What is lost with remote practicals?

In a world where it has been demonstrated that teaching can happen remotely, can the expenditure in costly, in-lab student activities still be justified? A number of us in MEE have been thinking carefully about how we can achieve specific learning outcomes using one of a variety of tactics, and so far, I’m unaware of any that can’t be. So should MEE sell all of its state-of-the-art teaching equipment on e-bay to fund a one-off, epic staff party? Before we dust off our sequined, after-dinner wear, consider what could be lost by delivering all practicals remotely, beyond just the ability to fulfil learning outcomes.

Having given this a fair bit of consideration, I’m of the opinion there are three broad reasons for continuing to run in-lab practicals. Three may not sound like a lot, but they are very important. I’d be interested to know if you think there are any more.

Efficiency

When we design or redesign practicals the starting point should always be to create activities that fulfil the learning outcomes. For any individual session, there may be two or three explicitly stated learning outcomes that form the basis for the design of the session. Let's say you want students to see some phenomena and process some experimental data to validate a theory. For in-lab delivery, students may come into a laboratory, execute an experiment to observe what happens and collect data. To achieve these outcomes remotely, you may provide students with a video of the observations from the experiment and a dataset of numerical results to process. The learning outcomes can be fulfilled either way. 

But consider what has been lost during the translation to a remote practical. When in the laboratory, students will, as a result of performing the activity, notice what instrumentation has been used to collect the data, make decisions about what settings will be made to produce a result, considered how to record what they see for later processing, as well as a bunch of other aspects that the educators may not have even considered. The process of distilling only what is necessary has eliminated all of the unnecessary but still really good stuff that is beneficial to the experience of being a practical engineer. It would be too cumbersome to explicitly list all of the learning that takes place during an in-lab practical as a specific learning outcome, but that doesn't mean it does not occur. And it occurs almost as a byproduct of simply being in the lab and trying to achieve the specified learning outcomes, without the need to burden the student's attention with numerous expectations.

Student experience

Conducting a practical activity is an authentic application of engineering principles in a structured, social teaching session. Students have provided us (entirely understandable) feedback that the remote practicals are “just not the same”. It may be possible to dissect the delivery of in-lab practicals to identify and replicate the attributes that make them their unique character, but it is my opinion that remote practicals will never “be the same”, and so any effort in this area will have little impact. So my approach is to accept the feedback at face value and maintain the belief that remote practicals are “just not the same” and move on to focus my academic scrutiny on more productive endeavours. 

Accommodating learning styles

While some students will learn best from reading and others from watching lectures, a number of students will learn best from doing. Even if book learning is a preferred method, all students could gain a deeper understanding of engineering concepts by engaging with multiple learning methods. Physically interacting with stuff in a tangible, hands on, way is considered one of the best methods for helping ideas to “stick”. There is that enormously overused but nonetheless valid Confucius quote “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” So there is something about actively “doing” that is beneficial for many and critical for some.


So those are my three reasons. Have you got any more?