Nancy J. Berner
Sewanee: The University of the South 

 

This paper introduces the concept of the studio laboratory course as an alternative to the large lecture hall. Many educational pressures led to the introduction of studio laboratory courses, first codified in physics, but also used as a viable teaching option in some disciplines within biology. I will use my experiences with studio laboratory teaching of a specific biology course (comparative vertebrate anatomy), and information from studio physics, to explore student reactions to the modified learning environment, and compare student performance in this setting versus the traditional lecture/laboratory settings. Finally, I will draw parallels and contrasts between the studio laboratory environment and the Oxford tutorial.

The Studio Laboratory

The main idea behind the studio laboratory course is that the laboratory (or practical) and lecture material are intermingled. This removes the artificial line drawn between them imposed by a traditional schedule: a series of three one-hour lecture sessions per week, usually held in the morning on three separate days, with an additional three-hour laboratory session held once per week, usually in an afternoon. The reason for the practical is to demonstrate concepts covered in lectures, and develop them in more depth than can be accomplished in a lecture. However, with extended time periods (up to a week) between the explanation in lecture and the examination of the concept in laboratory, the point of the laboratory exercise can be lost. The studio laboratory course is meant to facilitate student learning by demonstrating how the material fits together. A studio laboratory course is generally taught three days per week for two hours each day. Alternatively, it could be taught in two three-hour sessions if the material warrants that type of schedule. This simple change in schedule allows more time for students to interact in a more meaningful way with specimens and/or apparatus. They have time to make observations, test hypotheses and draw conclusions of their own.

The studio laboratory course is meant, however, to be more than just a change in course schedule, although that is essential to its success. It is meant to be a time of discovery. There are many ways to format a studio laboratory course session. In one scenario, a typical two-hour session might start with a short (10 – 30 minute) lecture introducing concepts to be studied, after which students are set loose with specimens or apparatus to investigate the ideas just presented, guided by a laboratory manual. An alternative is not to lecture at the beginning but to allow students to start by making observations, guided by the laboratory manual. Students are then asked to derive the main concepts given their recent experiences and exercises. In some cases, there may be no formal lecture at all. However the time is formatted, students work in small groups, and learn with each other. Often, groups will work on separate concepts, and then demonstrate those concepts and their conclusions to the other groups in the class. Sometimes students are asked to present what they learned orally to the entire class. Students get small group experiences, and more individualized attention, as the instructor (and, in some cases, graduate TAs or undergraduate helpers) circulates among groups, listening to ideas and explanations, and probing deeper where necessary. The students act as teachers, which reinforces their own learning experience (Probert, 2001). Thus, even in a class of sixteen to twenty-four, students can get some elements of the tutorial-like experience.

History of studio lab experiences

Studio laboratory courses are an emerging trend in science teaching pedagogy. Although they have been around informally for many years, they were first introduced systematically in the teaching of introductory physics at Dickenson College in Dickenson, PA in 1987-88 as a project funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education (Laws, 1991). Physics professors at Dickenson College collaborated with colleagues at the Tufts University Center for the Teaching of Science and Mathematics and at the University of Oregon, developing what they called at that time ‘Workshop Physics’. They wanted students to acquire “transferable skills of scientific inquiry” as opposed to learning to “solve textbook problems” or acquiring “descriptive knowledge about the enterprise of physics” (Laws, 1991). Workshop Physics, also called Studio Physics, had up to 24 students in a class with one instructor and two undergraduate TAs. Pairs of students worked on a computer, guided by a Workshop Physics Activity Guide (Laws, 1991). The role of the instructor was as “guide, leading students to information and helping them with difficult concepts, while students [were] encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning” (Jack Wilson, UMassOnline quoted in McCray et al., 2003, page 40).

Many difficulties may need to be overcome when introducing studio laboratory courses into a curriculum or institution. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, studio physics with courses the size of 50 - 60, replaced two 250-student lecture sections (McCray et al., 2003). One obvious pressure here is the need for an increase in number of instructors from two to ten or twelve. This can be accomplished by using more graduate student and undergraduate TAs where available, but hiring seems inevitable. The standard lecture hall will not work for the studio laboratory. The room needs to be flexible to allow comfortable, and seamless transitions among the various teaching and learning techniques. Sight lines to the front of the room that are unobstructed by group work areas are also essential, making the traditional wet laboratory an inappropriate space for a studio laboratory session. It must also provide enough space to accommodate easy access to apparatus or specimens, interactions among groups of students, and circulation of instructors. Finally, especially at smaller institutions, the times for scheduling courses need to be flexible enough to allow courses offered during non-traditional times.

Student reactions to a studio laboratory course can also present a problem when they are first introduced. Studies show that, until students get used to it, they often prefer the didactic lecture experience to active and collaborative learning techniques (McCray et al., 2003). Many students “have become accustomed to memorizing terms and facts and receiving information from the instructor in a one-way fashion and have developed strategies to succeed in such courses” (McCray et al., 2003, page 10). Some students prefer the anonymity of the large lecture hall (Laws, 1991) and “resent having to teach themselves everything” (Laws, 1991). Despite these problems, and problems teaching professors to teach in this new environment, and not “launch into long explanations at every turn,” Dickenson, as well as many other physics programs around the country continue to teach in this mode and work to improve it (Laws, 1991).

In biology, studio laboratory courses have been slower to catch on, at least at the introductory level. While the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), from 1988 to 2001, poured over $154 million into 225 biology departments, including Sewanee, “to improve curriculum and upgrade labs” (Stokstad, 2001), it has proven impossible so far to implement far-reaching pedagogical changes.

“The biology department of Hope College in Holland, Michigan, readily agreed to revamp its introductory course to add more principles and remove a few facts. But the consensus dissolved when the faculty began to discuss what to leave out.

‘We had faculty members counting how many lectures there were on each topic,’ recalls molecular biologist James Gentile, then department chair. ‘If there was one on chloroplasts, there had to be one on mitochondria as well’” (quoted in Stokstad, 2001).

Large didactic lectures remain the norm for introductory biology courses at most major research universities, despite the large body of literature about improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The STEM education literature tells us consistently that lectures do not work. “Students who sit passively in lectures for an entire course may fail to replace their prior misconceptions with new knowledge…For many students the traditional didactic lecture, when applied as the primary instructional method in science courses, fails to provide opportunities of integrating new and old knowledge. Lectures may lead to memorization of factual information but often do not succeed well in eliciting comprehension of complex concepts” (McCray et al., 2003, page 6-7).

Studio Laboratories in Sewanee

Sewanee: The University of the South (in Sewanee, TN) is a liberal arts college of about 1500 students located in a rural setting. Our 10,000 acre campus called “The Domain” sits on top of the Cumberland Plateau roughly between Chattanooga and Nashville. Established in 1857 by the Episcopal Church as an educational haven for ‘Southern gentlemen’, it was soon burned down as Union forces moved through Tennessee during the American Civil War. After the war, the founding Episcopal dioceses appealed to the Church of England for funding to rebuild the school. Upon receiving those funds, they modeled the University of the South after Oxford and Cambridge Universities, which also provided the very first books for our library. Our stone architecture, rich liberal arts tradition and the wearing of academic gowns by professors and students speak to our early aspirations. Although those aspirations were never completely realized in a collegiate system, we still refer to ourselves as “Oxford on Walden Pond” (Admissions Materials, 2006).

Small group teaching has been a hallmark of the Sewanee education. We are known for close student-faculty relationships (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006). Professors have taught small classes and tutorials in their offices and even in their homes. Pressures to increase class sizes to accommodate more students in the growing college make it more and more difficult to assure that all Sewanee students get the small group experience, especially in their first and second years of college. This is exacerbated at a small school like ours where most science classes include a laboratory component, all of which are taught by professors, not by TAs, or laboratory instructors, and we have no graduate students. The studio laboratory is a good compromise between the large lecture hall and the tutorial in Sewanee.

Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy has been taught in the studio format twice, and student course evaluations show that the students enjoy the more active environment. One anonymous student from Fall 2006 writes “The two hours flew by, for we had so much to do and the class was diversified.“ In addition the students feel they benefit greatly from the new format. In response to an open-ended question asking specifically how the studio course benefited them relative to other lab courses in Sewanee, most (19/23) students said it benefited them one way or another. These students wrote that the studio format “allowed for the lecture material to be directly applied to the lab time”, “it was fresh in my mind while I was doing the lab assignments,” “I was able to…see the connections quicker than in other lab courses,” and “the information was more put-together.” In addition, twenty-one of the students would take another studio laboratory course if it were offered, and twenty-one were in favor of keeping the studio laboratory format, while suggesting other courses that may benefit from the format. Finally, in response to an open-ended question asking how the studio laboratory format did NOT benefit them relative to other Sewanee courses, nineteen of twenty-three left the space blank, which we interpret as meaning there was no negative effect of the format. The four students who answered in the negative had the following comments: “lookin[g] at the animals every day became tiresome. You had to be prepared everyday…” “sometimes we were forced to clean up in the middle of something because we ran out of time,” “the course was at a prime time...lots of other classes are held MWF 9 – 10 and 10 – 11. This wasn’t a problem for me, but I can see how it could be.” Overall, we are very encouraged by these evaluations. I plan to continue teaching the course in this format. In addition, the physics department is now teaching Physics 103 and 104, introductory physics for physics majors, as a studio lab, and another biology professor is scheduled to teach microbiology in the studio format next year (2007-08).

It is obvious from the comments above that the Sewanee students who have taken Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy as a studio laboratory course feel they have benefited from the format, and perhaps that is enough. But can we show an actual benefit in student outcomes, and how would we show this? I gathered data from several years in which I taught anatomy in the traditional format, and compared it to the two past years in which I taught the course in the full studio format. There were some interim years (2002 and 2003) during which I did a modified studio within the traditional schedule. I mixed laboratory and lecture as much as possible in the three-hour laboratory session, which was easy, and into two 75-minute lecture times, which was more challenging. During these years the exams were three hours in length. I left these years out of the analysis. I obtained the overall final college GPA of the students in classes when the course was taught during the traditional schedule (1995-97; 1999-2001) and the GPA these same students achieved in just the comparative anatomy course (their individual grades converted into a GPA where A+ = 4.33). I also obtained the final (for students who had graduated) or cumulative-to-date (for students still matriculating) GPA of students who had taken comparative anatomy in the studio format, and the GPA these students had achieved in the comparative anatomy course (2004 and 2006). I deleted data for students who took the course pass/fail, and for students who did not complete the course. The overall or cumulative-to-data GPAs were taken as a measure of the academic prowess of the students, and were meant to control for ‘quality of student’ in the analysis in case some years the students who took the anatomy course were just better students.

Overall, I have data for 82 students. Of these, roughly 75% (59) took the course in the traditional format and 23 took the course in the studio format. The overall and cumulative-to-date GPAs of the students who took the course in the traditional versus the studio method were not significantly different (Table 1; 3.01 + 0.07 and 3.23 + 0.10 for traditional and studio students, respectively, p = 0.0940). This controls for the academic prowess of the students taking the course by the two separate methods. The anatomy GPA for those taking the course in the traditional versus studio format was also not significantly different (Table 1; 2.59 + 0.14 and 2.70 + 0.18, respectively, p = 0.6755). Finally I subtracted the anatomy GPA from the overall cumulative or cumulative-to-date GPAs for each student, and compared the differences between the traditional teaching method and the studio method. Again, I found no significant difference in the two teaching methods (Table 1; 0.43 + 0.10 and 0.53 + 0.11, for traditional and studio methods, respectively, p = 0.5557). Therefore, teaching method does not appear to have an affect on student performance in Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy.

Thus, while students greatly prefer the studio method of teaching, and they feel they are better able to make connections between the laboratory and lecture material, the GPA data do not support the students’ feelings that they have benefited from the changed format, at least as far as improved performance on examinations goes. The question remains whether or not the examination methods used for the two teaching styles have been the most appropriate. My intention in changing the format of the course was to enable a deeper understanding of the material. Thus, I believe that my testing has mirrored that, testing at a deeper level so that the comparison above is not apples-to-apples.

A Comparison of Studio Laboratories and the Tutorials

In as much as we are trying to come up with a pedagogy of the Oxford tutorial, in conclusion I take some time here to compare the studio laboratory course as I teach it to the pedagogy of the Oxford tutorial as articulated by Robert Beck at this conference (Beck, year). I have condensed my evaluation according to those ideals of the Oxford tutorial that I think the studio laboratory can achieve well, those that the studio laboratory approaches, and those that the studio laboratory cannot approach at all.

Studio laboratory courses encourage students to think for themselves, can develop students’ presentation skills as a learning style, and can give students the experience of learning through teaching. Teaching students to think for themselves is a major goal of the studio laboratory course, as in Workshop Physics. While the subject matter to be considered in the studio laboratory is narrower in scope than in a tutorial, and students in studios are engaged in activities designed to lead them to a particular conclusion (the concept to be mastered), they are free to interact with the apparatus and specimens, and come to their understanding of the concept in their own way. In a didactic lecture, all students are led to the conclusion – the ‘understanding’ of the concept – in the same manner, that in which the teacher chooses to present it. Studio laboratories free the students to approach the material in a manner most comfortable for them, and thus they are thinking for themselves in finding the solutions.

Studio laboratory courses also can be formatted so that the students get considerable experience presenting material orally to their group and the teacher (analogous to ‘presenting the essay’), and in learning while teaching. The studio laboratory is usually set up so that students are broken into groups of three or four to work on a particular problem. Once they have mastered the concept, they can teach that concept to other groups of three or four, and are in turn taught the concepts other groups worked on. Eventually, all groups teach each other. A major departure from the tutorial is that the students in the studio laboratory teach each other, they do not necessarily teach the teacher as in the Oxford tutorial. The teacher must be diligent to talk to each group before they interact with other groups to make sure they have the information correct before letting them teach it to others. While it is possible for one student to dominate the interaction with the teacher, again the teacher must be diligent that this does not occur. Each student must be asked to participate in answering questions from the teacher. Thus, in these smaller groups, the students have “fewer places to hide” (Pearson, 2001) than in a seminar, or a didactic lecture, but are not in the limelight as in a tutorial. The teacher circulates while the student teaching occurs, and listens in on explanations to make sure they are complete. If they are not, the teacher can ask questions to get a full explanation from the teaching group for the benefit of the learning group. In addition, the teacher must make the point that each student in each group must present the material to another group so that one individual isn’t doing all the work, and gaining all the experience. Again, no student is allowed to hide in the background.

The studio laboratory can approach, but in an unsatisfactory way, the dialogic education through interrogation and Socratic questioning. As Beck notes (year), in a group approach, a teacher cannot dialog as effectively in a group as they can in a one-on-one situation. Conversation tends toward more of a question and answer session. However, if students in the studio laboratory are working in small groups as described above, when the teacher visits each group to make sure they are grasping the material to be learned and taught for the day, there can be considerable discussion within the groups, discussion that facilitates the students’ comprehension of the concept. This dialogic give-and-take in the smaller groups can facilitate the students’ abilities to deal with questions from their peers in later teaching. The ability of the studio laboratory to involve Socratic questioning is somewhat more tentative. Socratic questioning requires that time be invested in an individual student. It is more likely in a studio laboratory that refutations to students’ understanding of concepts by the teacher will digress to address specific issues and turn into an impromptu didactic lecture, even if on a limited topic. In addition, the students in a studio laboratory may be less ready to learn by Socratic questioning, as in the end, there is a correct, or a most likely correct, answer to the question and the students will be paying more attention to the answer than to the argument the teacher uses in getting there.

Finally, there are ideals of the Oxford pedagogy that the studio laboratory cannot pretend to approach.  Most of these suffer, as suggested above for problems in discussion, for having multiple students involved with the teacher at any one time. These include the ideals of self-critique by the students, developing their ability to argue and writing. In a studio laboratory, there are eventually examinations on specific concepts approached during the course. While the studio laboratory does strive to give the student freedom to approach an understanding of the concepts in their own way, an understanding of certain concepts is part of the goal. In a group, students are also not likely to engage in self-critique. While the teacher can engage in some dialogic teaching, as discussed above, the need to get around to multiple groups of students, and to engage multiple students per group severely limits the teachers ability to entangle any individual student in a “spider’s web of questions” (Ryan, p. 80 as quoted by Beck) from which they must emerge through self-criticism of their preconceptions. The same can be said about encouraging students to develop skills in arguing their point. Opportunities for developing arguments are severely limited in the studio laboratory. Perhaps the most egregious shortcoming of the studio laboratory as compared to the Oxford tutorial is the lack of writing in the studio. In the Oxford tutorial “No essay, no tutorial” (Beck, year). It is true that students can be required to write about their conclusions and how they came to them on a daily basis, most likely in the form of laboratory reports. However, in the case of the studio laboratory, writing still would not play the central role it plays in the tutorial where the essay constitutes the content of the tutorial, and is written before the tutorial, not as a revision of it.

In the end, the studio laboratory can approach several ideals of the pedagogy of the Oxford tutorial as outlined by Beck (year). Does this make the studio inferior to the tutorial? I don’t think so. Each serves its own purpose. The true purpose of the studio laboratory is to replace the lecture/laboratory of the sciences. Even Penny Probert (2001), Fellow in Engineering Science, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, admits that one of the functions of the lecture is to transfer information, “they are not by nature interactive because group sizes are so large,” and the “students often see the lecture simply as a chance to sit back and soak up knowledge.” And as such, they presumably serve their purpose. Except that they often don’t. As mentioned earlier, “For many students the traditional didactic lecture, when applied as the primary instructional method in science courses, fails to provide opportunities of integrating new and old knowledge. Lectures may lead to memorization of factual information but often do not succeed well in eliciting comprehension of complex concepts” (McCray et al., 2003, page 6-7). The studio laboratory strives to replace the didactic lecture with a more interactive method of learning so that students come away from the experience with a better understanding of the concepts and method of science, even if some content must be sacrificed (Laws, 1991). Tutorials strive to “balance the provision of information with the development of understanding… They offer the chance to progress from a surface understanding to a deeper knowledge of what is really going on” (Probert, 2001), to promote ‘deep’ as opposed to ‘surface’ learning (Shale, 2001). Studio laboratories are better than didactic lectures precisely because they approach the tutorial method, but they include a collaborative element not sought in the tutorial that enriches the experience.

Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Dr. Robert Beck for his insights into the Oxford Tutorial he shared, Dr. Jill Beck and Lawrence University for their wonderful hospitality during the conference, and Mr. Paul Wiley, Registrar, University of the South for supplying the Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy data used in this paper. 

 

 

Table 1: Statistical comparison of the cumulative and course GPAs for students taking Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy by the traditional and studio laboratory teaching methods.

Difference = Cumulative GPA – Course GPA for each individual student in the analysis.
All analyses were one-way ANOVA with teaching method as the factor.

 

 

References:

Admissions Materials. 2006. Sewanee: The University of the South. “Question + Walk in the Woods = Epiphany.” University Office of Admissions.

Beck, R. xxxx The Pedagogy of the Oxford Tutorial.

Laws, P.W. 1991. Calculus-based physics without lectures. Physics Today. 44(12): 24 – 31.

McCray, R.A., DeHaan, R.L. and J.A. Schuck Ed. Improving Undergraduate Instruction in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Report of a Workshop. 2003. National Academies Press. Washington D.C.

National Survey of Student Engagement Report 2006 “Engaged Learning: Fostering Success for all Students” Indiana University Center for Postesecondary Research.

Pearson, R. 2001. Modern Linguistics as Multi-taskers. In D Palfreyman, Ed., The Oxford Tutorial (pp 42 – 45). Oxford: Blackwell.

Probert, P. 2001. Engineering the tutorial experience. In D Palfreyman, Ed., The Oxford Tutorial (pp 62 – 71). Oxford: Blackwell.

Shale, S. 2001. The Oxford Tutorial in the context of theory on student learning: “Knowledge is a wild thing, and must be hunted before it can be tamed.” In D Palfreyman, Ed., The Oxford Tutorial (pp 93 – 100). Oxford: Blackwell.

Stokstad, E. 2001. Reintroducing the Intro Course. Science. 293: 1608 – 1610

 

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