I have several responses to Bob LaMontagne's post that Providence College no
longer requires the usual formal lab report. I apologize in advance that
these comments are a bit harsh, but that's the way I see it.
[1] When I observe that a teacher or a department switches from formal
reports to some sort of worksheet or guided response sheet, further
investigation often elicits comments about the time and difficulty grading
formal lab reports. I am very suspicious that the change is made for this
reason rather than for better student learning.
A commonly heard statement goes something like, "you don't really understand
something until you have to explain it to someone else." One can make the
claim that a guided-response worksheet is in fact explaining it to someone
else, but I believe it is at a much lower level than having to write without
prompts.
My wife and her co-teachers are already working on this in 5th grade. Early
on they provide considerable prompting for the writing they expect from
their students. As the year progresses they provide less and less
prompting as they expect more and more initiative from the students.
I also do this with my more formal reports, and with my grading. For the
first few reports I provide more writing guidance in the "lab handouts," and
I grade easier and make lots of comments on student reports. By the 4th or
5th report I expect to do minimal prompting, and I grade more harshly when
students write poorly or don't explain things clearly.
[2] I don't have any dreams that I am training my students to be
professional physicists (or even scientists). My largest student group is
pre-meds. The next largest group is biologists who want to get a job in
some area of life science such as chiropractic, optometrist, dentist,
physical therapy. The next largest group is pre-service high-school
teachers, most often wanting to teach biology. This doesn't matter. They
all need to learn to think through things and be able to explain it.
Writing helps them do this.
[3] The idea that physics class it the place to concentrate on physics
concepts rather than more broad liberal education strikes me as a trend I
see in many disciplines. The idea is, "just let me focus on my thing, and
don't bother me with stuff that is not my thing." It's an extension of the
relevance question of, "Why do I need to learn this? I will never use this
in my intended career."
I admit that a liberal-arts education is becoming more and more difficult to
sell. But I still firmly believe in it.
[4] Faculty in non-science disciplines have told me that they can usually
tell which students have already taken some lab science because students who
have written formal lab reports are better writers. This is because the
successful lab-science veterans have learned to organize their thoughts in
more logical fashion and can write a more clear and convincing paper.
Although creative writers also need clear thought and the ability to
organize the writing in a compelling manner, it appears it is more difficult
to teach this if the material is fiction.
[5] I do agree with Bob that the "formal report" can get bogged down in
"statistical errors, significant figures, or other distracters." I also try
to avoid the problem of too many nit picking aspects to the lab report. I
don't think it is nit picking to expect clear writing that follows a logical
flow from a stated purpose through a description of the procedure and ending
with some results and conclusions. I don't think it is nit picking to
expect properly constructed graphs and tables and illustrations when
appropriate.
My daughter is a graphic designer, and she has had to design brochures that
explain employee retirement benefits, advertisement brochures for a variety
of products, medicine instructions that explain how a patient is supposed to
use the medication, etc. Aside from the fact that she puts a fair amount of
emphasis on the overall visual aspect of her work by choosing appropriate
colors, photographs, typefaces and font sizes, etc., it is remarkable how
much her organization follows a typical lab report format. It's all aimed
at making a clear presentation of the information to the reader. Students
need to learn to do this regardless of their chosen profession. Science
labs are an excellent place to practice this. If we want to wear blinders
and say, "it's not my job to teach this kind of thing, I just want to focus
on the science," then... then... then I am at a loss of what to say. I
guess I wonder why you are in education.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
1 University Drive
Bluffton, OH 45817
419.358.3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu