As they turned in their pre-labs into Edmodo, I reviewed them. Most of them had mistakes in the procedural setup, holes in their hypotheses, and gaps in their data collection procedures. But that's OK--that's what usually happens when learning and thinking begins. Sometimes teachers think that student work has to be perfect the first time out in order for students to learn, resulting in a micromanaging of the learning process to the extent that all the bumps in the learning path have been smoothed out for students ahead of time. But this does a disservice to students by not teaching them how to get around, over, and under the bumps by themselves.
How do I know? Because I used to micromanage my students' labs. I used to make sure all students had their pre-labs perfected according to my detailed feedback before they could do their lab, resulting in labs that were not truly designed by them, but indirectly designed by me. And then I wondered why they still couldn't design a lab the next time we did one--because I had never actually let them experience the process on their own in the first place. Over the years, I had to learn that student self-designed labs are exercises in thinking and creativity, not about content and getting it "right." Instead, these labs are about giving students the opportunity to make their own mistakes, realize they made the mistakes, and then allow them to fix those mistakes. It's more about the process than the science to me, about seeing them learning how to learn.
This opportunity came yesterday, as students gathered in the back of my room, grabbing materials and assembling them into what would be their lab. Students quickly realized what would work from their initial pre-lab design and what would not, making adjustments and asking for new materials I hadn't thought they would need. They fixed their hypotheses and procedures, and remade their spreadsheets. The back of my room was abuzz with thinking, fixing, laughter as things didn't work out as they had planned, more thinking, more fixing, more laughter.
As I watched them, I was struck by the innovative ways they had come up with to answer the question. Each group had designed an entirely different way to use the materials to answer the question. Below are pictures of two very different student designs:
I also enjoyed watching the differentiation that was occurring. To me, self-designed labs are inherently differentiated, allowing students to choose the level of difficulty that's right for them. I don't usually see students opting for the easy way out (and, if I do, that's when I enter "facilitator of learning" mode) when they design their own labs--I often have to do a little "reigning-in" of their imaginations, simply because of material limitations or time constraints. But it's amazing how students will challenge themselves if given the room to explore, investigate, and the freedom to fail and fix.
But here's another thought that kept popping up in my head as I watched my students working on their labs: Kids aren't standardized. My students don't come in "standard" educational size--if such a thing even exists. They're all different, with different ways of learning and thinking--their labs were obvious evidence of that. My students were learning right in front of my very eyes; unfortunately, that's not the one-size-fits-all factory-model type of learning that's measured by standardized testing. It's not the type of learning that can be quantified and thrown into a spreadsheet and manipulated and thrown about in the media...which is unfortunate because, to me, it is the learning on which we should be placing the greatest emphasis.
And that's what I try to do when having my students design their own labs--emphasize the thinking and learning that should be going on. Over the years I have encountered a few teachers who shy away from these types of lab experiences, uncomfortable with the open-ended nature of them, not liking the fact that all students are doing something different, and not happy with the fact that they do take more work and planning. I do understand that doing labs this way requires a shift from the traditional, the perceived "normal" for science instruction...and a shift to a place that is outside of their comfort zones.
But this is the type of authentic activity teachers should be working toward. We can't let students miss out on learning opportunities just because we're not comfortable with the process. As far as these types of lab opportunities are concerned, this is a situation in which we need to stop thinking about what's convenient and/or easy for us, and start thinking about doing what's good for students.