LTE 2022: Remote Laboratory together with Blended Learning Helps Teachers Cater for Students’ Diverse Learning Needs

‘Ding dong… ding dong…’, the school bell rings at the end of a class. There is always a limitation of class hours and laboratory space when conducting experiments in traditional science lessons. Students are conducting experiments in groups usually and they rarely have the opportunity to do experiments all on their own. In recent years, secondary schools have made good use of blended learning and introduced remote experiment tools to enable students to control university laboratory apparatus remotely from home. This learning mode not only provides ample time for conducting the experiments in a safe environment, but also enables teachers to keep track of students’ learning progress and adopt appropriate teaching strategies. Worksheets of various levels can also be designed to facilitate effective learning for students with different levels of ability.

Traditional Laboratory: Non-readable Results and Inaccurate Data

Ms Yau Wing Yee, Head of Physics Department and Coordinator of STEAM of St. Stephen’s Girls’ College shared her experience in the interview. She said even all the lights in the school laboratory were turned off when demonstrating the ‘interference phenomenon’ in a physics class, students could still barely observe the interference pattern formed by the laser passing through the slit. The quality of the formed pattern was also not satisfactory. There are limitations due to the laboratory environment, light sources, and apparatus in the school. ‘The environment became too dark for students to read the scale of the ruler in the laboratory. The interference patterns formed are dim, thick and scattered. It was almost impossible to read the scale accurately, not to mention taking the readings for calculations,’ she said. Ms Yau believes these limitations could lead to glaring errors in data collection, and it was hard for students to even observe the effects on interference patterns under different wavelengths and widths of slits.

When asked for comments on some virtual experiment platforms available in the market, Ms Yau believed that those platforms may have failed to provide a realistic experiment experience to students. ‘Students are going to get an expected experiment result, which is an illusion without a technical basis. These platforms first manipulate the data for students to take the readings and conclude with a presumed answer. The whole process may not be very meaningful for learners,’ she stated.

Junior Form Students Learning Greenhouse Effect through Observing Ecosphere

In addition to inducing effective learning outcomes, performing experiments in the remote laboratory reinforces students’ interest in learning. Ms Yau said students like the feeling of operating the laboratory apparatus remotely. ‘I heard positive feedbacks from students so far. Students like it because they haven’t tried remote experiments before, and using the apparatus remotely feels like controlling a spaceship because they can see the apparatus moving,’ she mentioned. As the school understands the unique advantages of the remote laboratory, it plans to continue using the platform even after the epidemic ends. The school is also extending the use of the platform to other subjects and classes, such as the experiment related to ‘Greenhouse Effect’ in Science lessons in junior forms. Students can understand the impact of carbon dioxide concentration on our environment by observing the correlation between carbon dioxide concentration and temperature in an ecosphere that is illuminated by a light source.

Fair Information: