11 Das Flipped Lab als ICM-Adaption für naturwissenschaftliche Laborpraktika

Abstract

Laboratories play an important role in the undergraduate science curriculum. The effectiveness of learning in laboratory courses depends strongly on student engagement in required pre-lab activities designed to provide them with the theoretical and technical background for being able to develop a deeper understanding of the practical experiments as well as to act adequately and independently in the actual lab situation, such that the development of higher level competences can occur. Through an adaption of the principles of inverted (or flipped) learning to the requirements of educational scientific laboratories, the focus of these courses shifts towards the pre-lab phase thereby reducing the cognitive load on students during actual lab time. Supporting pre-lab activities with engaging and task-specific visual and auditory information in an interactive multimedia learning environment helps students to adopt and process relevant information and to build pertinent pre-knowledge. A positive side effect is a generally increased student and teacher satisfaction with the learning experience in laboratory courses.