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Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Peter Hollman, Department of Biological Sciences

Project team: Kevin Lam, Department of Biological Sciences, and Steven Barrett, research assistant

Timeframe: February 2019 to August 2020

Funding: $6000

Course addressed: BISC 303 â€“ Microbiology

Final report: View Peter Hollmann's final report (PDF)

Description: I would like to create video of a pre-lab demonstration for the lab so that students have the possibility to prepare in advance as well as to review throughout the course.  Currently students only see lab demonstrations once in real-time at the beginning of the lab. The visibility and acoustics in the teaching lab are limited. In addition, some English as an additional language students may benefit from reviewing them at their own pace and could benefit from sub-titles that will be included.  

Questions addressed:

• How do students generally prepare for lab?
• How do they feel about their lab skills?
• What are the students’ perspectives on how the videos impacted their lab and learning experience?
• Does the video improve student lab technique?
• Does use of the videos change student performance in the course?
• How much time are students spending in the lab on equipment/tasks?
• How are students actually using the videos?
• How can the videos be improved?

Knowledge sharing: Due to the unexpected changes Covid-19 had on this project the analytic goals of the project could not be achieved at this time. The impact of the video on student learning could therefore not be completed. However, the video will be made available to other members of the University community.

The video was posted on YouTube January 18, 2020 and can be found at the following link:


Keywords: microbiology, spread plate, aseptic technique, pre-lab demonstration, video, undergraduate students, laboratory