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1. Successful Integration of Face-to-Face Bootcamp Lab Courses in a Hybrid Online STEM Program

   https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v20i3.1769  

   Ardissone, Alexandria N; Oli, Monika W; Rice, Kelly C; Galindo, Sebastian; Urrets-Zavalia, Macarena; Wysocki, Allen F; Triplett, Eric W; Drew, Jennifer C (January 2019, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)

   The Microbiology and Cell Science program at the University of Florida compressed two standard 16-week lab courses into five-day versions of the course, which are referred to as bootcamp labs. The bootcamp labs have the same objectives, activities, and assessments as their traditional counterparts. Development of the bootcamp labs was part of a larger effort to increase access to the major, and more broadly STEM, by offering a 2+2 hybrid online transfer program. The results of this mixed-methods study include a direct comparison between bootcamp and traditional lab format as an approach for delivery of a face-to-face lab course. The bootcamp lab cohort has a greater diversity of students, with more women and underrepresented minorities in STEM than the traditional semester-long cohorts. Students in the bootcamp labs have comparable grade outcomes and learning gains to students in traditional lab format. Regression analysis identified GPA, but not lab format, as the most significant predictor of success for students enrolled in lab courses. Qualitative results suggest that the bootcamp format may be a better way than traditional formats to teach microbiology lab. In summary, the results demonstrate that a bootcamp version of a face-to-face microbiology course is just as effective as the traditional semester-long version. This work has broader implications as it supports the bootcamp lab approach as a model in STEM education for increasing access and for overcoming a major barrier to online STEM programs: face-to-face delivery of key lab courses. 

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2. Project-Based Lab (PB-Lab) Design for Materials Science Curriculum: Integrating Independent Labs into a Project

   Stehle, Yijing (April 2024, ASEE)

   Traditionally, materials science labs were independent weekly labs, aiming to reinforce the lecture content and provide students with hands-on experience. The Union College Mechanical Engineering department has been redeveloping the curriculum to make it more inclusive and meet the college-wide general education goal, one of which is connecting disciplinary content with complex global challenges. This paper presents the approach of consolidating the 3–4 independent materials science labs into one project that addresses real world challenges. In the materials-based project-based lab（PB-Lab), students work in groups and identify the provided materials (morphological, structural, property, process) to create solutions for a scenario in an ongoing global crisis with set timeframes and constraints. The curriculum design of PB-Lab engages students with active learning and authentic learning; they see how what they are learning in materials sciences can be applied as working engineers. Students experience the interdependent and integrated nature of the materials development process in the lab and generate their own concepts about addressing global challenges. In summary, PB-Lab engages students in identifying problems, developing potential solutions through materials characterization and analysis in the lab, and delivering effective communication in the form of lab reports or presentations. 

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3. Support Remote Collaboration in Virtual Computer Labs

   Xiaolin Hu, Hai Le (January 2019, ASEE 2019 - the 126th Annual Conference and Exposition, June 15-19, 2019)

   Computer labs are commonly used in computing education to help students reinforce the knowledge obtained in classrooms and to gain hands-on experience on specific learning subjects. While traditional computer labs are based on physical computer centers on campus, more and more virtual computer lab systems (see, e.g., [1, 2, 3, 4]) have been developed that allow students to carry out labs on virtualized resources remotely through the internet. Virtual computer labs make it possible for students to use their own computers at home, instead of relying on computer centers on campus to work on lab assignments. However, they also make it difficult for students to collaborate, due to the fact that students work remotely and there is a lack of support of sharing and collaboration. This is in contrast to traditional computer labs where students naturally feel the presence of their peers in a physical lab room and can easily work together and help each other if needed. Funded by NSF’s Division of Undergraduate Education, this project develops a collaborative virtual computer lab (CVCL) environment to support collaborative learning in virtual computer labs. The CVCL environment leverages existing open source collaboration tools and desktop sharing technologies and adds new functions unique to virtual computer labs to make it easy for students to collaborate while working on computer labs remotely. It also implements several collaborative lab models to support different forms of collaboration in both formal and informal settings. We have developed the main functions of the CVCL environment and begun to use it in classes in the Computer Science (CS) department at Georgia State University. While the original project focuses on computer labs in its traditional sense, the issue of lack of collaboration applies to much broader learning settings where students work on tasks or assignments on computers, with or without being associated with a lab environment. Due to the high mobility of students in modern campuses and the fact that many learning activities are carried out over the Internet, computer-based learning increasingly happen in students’ personal spaces (e.g., homes, apartments), as opposed to public learning spaces (e.g., laboratories, libraries). In these personal spaces, it is difficult for students to get help from classmates or teaching assistants (TAs) when encountering problems. As a result, collaborative learning is difficult and rare. This is especially true for urban universities such as Georgia State University where a significant portion of students are part-time students and/or commute. To address this issue, we intend to broaden the concept of “virtual computer lab” to include general computer based learning happening in “virtual space,” which is any location where people can meet using networked digital devices [5]. Virtual space is recognized as an increasingly important part of “learning spaces” and asks for support from both the technology aspect and learning theory aspect [5]. Collaborative learning environments that support remote collaboration in virtual computer labs would fill an important need in this broader trend. 

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4. The Effect of a Paired Lab on Course Completion and Grades in Nonmajors Introductory Biology

   https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-03-0041  

   DeFeo, Dayna Jean; Bibler, Andrew; Gerken, Sarah; Schussler, Elisabeth (September 2020, CBE—Life Sciences Education)

   This paper explores the effect of a paired lab course on students’ course outcomes in nonmajors introductory biology at the University of Alaska Anchorage. We compare course completion and final grades for 10,793 students (3736 who simultaneously enrolled in the lab and 7057 who did not). Unconditionally, students who self-select into the lab are more likely to complete the course and to earn a higher grade than students who do not. However, when we condition on observable course, academic, and demographic characteristics, we find much of this difference in student performance outcomes is attributable to selection bias, rather than an effect of the lab itself. The data and discussion challenge the misconception that labs serve as recitations for lecture content, noting that the learning objectives of science labs should be more clearly articulated and assessed independent of lecture course outcomes. 

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5. Investigating the Effect of Engineering Undergraduates’ Writing Transfer Modes on Lab Report Writing in Entry-level Engineering Lab Courses

   Riley, Charles; Kim, Dave; Lulay, Ken; Lynch, John D.; St. Clair, Sean (July 2021, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Engineering undergraduates are exposed to a variety of writing curricula, such as first-year-composition courses, in their early program of study; however, they have difficulties meeting the expectations of writing in early engineering courses. On the other hand, instructors in entry-level engineering lab courses struggle to instruct lab report writing due to a wide range of student background in writing. When using the lens of learning transfer theories, which describe the processes and the effective extent to which past experiences affect learning and performance in a new situation, we can classify engineering students in three writing transfer modes: 1) concurrent transfer, which occurs when a rhetorically-focused technical writing class is taken concurrently or prior to engineering labs in the major; 2) vertical transfer, which occurs when a rhetorically-focused general education writing class is taken prior to engineering labs in the major; and 3) absent transfer, which occurs when no rhetorically-focused writing class exists (rather literature-focused) or writing-intensive courses are not required in the general education curriculum. This study aims to investigate how the engineering sophomore’s past writing experience affects their engineering lab report writing. Lab reports from four sophomore engineering courses (1 civil, 2 electrical, 1 general engineering) across three institutions collected for analysis consisted of two sets: the sample sets in early labs (for example, Lab 1) and in later labs (for example, the last lab) of the courses. A total of 46 reports (22 early and 24 later) were collected from 22 engineering sophomores during AY2019-2020. Four engineering faculty (1 civil, 1 electrical, and 2 mechanical engineering) developed a rubric based on lab report writing student outcomes, which are aligned with the existing outcomes such as ABET outcomes and the student outcomes from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA). Data collected via early-later lab reports show that student outcomes related to writing conventions were scored high regardless of the transfer modes. The largest variations among three transfer modes were found in the student outcomes related to lab data presentation, analysis, and interpretation. In these outcomes, the concurrent transfer students had relatively high scores for both early and later reports, while the vertical transfer students improved their scores from relatively low in early reports to high in later reports. This research results show that the area of writing knowledge that has been most influenced by their writing curricula prior to sophomore engineering lab courses is disciplinary meaning-making through presenting, analyzing, and interpreting lab data for the technical audience. 

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