Instructional Design Comparisons of a Virtual Laboratory and a Physical Laboratory for Water Treatment

Image
Picture of Sam Gavitte.
Event Speaker
Samuel Gavitte
MS Student in Chemical Engineering (Advisor; Jeff Nason)
Event Type
CBEE Seminar
Date
Event Location
Kelley 1001 and Zoom
Event Description

Laboratory activities are deeply rooted in engineering curricula to provide practical knowledge, such as equipment use and lab safety, as a companion to theory. The learning environments created by laboratory activities are an important part of engineering education at all levels. Laboratories give students an opportunity to engage with concepts and material in a way not accessible in a traditional classroom. However, laboratory activities can be time consuming and resource intensive. Additionally, replicating hands-on laboratory activities for online and remote learners is challenging. Virtual laboratories can address these issues by utilizing mathematical models to provide students with simulations that are faster to complete and easier to access. However, the differences between virtual and physical laboratory modes may lead to them prompting different engineering epistemic practices. Therefore, virtual laboratories might not be thought of as a replacement to physical laboratories but instead as something complementary. This framing creates a need for better design and implementation of both physical and virtual laboratory activities which address the affordances and constraints of the respective modes to promote student learning. This paper describes the instructional design of a physical and virtual laboratory that were designed to complement each other. The constraints and affordances of each mode and their implications are discussed. Major laboratory and experimental design choices and the reasoning behind them are detailed. Finally, we report the observed student learning outcomes from our preliminary analysis, student perceptions from exit interviews, and discuss the implications of these findings.

Speaker Biography

Sam is completing a masters degree in Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University working with Dr. Jeff Nason and Dr. Milo Koretsky. He is researching engineering epistemic practices and how the affordances of virtual and physical laboratory modes facilitate them. His research interests are in developing robust virtual education tools to enhance online programs and increase accessibility to engineering education.