Across various fields of study, laboratory and practical experiences enhance students’ understanding of their curriculum and provide them with actual insights into the roles they will one day play. Students who engage in well-designed laboratory or practical experiences not only develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills but also develop the technical skills needed in their future careers.
A screenshot of Dr Geeta Selvarajah doing an instructional video recording in the genetics lab.
With global lockdowns hindering the ability for lecturers and students to actively pursue practical learning in physical settings, educators had to get creative with how they delivered this portion of education. Speaking on how they navigated through these challenges, science and engineering lecturers at INTI International University shared their experiences from the past few months.
Associate Professor Dr Geeta Selvarajah, an experienced Biology, Genetics and Biotechnology lecturer at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (FHLS), explained how she conducted genetics and biochemistry labs virtually.
“I used the weekday just before the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) to do an instructional video recording in the genetics lab. For biochemistry labs, I depended on existing virtual labs, online videos, home-based experiments and also bioinformatics which can be done on a computer,” explained Dr Geeta.
Leveraging home-based experiments, she would get students to conduct hands-on experiments using items they could find at home, such as simple testing using plants found in their gardens. Varying between different types of teaching and activities not only prevented students from being bored but kept them practising their practical skills.
Sharing her preparations for the new norms of virtual teaching and learning, Dr Geeta revealed, “As lecturers, we now have to think about how best to get learning experiences across online mediums. Videos are a good option, but it takes a long time to make videos, edit them, look into sound quality and so forth, not to mention thinking up ideas on how to do it.”
While most of her lessons are being conducted virtually, Dr Geeta realised that her presence was still as important to students even while they carry out their practical learning online. While her students work on their experiments and reports, she waits and responds to any questions raised by them throughout the lesson and sometimes even afterwards.
“By extending the lesson time a little and being there for my students, it has resulted in better journals and reports that are handed in,” she shares contentedly.
At INTI’s civil engineering lab, besides the usual concrete samples and lab equipment, one may also find unconventional devices including recording tools, video lighting, selfie sticks and camera stands. These have been set up for a virtual lab video recording for a lesson on concrete for both the Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering and Diploma in Civil Engineering programmes, facilitated by senior lecturer Dr Lee Hoong Pin and his colleague, Nazrul Azmi, both from the Faculty of Engineering and Quantity Surveying (FEQS).
“Despite physical distancing, we remain committed to ensuring that learning will not stop and that we continue to give students the best experiences possible. This sometimes means going outside our comfort zones to experiment with new ways of delivering our lessons through videos and other engaging means,” stated Dr Lee.
Dr Lee Hoong Pin (left) and his colleague Nazrul Azmi, conducting a video recording for a virtual laboratory session.
He further explained that these videos would be uploaded to Blackboard, an existing learning management tool that INTI has been using for more than eight years and which provided a secure platform to ease the delivery of online lessons, especially during the MCO.
“Before a recording session, we will discuss and plan for it. A range of recording instruments, including video editing software is used to produce a good video. Nazrul and I will then record different scenarios in the laboratory and leave them open-ended1 so that there is a critical thinking element when students watch it,” Dr Lee further elaborated.
“In the beginning, it was weird to talk in front of a camera, but we got used to it after a few trials. It is important to prepare notes beforehand so that you know what to talk about,” chucked Nazrul.
“We also learnt how to edit videos through simple software so that the messages were delivered with good quality,” he added.
Dr Lee opined that in this age of information resources were readily available through many channels. As educators, he and Nazrul tried not to limit themselves to common methods but preferred to explore different perspectives and tools during the online laboratory session.
“While there are many possibilities during a home based lab experiment, this encourages active discussion and enhances critical thinking skills as we leave the outcomes open-ended. This is why we prefer to record our lab tests for students rather than taking something from the internet,” said Dr Lee.
Explaining how they overcome the challenges, Lee said, “As it is difficult and time-consuming to type formulas one by one, we bought a writing pad to ease teaching engineering calculations. We want to ensure students are paying attention to the lectures, so we conduct a quiz during the lessons. Providing a break every 30 minutes also is important to keep students focused on the lecture.”
To help the student adapt to virtual lab learning, Dr Lee and Nazrul have also provided pre-designed lab data so that students could explore different solutions. Once they have completed their online labs, students deliver a virtual presentation with their data interpretations during their lessons.
Through this new process, new skills were discovered and means of making online lab sessions more efficient became a new part of the consideration. With students adapting to the new learning environment, these efforts are helping to make learning experiences more rewarding.
1 A situation given that might happened in construction, and students need to come out with various possible solution with appropriate approaches to solve it.