Portfolio: Learning to Write Assignment

Lab Report Sequencing


Purpose
Traditionally in the introductory labs I teach, students submit six formal lab reports over the course of seven weeks. They only have the opportunity to rewrite the first lab after they receive comments and a grade. Ideally, students would receive their graded labs back before they turn in the next report. However, in reality, this is not always the case. The courses tend to enroll about 60 students which amounts to a 20 report per week grading load for each instructor or teaching assistant. Without revision opportunities nor class time which focuses on lab report writing, students are left practicing writing lab reports instead of learning how to write them.

Instead of having students write complete lab reports from the start of the term they will write pieces of the lab report throughout the term. This will allow them to receive feedback on the separate pieces in the first five weeks, and then have time to apply what they have learned to a full report format in the last two weeks.

Justification
A good laboratory report starts with a good results section. And, because this is a laboratory course where students perform experiments and collect data, it is a logical place to start. In my experience, the results section is where most students lose a majority points on a lab. The number one reason is that they never include result text—they just plop down some tables, graphs, or pictures. I feel that spending time working on a result section in Lab 1 will go a long way in helping them form a foundation from where they will write a successful report.

The move from the results section to the discussion section is also a place where students tend to stumble. Often, there will be results text in the discussion and vice versa. When provided with questions to aid in the development of the discussion, students tend to answer each question in paragraph form and fail to tie the paragraphs together or to the lab itself. Therefore, after mastering the results section students will work on writing a results and discussion section for Lab 2.

In the third lab we will begin the introduction that includes background. We will spend two weeks working on this with in class activities that focus on both the writing of the introduction and the use of references and citations in the introduction. Because the introduction is a complex section which includes background, objectives, and in text citations I think students will be best served by stretching activities out over two weeks in order to touch on all of the components of a good introduction.

From there, students will begin to work on their final project where they design their own experiment and write their own materials and methods (materials and methods are essentially provided in all the prescribed labs via the lab protocol). We will spend time in class providing information and instruction on project specific materials and methods. Students will turn in a draft of their project introduction, materials and methods, and reference section and receive feedback before they execute the final experiments. In the final week, students will revise the above and add the results and discussion to form the final, full lab report.