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

Now that the priority of the exam yesterday is out of the way while it was still fresh in my memory, I can tackle my take on the open lab, considering it needed some mulling over in the first place.

1. Do we ask for individual or group report?

I would prefer the former over the latter. That way students who'd rather not have "riders" - students who are part of the group but don't do anything - would not be forced to have to ally themselves with anyone.

Also, since the students can do the experiments anytime they want, having them use the lab in groups restricts them further into whenever the other members are available.

Sure, students who would rather perform the experiments with friends could schedule such, but they would still have different reports from different outputs. Possible compromise: having students make reports for one up to three members per experiment - no commitment.

2. If group report, do we give group or individual grade?

N/A. See above.

3. Do we give prelab and postlab quizzes?

I'm okay with these because it shows, respectively, their preparation before the session and the level of comprehension during the experiment.

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)

This depends on whether they have to give it to the same overseer when they did the experiment. It's also possible that they could just have a separate submission box for that, even in the faculty room. To verify if the student did perform the experiment, there should be a log sheet in the lab at the same time on the students' requirement checklist. This seems too obvious to me. Maybe I'm understanding it incorrectly.

First five for now. I have to be somewhere else in a few minutes.