- On arrival, check that the students have their lab notebooks: they have been told to bring these to every lab. Hand out hard copy of lab instructions for most labs. Lab handouts are available on the web, and students are told to read these in advance of the lab.
- Apply mark penalties for late arrival consistently, as follows:
- Lab sessions begin at 5 minutes past the hour;
- Students arriving up to 10 minutes late (i.e. 15 minutes past the hour) will be penalised 1 mark for late arrival, but may be excluded entirely if the demonstrator deems it unsafe to allow them to join the activity;
- Students arriving more than 10 minutes late will be automatically excluded from laboratory experiments, and lose the associated credit. For other activities (Computing, Drawing, IEP etc) students may take part in the activity at the discretion of the demonstrator, but will be penalised for late arrival.
- Students who are penalised for late arrival or excluded due to circumstances beyond their control should be instructed to try and rearrange the coursework activity, or apply for recovery of marks if necessary via the Allowances procedure.
- Demonstrators should aim to keep the activity lively throughout. Simplify any complexities in the handouts. Relate the work to practical applications, and to the lecture courses (given or to come). Question the students during the experiment in a way that presses them into thinking about what is happening. If you do a good job you will find that the students have enjoyed a worthwhile two hours. Do not leave your class unattended nor become involved with other work during the lab period. Keep to time!
- Be aware that you must treat all students equally, and should guard against unconsciously providing different support to students based on their gender or race.
- In short experiments, as appropriate, conclude with a final wrap-up session to consider the findings, conclusions and significance of the experiment. Aim for the students to leave the exercise with a clear learning outcome, particularly as labs are often out-of-step with the relevant lecture course.
- Short experiments are signed up by the demonstrator at the end of the 2-hour period. Two marks should be awarded for prompt attendance and satisfactory completion of the work. For absence or a grossly unsatisfactory performance the mark is zero. No mark other than two or zero should be awarded.
- Long experiments also conclude within the 2-hour period, but these experiments are written up by the students in their own time. Demonstrators should brief students on what is expected in the write-up (referring to instructions in the lab handout). Students will have been told that a time of about two and a half hours should be adequate for writing up an experiment.
- For long experiments, make it clear to students when and where the lab write-up is to be marked, or handed in. Arrangements vary from laboratory to laboratory, but in most cases students are required to sign up for a marking session (on paper on on-line). Sign-up sessions are normally within fifteen days (inclusive) from the date of the experiment. Special arrangements will need to be made when the booking sheet is full or the student is fully booked on the rota.
- For long experiment markers, the time spent at sign-up sessions should on average be 7-8 minutes per student, but it is common to see students in groups of 2 or 4. This is efficient in covering the main teaching points, but it is important to involve every student in the session – so provide some individual feedback on every report, and use questions around the group to test their understanding of the lab and to stimulate discussion. Be alert to any copying or cheating by students, and report any concerns to the lab leader. In some labs, numerical values are changed year-on-year, to provide evidence that students may be using reports from previous years.
- Credit for a long experiment is on the scale 0-6, with 4 marks for completion of the experiment and a minimally acceptable report, 5 marks for satisfactory work and 6 marks for very good work. A mark of less than 4 can be awarded if in the considered opinion of the marker the student has produced an inadequate piece of work. If no report is submitted, the mark is zero. Most students should produce satisfactory reports with perhaps 20% scoring 6 and very few scoring less than 4. Late submission of a report incurs a deduction of one mark for each week or part of a week that the report is late.
- For both long and short experiments, make sure that the marks, absences and penalties are accurately recorded in the lab marksheets (liaise with the senior technician, who is responsible for keeping these records). It is important for demonstrators to sign and date either the student's laboratory mark record sheet, or the laboratory notebook (for long experiments), or the laboratory instruction sheet (for short experiments) so that the student retains evidence of the experiment having been completed.
Last updated on 27/08/2019 17:03