The unexpected value of consistent formatting

I had an interesting email last week. The method I used to replace one of my in-lab practicals with a remote practical was to ask the students to perform an experiment in their kitchen, with standard utensils most people would have; Scales, measuring jugs, stopwatches, that type of stuff. Don’t panic, I insisted they do a risk assessment before and they would get zero marks if they did not. As the explicit learning outcomes were about recording in a lab book and writing up their findings, the nature of the activity wasn’t critical to the assessment, and so this tactic seemed perfectly acceptable. The in-lab practical that the “at home” version replaced used bespoke and sophisticated kit, or at least as sophisticated as it gets in the Fluids Engineering lab. I assume most people believe Krys and I spend most of our time playing with smoke rings and custard.

For the replacement remote practical I prepared a new assignment brief to reflect the changes to what was expected of them and made a quick video with some instructions, tips and examples. As an interesting aside, I didn’t alter the grade criteria, as the learning outcomes hadn’t changed. As I had spent a fair amount of time preparing the original, in-lab activity for students, with videos and a the standard MEE format labsheet, I’d retained the content on the VLE (Blackboard) so students could access it for reference.

The email we got was from a student saying they had prepared a “transcript” of the experiment they had conducted and they were asking if it was OK to share it with others on the module to help them with their work. Not knowing what this meant and being slightly cautious not to fall into a plagiarism and collusion trap, I was keen to know exactly what they meant by “transcript”.

What this student had done was taken the MEE standard lab template and copied content from the original, in-lab practical and the instructions from the new, remote practical to create a new labsheet in the Diamond style. Why? I asked.

"I did this because it's more familiar and it's also a good way to keep the work on this lab organised and in one place"

Lab sheet created by student from material supplied. The student's name has been redacted at their request.

When I started working for MEE one of my first ideas, facilitated by the innovative teaching model Stephen created, was the ability to enforce a standard template for lab sheets. I like this idea for three reasons. Firstly, the lab sheets I was used to from my undergraduate degree and what I’d see at other Universities were shockingly poor in terms of their approach to typesetting. Secondly, as we compile the sheets into books, it just looks more professional if the whole book appears as a coherent document, by everyone agreeing to use the same formatting standards. Finally, if we do a good job of logically laying out and structuring content, it provides students with a model of how to do this when it is required of them.

But this email exchange got me thinking more about the value of consistency in teaching material to students. There are at least two further reasons, based on the reply I received to “why?”, for having a standardised style and format to our lab sheets that I had not considered:

• Student expectation of structure. If all of our lab sheets followed different layouts and formats, then for each activity students would need to spend some time working out the structure for how that particular content is arranged, rather than the content itself. If students become familiar with one method for organising content then they won’t need to repeat this process when the next activity is delivered.

• Familiarity. Now, more than ever, a sense of community and belonging is important. While I’m not a fan of or an expert in the ideas of “branding”, I do understand how a common visual identity provides a tangible symbol for people to rally behind. I would like to think that the hallmark of a Diamond practical was one that was carefully designed with the learning in mind and delivered with high quality resources and equipment. But what I’ve learned here is to not underestimate the notion that if you want something to be a Diamond practical, it has to look like a Diamond practical.