During the first week of April, biology instructors informed students of the possibility of the termination of in-person lab classes.
Instructors and students believe that in-person labs provide an opportunity not only to learn in a hands-on environment but also to interact with their peers in person during lab learning experiences.
Students recently learned from their instructors that a lab technician recently got laid off. This lay-off plays a part in the shortage of lab technicians and instructors are unable to have their labs ready for hands-on activities.
“Hands-on learning is important. We are taking in-person classes for a reason… Me personally I am a very hands-on learner so when I can not see things for myself and do things for myself, it is really hard for me to understand major concepts.” marine biology student, Hannah Burton said.
Students are concerned about their Physical and Biological Sciences laboratory requirements. To receive credit for section 5C of the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum form, students must meet the requirement by taking an in-person lab class. If lab classes get canceled students might not receive the credit needed to obtain their Associate’s Degree.
Canceling laboratory classes less than two months away from the end of the semester not only increases the anxiety amongst students worrying about class credits, but it can also affect their learning negatively, impacting their grades.
Burton mentioned that during class her instructor spoke briefly about the fact that after the COVID-19 pandemic, students gave their feedback that online laboratory classes were just as effective as in-person classes. She also shared that students who gave that feedback, may not have been presented with the right questions. “Maybe the right questions were not asked,” Burton said.
Marine biology professor, Terhea Williams-Patocka, said that she received the information about the possibility of canceling laboratory classes during the Monday after spring break. She was informed via email by the Department Chairs that due to staffing issues in the biology department, instructors would no longer be able to conduct in-person laboratory classes.
Williams-Patocka said that this information was a huge concern because she had no time to prepare or consider what to offer her students for a three-hour laboratory class where students are doing hands-on work. “The more I thought about it, the more that I thought ‘this is not possible,” said Williams-Patocka. “And the reason I say this is because for many of my students, for most of them in fact, they say that in-person labs, physically conducting the experiments, working collaboratively with their lab partners is really the whole reason that they are taking the class in the first place.”
The marine biology instructor also mentioned that students feel like they can learn the concepts when they are physically doing the work and learning the concepts as they go.
“This is a huge concern for me. I feel that many of my students who were very successful up until now will be on the edge or unfortunately unsuccessful by the end of the semester if we are not able to get in-person labs put in place.” Williams-Patocka said.
Due to the recurring staff issues, canceling laboratory classes became an option for the Grossmont biology department. “They have been working with limited staff for an extremely long time, and to lose yet another member of the staff… it really just made a situation that was already stretched, just even more critical,” said Williams-Petocka.
It has been suggested to biology instructors that they move to online laboratory classes, which is something that the biology department has been discussing frequently. However, students and instructors agree that online laboratory classes are not as effective as in-person laboratory classes.
“If we were to try to implement something like that, many students would push back because they signed up for an in-person class for a reason. I also think that many faculty would push back because we know that our students are far more successful doing in-person labs than they are doing simulated labs.” said Williams-Patocka.
