Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Well, the "thriving" laboratory review group has met, and the generated questions (and not agreed structure as I had expected) were distributed to those who were not there.

1. Shall we continue with oral reporting in the
introductory physics laboratories?
2. What kind of written report do you prefer?
(A) Paper Format
(B) Question and Answer Format

Personally, I'm in favor of the oral reporting because it gives me another gauge of how much they understand of the experiments other than the written reports (which they may delegate or outright copy) and the procedures themselves, since actually performing the experiment (or recording their groupmates' measurements) is not the same as comprehending the priciples being demonstrated.

As for the written report, I assume they're talking about specific questions per experiment, because otherwise I have general questions for the analysis and conclusion parts of the experiment.

In my experience, specific questions are only answerable after having understood the theory, unless they revise the policy and remove the set procedures completely, and force the students to come up with the answer by a "what if I do this?" type of situation in the lab.

At the same time, they came up with more questions for the proposed open lab policy:

1. Do we ask for individual or group report?
2. If group report, do we give group or
individual grade?
3. Do we give prelab and postlab quizzes?
4. Do we allow students who just need to have
papers marked to walk-in session?
5. Do we allow students to retrieve their lab
reports, or just ask technicians to hand them
to the faculty? (there is a risk of
manufactured report if we allow students to
walk in to have papers checked. It will also
be difficult administratively - unless we
computerize - if student actually did lab)
6. How many experiments do we require? If we
take into account orientation during 1st
meeting and final exam, there are only 12
weeks left for activities (assuming no
holidays, typhoons or basketball games, etc.)
7. Do we allow students the option to have grade
unlisted?
8. Do we make a database system?
9. Preparation of worksheets.
10. How much will be discussed at the start of
class?

Even if they are consulting the rest of the faculty on this, it still shows that they already have a lot of assumptions, which I will have to discuss next time. Off line life calls.