Handbook Table of Contents > Teaching Methods > Student Preparation
Indiana University Teaching Handbook
Teaching Methods
Student Preparation
Those who have only a hazy recollection of Wednesday’s lecture will follow directions mindlessly, but those who have reviewed lecture notes and the lab manual will have some understanding of the experiment’s importance. Devise some means to ensure that students are familiar with the lab before they come to class. Some instructors feel that grades on lab reports are incentive enough, while others require students to perform some pre-lab exercise, such as submitting a statement of purposes and procedures or an explanation of why and how the experiment is relevant to the course. Others invite students to office hours preceding the lab, helping highly motivated students to prepare. Students who have no understanding of why the experiment is important will not derive much knowledge from conducting it, nor will they remember or be able to use much of what they do learn.
