This workshop was part of the HEA Enhancement Event 'Ways of knowing, ways of learning: innovation in pedagogy for graduate success'. This workshop was designed for those teaching in higher education who had experience of running laboratory classes and wished to make effective use of virtual resources. During the session delegates explored the benefits and limitations of virtual experiments and the literature and research work in this area. They had the opportunity to explore the relationship between virtual and hands on experiments and identify strategies to integrate them in the design of your own laboratory practice and curriculum. This presentation is part of a blog post about this workshop, which can be accessed via http://bit.ly/1zupPZc

1. Integrating Virtual Experiments into the Overall laboratory Experience
HEA workshop
Paul Yates
27 Nov 2014

2. What is a virtual experiment?
Examples
Advantages and limitations
Research work
Role in the overall laboratory
Launch of project report
Workshop outline

3. 3
What is a virtual experiment?

4. Simulation
Virtual experiment
Remote experiment
Physical experiment
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The Continuum

5. Examples of virtual experiments
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6. The Open Science Laboratory
Earthquake
Plant Cells

7. Explore the nature of science
Develop team work
Cultivating interest in science
Promote conceptual understanding
Develop inquiry skills
Laboratory Teaching

8. Develop practical skills
Experience troubleshooting
Set up equipment
Observation over long time span
Develop conceptual knowledge via tactile information
Authentic delays between experiments
Deal with unanticipated events
Measurement uncertainties
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Physical laboratories

9. Simplify learning
Highlight salient information
Remove confusing details
Modify time scale
Unobservable phenomena
Link to symbolic equations
Gather more information
Student prompts
Instructional data
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Virtual laboratories

10. Change magnetic field of the earth
Vary accumulation of greenhouse gases
Extreme heart rate and blood pressure
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Unobservable phenomena

11. Research work
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12. These new technologies do not replace educators but replace the educators’ role by pushing them from the position of information source to creative managers and facilitators in learning experiences.
In order to be successful in such a change, the educators need to adapt themselves in new technologies and knowhow to get benefits from these technologies in their classroom environments;
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Kara et al.

13. One practice observed in VRL applications is to design GUIs which are replicas of laboratory equipment of particular brands. A drawback of this approach is the difficulty of modifying the GUI and its functionality when the underlying equipment needs to be replaced by different brand or model. Designing GUIs that incorporate generic instrument panels and equipment illustrations eliminates this weakness while satisfying the users desire to use, to some extent, actual GUIs.
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Rossiter and Shokouhi

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16. Lila (Library of Labs)
SCORM packages
Repository of shared experiments
Integrate into Learning Management Systems
Orientation, execution, review
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Richter, Tetour and Boehringer

17. Some conventional laboratories must remain in the curriculum. for labs that involve a kinesthetic element and require the development of specific motor skills to ensure success.
Universities’ teaching times often coincide, meaning that only a small number of institutions can use a given remote experiment as part of their undergraduate course.
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Coble et al.

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In remote experiments, students are usually required to follow strict procedures in order to complete an experiment safely and on time. Virtual experiments have few constraints with regard to time and safety, and are well suited to an exploratory style of learning, which teaches fundamental concepts and improves theoretical understanding.

19. Potential benefits:
•students would feel more relaxed and comfortable in the laboratory;
•less laboratory time would be wasted looking for items of apparatus;
•students would be more likely to assemble and use apparatus in the correct way leading to more meaningful experimental results;
•greater familiarity with laboratory procedures may improve safety; and
•students could devote more of their attention to the concepts involved in the experiments because they would already be familiar with the procedural aspects of the task.
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Dalgarno, Bishop and Bedgood

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Highest priorities:
•skills in recording, reporting and interpreting observations;
•higher level cognitive skills of deductive reasoning, hypothesis formation and testing;
•skills related to manipulative and instrument use.

21. Studies showing no difference in conceptual understanding:
Wiesner and Lan (chemical engineering)
Zacharia and Constantinou (heat and temperature)
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Physical vs virtual laboratories

22. Only a requirement for the development of conceptual knowledge or inquiry skills where students have no previous relevant physical experience with the phenomenon or concept under study.
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Tactile information

23. Students investigating simulated electric circuits showing moving electrons acquired more conceptual knowledge than those using physical materials.
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Finkelstein et al.

24. Students using virtual optics materials displaying light rays outperformed those using physical materials.
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Olympiou and Zacharia

25. Virtual laboratory offered students more time to experience experiment and to concentrate on concepts. Allowed faster manipulation of materials.
Students conducting a virtual and a physical laboratory outperformed students performing only the physical laboratory on conceptual understanding of heat and temperature.
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Zacharia

26. A group of microbiology students who performed physical laboratories were less successful on a conceptual test than a group where a simulation was substituted for one laboratory session.
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Huppert et al.

27. Students who used a simulation of distillation preceding the physical laboratory had an advantage over students who did not.
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Climent-Bellido et al.

28. No significant difference between starting with the virtual laboratory followed by a physical laboratory compared to the reverse order (DNA gel electrophoresis).
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Toth et al.

29. No difference between virtual-physical and physical-virtual sequence in conceptual understanding of pulleys.
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Chini et al.

30. Draw a graphical representation of how a virtual experiment could be related to other aspects of the laboratory:
Pre-laboratory work
Hands on experiments
Report writing
Data analysis
Design
Planning
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The overall laboratory

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33. Exploit the advantages of each method
Design combinations carefully for greatest benefit
Provide appropriate student guidance
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Summary