SUBJECT: Lab credit given to students
DATE: 5/97
 
 
Hi folks...
 
Before everyone heads off for summer I'd like to ask a general
question. Why do we give so little credit for lab? This is
especially troubling as most of us spend a lot of time telling
students how important lab is, only to have them not believe us when
they see how we value it when we construct our grading schemes.
It seems fairly common that in situations where lab and lecture
are combined in a single course, lab rarely counts for more than a
third of the course grade. In courses where lab 'stands alone' it is
frequently a one credit course while lecture is three. Why is this?
What kind of signal are we sending to students about the relative
importance of DOING science versus just hearing about it? Do we do
this just for historical reasons (because that wasd the way it was
when WE took biology?)
At Bates College, in our introductory course, we decided to let
lab count fully half the grad....after all, students spent three class
hours a week there versus three class hours in discussion/lecture.
And, we ask for a significant amount of out of class work for lab
(writing and library research) so why not give students equal credit
for this effort?
On a related note, since the lab grade in this course comes
solely from three major group papers/journal articles based on
experiments they designed and performed, and we allow re-writing as
many times as the group wants to a limit re-grade of a B, there is no
excuse for students to earn less than a B in lab (although many choose
to). Here, the correlation between effort and outcome is very clear
and student groups make their own choices....I don't know if this
helps motivate more students to put effort into Biology (especially
when its not their major) but they rarely complain about unfair
grading in the course as its all presented up front and in the open.
 
Joe Pelliccia
Bates College
 
 
In our intro course, we now split the credit 50:50 between lecture and lab.
We used to have a 1-s.h. lab course and a 3-s.h. lecture course. The effort
put into lab by students was usually rather disappointing, as were the
grades. (I was the lab instructor at the time, and I campaigned for the
combination of courses.) Most of our upper level courses are about 50:50, as
well. Since we use frequent lab reports as part of our strategy to promote
writing, this seems fair.
 
 
David J. Hicks djhicks@manchester.edu
Biology Department, Manchester College
 
 
Well I've always assumed it was along the lines of the 2 hr studying for
every 1 hr lecture montra. A student should spend 2 hours outside of class
for every hour they are in class. In that light, lab work should be
fulfilled by a three hour block of time. To some extent that should be
true...if students truely spent their three hours in lab productively
learning they would have to spend _alot_ less time "cramming" for lab
exams. Of course that would appear to fall down significantly when you
expect writting assignments (and of course we all expect them to have read
the lab before attending class).
 
When I was at ISU I had the same complaint when taking 1 or 2 credit lab
only courses. I seem to recall that combined lab/lecture classes usually
made lab worth more than than the proportion of lab credit. I see that
trend here at Tech where I know of at least one class that gives 50/50
weighting for lab/lecture.
 
Jeff
 
 
Jeff Lewin, Lab Associate http://www.bio.mtu.edu/perspage/jclewin/home.html
jclewin@mtu.edu Dept Biol Sci, Michigan Technological Univ
906.487.3435/Fax 906.487.3167 Houghton MI 49931
 
 
Joe,
 
I agree with you completely. As a lab instructor, I have wondered the same
thing for many years. Our students spend much more time when doing lab work
than they do in lectures (when they even go to lecture). And I consistently
hear from serious students that they get much more out of lab courses than
they do from regular courses.
 
It is my feeling that most college and university administrations do not
consider laboratory training as a major component in the training of our
students. Why do I say that? Just take a peek into most teaching labs -
whether Freshmen level or advanced. How many would you consider to be
equipped with enough reasonably modern equipment? Not many I suspect. Why?
Well, it's no secret that money is tight in most places, but that does not
satisfy student complaints of the disparity they see with their ever
increasing tuition and what many of them consider to be sub-standard lab
facilities (especially those who do Co-Op or internships in well-equipped
biotech companies and return to say that we are light years behind in
approximating the facilities that they will be trying to get jobs in after
graduation). It's getting very hard to look a student in the eye and tell
him/her that we are giving them the best possible training that they will
need for their careers in science.
 
So, a strange priority for credit earned in labs coupled with less than
top-of-the line teaching labs - yes, I agree with you that a bad message is
being sent to the folks who will be the science base for the next century.
What's the solution? Haven't a clue. Anybody with some ideas out there?
 
George
 
George Edick
RPI - Dept. Biology
Troy, NY 12180
edickg@rpi.edu
 
 
Joe,
 
If teaching laboratories really consisted of "doing science" I would
agree with you completely. And as more of develop and use investigative
rather than cook-book approaches to teaching labs they may become a lot more
like doing science than they have been. But in cook-book labs, what the
student is actually getting is, at best, a little exposure to a few of the
experimental systems used to generate the "science" she hears about in
lecture. If credit is awarded in proportion to learning opportunity, most
lab exercises deserve little more than the credit being awarded. I hated
teaching labs as a student, as a grad. TA and so far as the faculty member
in charge. I hope things change now that my exposure to ABLE and the
Curriculum Consortium and to you people have inspired and helped me to start
over again, from scratch.
Bob Lansman
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
 
 
I tend to agree with Bob. As a student, I always felt that I learned much
less for the amount of effort expended in lab courses compared to lecture
courses. Lab courses were usually cookbook style, with the expected result
known beforehand. The worst was organic chemistry lab. It seemed like most
periods, we were doing things like sitting around waiting for the red stuff
in the flask to heat long enough to turn yellow, or something like that. If
the lab manual tells me the red stuff will turn yellow, I prefer to believe
it rather than spend three hours proving to myself that it is true. I could
learn a lot more reading my textbook for three hours. Another practical
consideration for many places probably is that TA's teach labs while profs
teach lecture, and so even if lab is as beneficial as lecture, the profs
egos may make difficult any effort to increase the weight carried by a lab
grade.
 
I have recently taken over the coordination duties of our first semester
freshman bio labs (>20 sections/semester). Our lab is in need of change.
Could you Bob or someone provide info about ABLE and the Curriculum
Corsortium mentioned above?
 
Thanks in advance,
Dan
********************************
Dr. Dan Murray
Assistant Professor of Biology
University of Texas-Pan American
1201 W. University Dr.
Edinburg, TX 78539-2999
phone: (210) 384-5098
fax: (210) 381-3657
email: dmurray@panam.edu
********************************
 
 
Joe,
 
This question (why less academic credit for laboratories) came up here in
the context of credit to be awarded for a common preparation period
("prelab") for a multisection laboratory. What is the credit for a lecture
given as part of a laboratory???
 
It turns out that there is a widely recognized system for such conversions
of contact hours to credit hours, the Carnegie Unit. Here is what the
Carnegie Foundation says about the origin of the Carnegie Unit in their
brief online history available at...
 
<http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/history.html>
 
"The Carnegie Unit
 
In 1914, when colleges began to worry about how to assess high school
transcripts, the Foundation developed the Carnegie unit, a measure of the
number of hours a student had studied discrete subjects. For example, a
total of 120 hours in one subject -- meeting 4 or 5 times a week, for 40 to
60 minutes, for 36 to 40 weeks each year -- earns the student one "unit" of
high school credit. Fourteen units constitute the minimum amount of
preparation which may be interpreted as "four years of academic or high
school preparation". The Carnegie units were linked to the pension plan;
any college seeking inclusion in the plan had to require fourteen Carnegie
units from prospective students."
 
I can't lay my hands on the text describing the various conversion factors
but any college administrator involved in preparing the institution for the
periodic accreditation review should be able to find it for you - ask them
for the official definitions of Carnegie Units used by the institution.
 
If memory serves correctly, the logic that led to the lower valuation of
the laboratory was related to the required out-of-class preparation time
(for the student, not the instructor!!!).
 
In my opinion, because it is somewhat antiquated, the Carnegie Unit has
limited usefulness and is subject to considerable abuse. However, it does
seem to be the most widely recognized standard for this kind of
calculation.
 
I agree with you on your other points especially the unfortunate message
that this sends to our students.
 
Hope this helps.
 
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