When classes were remote/hybrid/physically distant, I really missed doing labs. They take a ton of time to prep, get messy in class and frequently fail to produce amazing data, but the labs are always worth it. Last year, I found some great online substitutes that may have given a deeper learning experience for the analysis side of lab work, and one of my goals this year has been to integrate that tech experience with the in-person wet lab experience. Along the way, I wanted this goal to mesh with our department goal of creating a thinking classroom where students collaborate to discover science.

My favorite online platform is Pivot Interactives. The pandemic fueled the growth of their app and there’s been increased development by veteran science teachers who are masters in the AP and NGSS curriculum we are striving to deliver in our classrooms. The platform is great because the experiments are videoed and students can grab measuring tools on the screen to collect their own data. Students are encouraged to amend data tables that are minimally set up and prompts help them do calculations and create graphs to analyze the data. A new aspect I am attempting to master is the teacher editing feature. With this, I was able to use the app-created lab and add in the requirement that students do a different aspect of the lab in person. In several labs I was excited to see that we could do the “easy” condition in person–say room temperature for enzyme activity, and then use the online app to do 5 more temperatures and pH conditions that would have been tedious to recreate in our lab. Another great lab was with cell respiration. The students did the traditional data collection with germinating seeds, while we went to the online app to collect data in varying temperature conditions for creatures I don’t really want to experiment on in our lab–mice, crickets and rats! First semester we were able to do 9 labs like this, some with more in person work than others.

Pivot came to the rescue with my other goal of increasing student collaboration. Although lab work usually does foster collaboration, it felt like we started the new school year with students in a more “I want to work independently and just get this work done” attitude that was necessary to get through our distant/hybrid world. Even with labs, they tried to split up the work to get it done quickly. The feature in Pivot that helped with this was the ability to assign the lab as a group activity. Previously, everyone was assigned their own “lab” online and although they were encouraged to work with their table group, many students just worked side by side without much discussion. Similar to collaborating on a google doc, the students could now manipulate variables, collect data and merge info on graphs. I was shocked how introducing the group lab feature helped the students collaborate. In real time, one group member could manipulate the videos while others were moving the measuring tools to collect information. I walked around the room listening to real conversations about what to change next and how to interpret the experiments. It seems that since they were all contributing to the same, final lab product, the team members were much more invested and engaged.

Up next–testing an online app called Data Classroom to transform data analysis beyond spreadsheets.