. You’ll have more fun, as will your students, and I bet you’ll learn some new things too.   Justin Shaffer is a Teaching Associate Professor in Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. He is also the founder of Recombinant Education where he provides professional development on course design and evidence-based teaching strategies for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students. ... View more

We hosted a series of workshops in which lab instructors shared their in-class experiences on a variety of topics from student engagement to equality, accessibility and the future of education. In the first of four sessions, University of Kentucky Chemistry Lab Coordinator April French and her Teaching Assistant Tosin Obisesan to talk about how to create an interactive and engaging lab environment for students and teaching assistants. April and Tosin shared how their program ensures students and TAs come to the lab prepared and fosters an engaging live lab session. We also discussed how to scale their approach based on the size of your program and the resources available to you. Watch Making Labs an Interactive Experience for All See more Speaker’s Series Events ... View more

Our Achieve Labs Program here at Macmillan is our opportunity to support students and instructors during every step of their learning. With the Achieve Lab Program, students and instructors have access to an online learning system that provides a vast amount of robust assessment tools and content to support the growth of student success.  As we build our Achieve Labs Program, we’d like to take an opportunity to let our employees and instructor community get to know one of our authors, Dr. Elizabeth Co.  Dr. Co is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Services at Boston University. Her passions in life have been teaching and learning about the structure of the human body and its diseases. Her current role allows her to investigate the benefits of group learning and how student awareness impacts learning performance.  Check out this interview for an in-depth look at Dr. Co's experience with our Achieve Lab Program: 1. How has the shift in lab teaching during the pandemic affected your approach to authoring a lab product for today’s Health Science lab students and instructors? I think the pandemic forced us to reckon with always-present issues. A lot of students benefit from online labs. Flexibility in meeting student absence has always been a goal. But after remote teaching, I think writing with these circumstances in mind is a lot easier. I also think that in microbiology, we benefit from the substantial “level-up” of vocab and interest in infectious diseases. How many people knew the word “antigen” until we started stocking antigen tests in our homes?   2. Do you have a piece of advice for Health Science lab coordinators on how to engage students more effectively online and support their in-person learning through digital tools? The science of learning has taught us that scientist identity and a sense of community are two of the most important factors for the success and resiliency of at-risk students. As an instructor, I make building community among the students as important of a priority as the content we teach. Community building looks different online versus in person, but it is still possible.   3. How does creating a national lab product for a large audience differ from creating a curriculum for your own students at Boston University? Have you encountered any unique challenges? It doesn’t really differ that much, except that I stretch further in some of my goals. For example, when you’re writing an exam question or a worksheet for your own students, you have a good sense of what vocabulary they know and you have the forethought to write your materials in a manner that is approachable. Writing a national product is similar, but I have to stretch further to make the material interesting, applicable, and approachable to an even broader audience and, challengingly, to students I do not know.   4. What is the most exciting feature/lab you’ve included in your Achieve Lab product that you want to ensure everyone checks out when they get a copy? (Or, if we are still far away from publishing, what are you most excited to include in this Digital Lab Product?) I’m very proud of our activity on the importance of controls in an experiment. That is an activity that I developed for my own students after years of seeing them struggle with the ideas behind experimental controls.   5. Tell us about your vision for the future of lab teaching in Health Sciences. Are there any trends that seem inevitable at this point? What won’t change? I think the most exciting trend is the movement toward open-ended or inquiry-based labs. For so long we were stuck in a comfort zone of “cookbook labs” where the outcomes were very prescribed. These labs are convenient but are so removed from the scientific method.   6. Please tell us something fun/interesting about your work at Boston University or about your lab/students! At Boston University I also teach Anatomy and Physiology. I bring bones with me to class, but rarely teach in my own building, so you can spot me on campus walking or biking with bones sticking out of my bags! One time, I was biking across campus (which is in the middle of a city), and a cyclist pulled up next to me in the bike lane to let me know that a spinal column was about to fall out of my bag. Click here to see more about how Achieve works to support instructor and student success. ... View more

The Teaching Assistant, or the TA, is a vital part of the educational experience at universities across the country. They play a key role in helping to educate students, offering aid to the professor in constructing a successful and positive learning environment. We decided to take a closer look at this role, asking how the TA can differ from institution to institution and how this specifically applies to labs. Lexi Wachtell is a Biology Labs Teaching and Learning Strategist at Macmillan Learning. Prior to joining Macmillan Learning, she spent several years teaching introductory biology labs at the University of Washington, as well as conducting biology education research with Dr. Scott Freeman. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Washington, where she studied Environmental Science & Terrestrial Resource Management and Marine Biology. We asked Lexi to answer a couple of questions on how the lab space utilizes TAs and how we can support them so they can continue to provide a significant contribution to labs. 1. What is the contribution/difference Teaching Assistants make in a lab program? To put it simply, lab programs wouldn’t be possible without TAs! TAs are typically in charge of teaching hands-on labs, grading (lab reports, exams, etc.), and providing personalized instruction and feedback to students in a smaller setting. In large courses, TAs can also make a huge difference in students’ sense of belonging in STEM disciplines (which is important because research shows that sense of belonging is critical to students retention in STEM fields). So TAs play a crucial role in lab programs and lab-based courses! 2. How does the Teaching Assistant role differ at institutions across the country?   Broadly speaking, there are a lot of similarities among Teaching Assistant roles across institutions - most TAs will be teaching, holding office hours, and grading assignments. Things that differ are the amount of time allotted toward each category - so TAs at one institution may teach 1 or 2 lab sections each term, while TAs at another institution may teach 3 or 4 lab sections per term. Time spent grading also differs because some courses will use multiple-choice question exams and scantrons (which are very fast to grade or auto-graded), while others will rely solely on open-ended free-response questions (which are very time-consuming to grade). Likewise, some TAs may be in charge of maintaining the course website, from updating content and assignments to handling the grade book. Other TAs may not do this at all, and the course website maintenance will be done by the professor or another staff member. Even within a single institution, the role and workload for TAs in different departments can vary pretty substantially - so a TA’s role in the Chemistry department can be pretty different than a TA’s role in the Biology department.   3. What kind of tasks or activities might a TA be responsible for in a standard day of lab? TAs set up and clean the lab space, take attendance, teach lab, help run experiments, hold office hours to answer questions (related to lab or lecture content), and grade lab reports. TAs also act as the first line of defense to identify students who are struggling or at-risk and often provide support to students who need help (such as helping students who are struggling, either in the TA’s classroom or with college in general). This is especially common in introductory courses with lots of first-year students, as first-years may not have formed a support system yet - TAs in intro courses have more face-to-face time with students, so it is common for them to take on this support role in addition to their other duties.   4. What kind of technology do you see TAs using in the lab currently? How does it help them? TAs will sometimes use computers for presentations/lab instructions, or excel and statistics software if the lab requires data entry and analysis. However, there are a lot of labs where computers and other technology are not allowed on the lab bench due to possible exposure to chemicals, spills, and other hazards.    5. How else can we support the Teaching Assistant role and save them time on those tasks so they can provide a more significant contribution to the lab? One of the first things that come to mind is grading because it can be pretty time-consuming - anything we can do to make grading faster makes a big difference. So would features that would allow TAs to grade lab reports electronically (such as adding comments/specific feedback along with point values). The amount of time spent grading is important because typically TAs are graduate students who are contracted to work for the university for a set number of hours each week. The more time they spend grading, the less time they have for teaching and interacting with students.   TAs are extremely important in the lab space. They play a crucial role in lab programs and lab-based courses. They help with so many different aspects of the educational experience, from teaching hands-on labs to providing personalized instruction and feedback to students. To put it simply, these programs wouldn’t function properly without the TA to help out. So don’t forget to show some appreciation for your TAs!    ... View more

  When Covid-19 first shut down the world in March of 2020, lab instructors across the country had to scramble to figure out how to adapt their in-person teaching methods to ones completely virtual. Many instructors turned to commercially available solutions, while some took on the initiative to create their own! Here are our top three innovators and what they did to stand apart from the rest.   1st Place Ed Lee & Alicia Altemose, Texas A&M University “Tik Tok Lab Final Exams”   Ed Lee knew the pandemic had heavily impacted the learning process of so many students. From suddenly being sent home, to beginning a new form of education, one that is completed while never leaving your house, Lee recognized the struggle that students were facing. And so he found a way to transform finals into a fun expression of creativity and knowledge! Students were to create a video using Tik Tok, Youtube, or another video format, and submit it to showcase all they had learned throughout the semester. The results? An overwhelming wave of support and enjoyment from students and audiences from the platforms alike!   2nd Place Sajan Silwal, Southeast Missouri State  “Lab Simulations by Powerpoint”   Professor Sajan Silwal understood that transferring labs to an online format was difficult. Labs were a completely different experience pre-pandemic, so it begged the question of how do we create something for students that will further them academically in these new and unprecedented times? Professor Silwal created three lab simulations from scratch using Powerpoint and custom made animations to help students better interact with the material given. In fact, each simulation was created with a hands on component alongside the visual component, so that students could get the most out of their lab experience.    3rd Place Andrew Scherbarkov, Georgia Institute of Technology “Lab Kits, Experiments and Videos for Remote Learning”   How does one reinvent the wheel when so much change is happening all at once? That is what Professor Scherbarkov did for his students over at Georgia Institute of Technology. He created lab kits, procedures, and videos from scratch for his students to complete experiments. They worked on over 50 Electromagnetism experiments over the course of a semester with the assistance of the iOLab device. These labs contained a variety of different elements, including an Introduction, Models, a pre-lab activity, the actual experiment itself as well as an optional post-lab challenge. All of this served to help students absorb the material just as well as if they were in person. To learn more about the 2021 Lab Innovator Awards, you can visit https://go.macmillanlearning.com/Lab-Innovator-Award-Winners.html ... View more

Teaching lab at the start of the pandemic was a challenge, to say the least. The shutting down of schools, the lack of student engagement due to the more pressing issues of health and safety, it all shook the foundations of reality as we knew it. So what does teaching look like in a post-pandemic world? More specifically, how does this apply to labs? We asked instructors at our 2021 Virtual Lab Summit for their thoughts, let’s take a look at a few different disciplines and the knowledge they have gained through experience.   Physics Instructors found that when comparing in-person classes to those that were fully online, grades were comparable and there wasn’t too much of a difference between the sections! There are several practices that are going to be continued moving forward, especially since online lab sessions are actually growing and demand for them has increased in many courses. They will continue to host online pre-labs, which have been found to be really helpful and are a good use of time and resources to give students more in-lab time. Additionally, they are going to use online course management more, which allows for more transparency for students and in what TAs are doing. Lastly, they discovered how important it is to use group chat tools to keep students engaged and connected.   Biology   Biology labs learned pretty quickly that lab sessions should be synchronous and not asynchronous. They found that it keeps students on task and paying attention better. A tool that helped them with this goal was utilizing jamboard and breakout rooms to have higher participation. Because students didn’t have the opportunity to take advantage of open lab time, online resources really helped to supplement their learning. Online resources proved to be a good alternative for make-up labs as well. New hires and TAs found that it helped them to set expectations for the lab, where they flipped lecture sessions and included things like clicker questions. Now that they are back in person, they really appreciate the online resources that they can use outside of class.   Microbiology Microbiology labs found that there has been a serious disconnect since the pandemic with students that makes it more difficult to discern when they are struggling. This has continued on into in-person studies. Through utilizing studies done at Boston University, they learned how office hours attendance had gone down pre-pandemic, but the pandemic caused a surge in attendance, most likely due to the fact that virtual office hours appear less intimidating for students. Moving forward, it was realized that digital tools can give instructors more insights into how students are doing regardless of if that learning is remote or in-person. Temperature checks were also discovered to be an important part of teaching and learning that gives insights to the instructor on things that need addressing or improvement. Chemistry Instructors realized early on that some of the things they usually incorporated into their class, like forgiveness policies, were difficult during pandemic teaching. The LMS gradebook didn’t always cooperate even though they wanted to give students an incentive or reward. One thing they learned from the experience was to use fewer labs and be very intentional about the labs that were being chosen to make sure students get the skills they need. Additionally, instructors started using videos and simulations in the pandemic that they will continue to use moving forward, as it really helps with student preparedness and increases understanding in the lab. Some resources they found extremely helpful in connecting best with students were jamboard, slack, and piazza.   Ultimately, it will take some time to process everything we have done during remote/pandemic/hybrid teaching. Instructors have learned to be more understanding and give more flexibility and grace to the students. Fostering community in the classroom through case studies and discussion allows students to feel more comfortable and able to identify themselves as scientists. And now the real innovations from these lessons we have learned will begin. ... View more

                                     Lucy the Lab Assistant                    Chip Tips The Macmillan Learning Lab Solutions team is proud to welcome Lucy the Lab Assistant and her faithful friend, Chip Tips to our Labs team! Lucy and Chip will serve as our Lab Solutions mascots, working to bring awareness to innovation and accessibility in the STEM lab space. Lucy's Lab Report is our new monthly newsletter where Lucy delivers the latest news in the STEM lab space, and Chip Tips will be delivering tips and tricks for instructors to keep innovating and creating accessible solutions for their students. Look for their adorable faces on campus and at upcoming STEM conferences like HAPS, ABLE and BCCE! ... View more

Pronouns! Have your students introduce themselves by including their pronouns, and request they include them in media and zoom appearances. Allow that recognition that someone may not identify with their external appearance. When giving examples or sample questions about topics that include the use of a person, remove gendered statements (“she” filled up the cup to the 1 liter line vs. “someone/they” filled up the cup to the 1 liter line). Additionally, use names of people from different cultural backgrounds so more students will see a reflection of themselves in STEM situations.  For inclusivity in smaller classrooms where you include group work, try to place students in group pairings based on incoming preparation. Students tend to divide and conquer group work instead of working together in normal situations. By placing students together with different preparation levels we open the door wider for collaboration in order to understand the materials. This helps to develop a sense of inclusivity and community in the STEM project environment. Recognizing identity is very important for many STEM students. The social process of identifying with those who have gone before you as it relates to your heritage and background is very important. Include lesser known facts of history by explaining a bit more on the background of figures that include diversity and inclusivity. For example, did you know the chemist John Dalton was color-blind? Lastly and perhaps most importantly, don’t shy away from addressing issues in the classroom! Foster the notion of rightful presence, where students can bring their knowledge of their community to your classroom. Let them elevate that voice in the context of the concept that they are learning by asking them how it impacts various communities. ... View more

Josie Nardo, now a Post-Doc at Stanford University, is an expert in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in Chemistry Education. The below videos will help you understand the history of DEI in Physics, Strategies to increase DEI in your classroom, and further resources for exploring these concepts.    The History of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Discipline of Physics   Strategies for Including Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Physics Lab Classroom   Resources for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in STEM classrooms   We at Macmillan Learning are committed to be leaders in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in education. To learn more about our mission and philosophy on DEI, you can visit our Diversity & Inclusion website here: https://www.macmillanlearning.com/college/us/our-story/diversity-and-inclusion ... View more

Wendy Riggs talks about creating community in her online A&P lab by encouraging peer to peer communication via discussion boards. ... View more

In Fall 2020, Ed Lee at Texas A&M University found himself pondering giving 6,000 final exams in a pandemic environment that had his students spread across hybrid, in person and online lab courses. How could he keep his final exam consistent across all of the courses and keep his students engaged in the process?   The answer he came up with was to meet them where they are online - TikTok.    Lee and fellow instructor Alicia Altemose challenged their students to produce a TikTok video explaining an everyday concept they learned in their lab or lecture course during the Fall semester. Naming, the project #GIGCHEM, they went to work filming a sample video of Lee measuring the speed of light with a microwave and bar of chocolate. Most students responded enthusiastically, although there was an understandable amount of apprehension about such an innovative final project.    Though students weren’t mandated to use TikTok for their project (they could also use YouTube), most students did. Rising to the challenge, Lee’s students showcased their creativity alongside some of the most important Chemistry concepts they learned over the semester. The results were overwhelmingly positive with over 6.8 million views on TikTok and rave reviews from TAMU Chemistry students.    Not only did this project provide students a fun break from the traditional final exam stress, but it provided a connection between their lives and their studies. Watching their classmates demonstrate real life applications of Chemistry provided students with a connection to both the discipline and their classmates that many had not experienced before. It is unknown whether this will be a permanent addition to the TAMU First Year Program Chemistry curriculum, but they will certainly be doing it again this Spring! Learn more about the TAMU #gigchem project with quotes and feedback from students here and watch their favorite videos on the TAMU TikTok page. ... View more